Personally, I can't believe with unemployment at a 30 year high and so many millions more underemployed, some folks think it's a good time to attack organized labor. Really? If you have an opinion on collective bargaining rights you should take part in the poll going on now at Equibbly.com. Folks are lining up on both sides of this issue.
This blind opposition to fracking is misguided. They have been doing it in oil wells for decades. It has not been regulated so some mistakes have been made but you are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. With regulation it can be very safe and can provide a temporary replacement for coal to meet our power needs. Yes, we should work harder on renewables, but this is much better than coal which is causing cancer, asthma, autism and global warming.
You will damage the environment and public health more by being so extreme. Banning fracking is a tragic mistake.
I am an environmentalist and author of a book on alternative energy.
www.clrlight.org
There are hard choices to be made to get to a greenhouse gas free world and it's going to require planning and foresight as well as the acceptance of less than ideal answers during the transition period. Fracking creates problems which are containable with good regulations and oversight and it has created a dramatic reduction in gas prices with many benefits in the short term. The biggest is that over one-third of the coal generating stations in the US have shut down in favor of new natural gas generation which produces only half the greenhouse gases of coal. Gas is also free of mercury and particulate emissions. If not carefully managed, gas drilling can release significant methane to the environment which offsets in the short term some of the GHG savings, so leakage control needs to be a priority of regulators. Fracking should be conducted as safely as possible with full oversight and generous compensation and remediation for any inadvertent collateral damages, but eliminating it will only magnify other problems.
I would like to see each citizen of that town videotaped with their personal opinion as to their wish for fracking. I do not believe the entire town wants this, neither do I believe those that stand to make the most profit will live at ground zero within the fracking areas of this town. How sad that these citizens would not want to leave a better place for their children and the children of the future.
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