Home / General / The Rush to Fracking

The Rush to Fracking

/
/
/
968 Views

I’m not much of a fan of the “crowdsourced discussion” model that Wonkblog uses here, but on the topic of whether fracking’s proponents are not taking potential water contamination seriously enough, the answer is obviously yes. And by fracking proponents, I mean not only the energy industry but state and federal governments. I’m certainly not underestimating the importance of cheap energy, not only to our standard of living but to the political fortunes of politicians. But as is typical in our nation that combines technological fetishism with an almost mythological emphasis on capitalist entrepreneurs, we have jumped into fracking with both feet. A far smarter policy would have been to run a lot more tests, holding back on the technology until we have some really good sense of what the long-term effects on water will be. If we do contaminate large swathes of our water supplies through this in exchange for short-term gains, the future will not look kindly. After all, it’s not as if the U.S. has a lot of water to spare at this point. Water is at least as important to national security and standard of living as energy and sacrificing one for the other is a terrible idea that could really hurt the nation down the road.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
This div height required for enabling the sticky sidebar
Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views : Ad Clicks : Ad Views :