Apr
16
Blog Post #15: Income Inequality and Fracking
April 16, 2015 | 1 Comment
Fracking is a very controversial topic with many pros and cons. On one side, it’s said to create new job opportunities and on the other, it creates a hazard to the environment. Are these jobs really beneficial to these communities or are we just making excuses to earn short-term profit? Surrounding neighborhoods are most affected by this and we have seen the negative effects in the movie Gasland. However, as I have said before, does the benefits out weight the costs?
Fracking helps the local economy by creating jobs and employment opportunities for their workers. It also attracts many businesspeople into these communities to extract the riches. Fracking may have started as an “innovation” since we are taking risks with our environment in return for financial rewards. This “innovation” isn’t sustainable and it still only benefits the people at the top. In Mark J. Perry’s article, he states that an increase income inequality is a small price to pay for this Energy Boom. I don’t think this is a small price because it’s a big problem that the people at the bottom are still stuck there.
In Kate Sheppeard’s article she states that high social mobility places such as North Dakota and Eastern Montana don’t have the typical social mobility factors, but instead are undergoing heavy oil development. You would typically need quality schools and better education to achieve social mobility. However, it is said that most North Dakota public schools fail to meet federal standards for the year. States like ND benefit from their oil reserves and oil booms from the new advancements in fracking technology. This is just a boom which is only a short term benefit and oil is limited. We should instead focus on building a solid foundation such as in education for the long-term goals and benefits.
The Sandy article presented interesting concepts. Natural disasters such as Sandy has pointed out the weakness in our system and planning. It emphasized the need for more jobs, affordable housing, renewable resources, accessible health care, and etc. The storm damaged and destroyed 305,000 housing units and the poor do not have the resources to repair their homes. Even New Yorkers living in NYCHA buildings lost utilities such as electricity during the storm. It’s shocking to see that it’s been two years and homeowners still have not repaired their homes. Natural disasters shouldn’t be a surprise, we need to be more prepared and address the weaknesses in our system.
Areas with fracking activities cause serious damage to the environment from what we read and from what we saw in the movie Gasland. It provides income for oil companies, jobs for local workers, and more energy resources. Would it be better if Fracking was more regulated with taxes and regulation? If not, we need to find alternative solutions such as renewable energy sources. Renewable sources are more costly, but this is where we need to be more innovative to find new ways and cut down the costs (not innovating more fracking technologies).
-JanYing He
