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Frack Fracking – Josh Solomowitz
April 1, 2015 | Leave a Comment
I remember when the news hit that fracking would be banned in NY state last semester – I was actually happy with something the state government did. And I couldn’t even remember the last time I felt that. With a crippling education system being instituted and an increase in income inequality, this was good news — Cuomo had done something right!
Hopefully (though not likely) this ban could serve as a precedent for future states to follow. I don’t see that being likely – it makes too much money for the states and is argued to be better than coal. People who support fracking are supporting damaging the environment and making money in the process. They obviously either don’t believe or don’t know the full effects of fracking. Let’s move them near fracking sites and see how much they like it then.
Fracking is form of recovering natural resources, usually combining water, sand, and other chemicals and shooting it at rocks at a very high pressure. Not only does this destroy the landscape, the runoff mixture gets into the ground and water sources and has been known to negatively affect the organisms nearby, including humans. Fracking has even caused low tremor earthquakes – and yet the U.S. still condones it for the most part.
Let’s not forget the amount of water that needs to be used and wasted for fracking. Many parts of the world are going through water scarcity at the moment, including the western United States. We’re going to use water we need to get natural gas that we don’t necessarily need? Seems like faulty logic to me.
Yes, fracking does have its benefits – the U.S. has one of the highest amounts of natural gas reserves in the world. Fracking has boosted our economy and made the U.S. less reliant on oil and gas from foreign powers. But at what cost? Destroying the environment for money – that sounds familiar – only throughout the history of almost everything. Fracking, though better than coal, is only a temporary solution. Renewable energy sources are much better choices and are more effective for preventing CO2 emissions. Why not invest in renewables and get ready for the long term? Eventually (the article said about 100 years) fracking will not be effective anymore. Then what?
Oil is super cheap at the moment – which is leading the U.S. and other powers to take full advantage of it. Stock prices and sales of eco-friendly companies have decreased recently because of the low price of oil. People are driving around more, not caring about the price of fuel because of how cheap it is compared to how expensive it was a few years ago. Gas is heavily subsidized by the government, which means externalities aren’t accounted for, nor is the social cost of oil. Oil, which is one of the biggest causes of CO2, is now being shared and glorified by the world because of the cheap price. When will we learn out lesson? Invest in renewable energy now and the payoffs will come. But because businesses are so focused on profits in the short term, this will take a while to happen.
All in all, it’s great that NY banned fracking. More states need to follow suit – the money made now won’t compare to how much is saved later on. Renewable energy needs to become more widely accepted and less disputed. It all starts with mindset, and I think New York banning fracking due to environmental concerns is a step in the right direction.
