The primary attraction of this line of work is having an unobstructed view of the world’s most important industry at a pivotal time in its history. Reality television can’t touch this. An epic drama is unfolding as one sits in this seat munching popcorn, with a cast of characters that Steven Spielberg couldn’t invent.

There are heroes and villains, of course, but they are not always the people to whom the popular media have assigned these roles. Take the oddly coiffed Rep. Edward Markey, for example. As a player in the US Congress’ latest Energy Inquisition (which lacked only flaming torches and hooded robes to complete the picture) and the author of quotations such as this one: “We must also force Big Oil to invest in alternatives to oil, especially advanced biofuels that put fuel in our tank without taking food off our plates,” Markey portrays himself to the public as a heroic knight on a quest to vanquish the “Big Oil” boogeyman.

It doesn’t look that way from here, where sensationalist media aren’t waving their arms, making distracting noises, and interfering with the view. The thing about conspiracies is that once above a certain number of conspirators it’s hard to keep secret. In Markey’s dark world, tens of thousands of employees of Big Oil must be beavering away in the pursuit of its nefarious ends. Considering the size of its component companies, Big Oil’s secret intentions are remarkably well kept. The CIA must look on with amazement and wonder how they do it. Maybe the CIA should let Big Oil run it.

Here’s how it does look. Tens of thousands of extremely bright, dedicated, and well meaning people are trying their absolute best to do their jobs in a global industry that’s working flat out. And on a regular basis, they succeed. This is the most offensive part of the Big-Oil-as-evil populist nonsense. Who do Markey and his fellow inquisitors think works for Big Oil? Many of the best and brightest people on the planet, that’s who, and to suggest that they would willingly engage en masse in some sort of global-scale antisocial enterprise because of crass self interest or because they are victims of management duplicity wouldn’t be believable in a comic book.

The great physicist Richard Feynman once said of a certain theory he thought far off base that “It’s not even wrong.” So it is with the Standard Populist Rant once again echoing in the marble halls of Congress. Perhaps that’s why industry reaction to this kind of thing tends to be muted — to intelligent and busy people, it’s so disconnected from reality as to be barely worth bothering to refute.

Meanwhile, amazing technological accomplishments issue forth from the people of this industry with the regularity of a metronome. Surely this is the world’s greatest energy resource.

Although it has been a wonderful place to view the action, I’m giving up this seat to pursue another opportunity. But it remains reserved for the best editorial staff in the business. I’m not leaving the theater — this is a riveting drama — just moving to a seat in a different section. Perhaps we’ll run into each other at the next intermission.