Natural gas and fracking need to be broken up into two entirely different topics. There are pros and cons for both, with significantly more cons than pros for fracking. Natural gas brings issues such as drilling ANWAR, offshore rigs, dependence on foreign oil, etc etc into play. Fracking is a much more at-home issue, right here in our backyards, with immediate (and long term) consequences.
North Dakota has certainly not been the booming success that the guy upthread portrayed it to be. The air quality has suffered tremendously, it has hurt the local economy severely by driving away any tourists, lowering housing prices significantly, etc. Yes, workers come in, the hotels and local restaurants flourish...but then the frack ends and these towns turn into ghost towns.
The crime rate around frack sites is another area of significant contention that has just barely been touched upon in this thread (only in my longer post). Crime rates near frack sites are appalling. Rates of rape, murder, drug use, and crime skyrocket. Those who work on frack sites tend to not exactly be the most savory, upstanding citizens.
The solution to our energy crisis does not lie at the bottom of a frack well. It does not lie in drilling ANWAR, or in a resurgence of coal. It lies (in my opinion) in a national increase in interest concerning alternative and progressive energies. We have a great deal of the technology already, but lack the initiative to put it into widespread use. We need government subsidies and incentives to kickstart the private sector in the right direction.
So please, keep natural gas and fracking as two different, individual topics. If someone wishes, start a thread on natural gas. Keep in mind, while the word "natural" sounds so nice, the means of procuring this "natural" gas are anything but natural. As a nation we are all about "green" and "natural" sounds "green," but it is often anything but.
from 6 min to the end sean and yoko sing a song about fracking
