commentaries

I lost IQ points reading this article. The reason environmentalists are against fracking is because it forces tons of chemicals into the groundwater supply. IT POLLUTES. Whether or not you get some good stuff out of the deal isn't really going to help when you end up with a contaminated water supply. People can live without natural gas, they can't live without drinkable water (not to mention animals, plants, fish, basically your entire ecosystem). Honestly! Did the writer do even five minutes' worth of research before writing this article?

Do you suppose the author of this article lives anywhere near a fracking sites Say, within a hundred miles?

"But anti-fracking activists who hope delay begets delay and eventually prohibition are doing the environment no favor." ---We don't like people injecting chemicals into the ground and someone telling us they don't have to tell us what they are because of "patents". Try it in you back yard or the river and see if you don't get thrown in jail. I don't care if they are supplying NG and Oil. They don't a get a free to pollute card. This is another "drill baby drill" attitude thing where wealthy people convince ignorant people that those trying to protect their water supply are bad people so they can make money off of their ignorance. Then latter all of us will be forces to pay for the disaster - that includes the people that were asking to know what they were pumping to the ground so they would know if it was safe for humans and other life.

Enviromentalist are th number one problem in this country. If you look at most regulations it can be traced back to an enviromental movement. If it was up to enviromentalist we would be back to the horse and buggy. They just push the green agenda way to far.

"Enviromentalist are th number one problem in this country. "---Seriously? You mean you want vermiculite, lead paint, leaded gas, PBB's and mercury back in the water, a population of wolves in Michigan and Wisconsin that is zero, no fish at all in Mille Laccs Lake, you want coal plants without scrubbers, atomic bomb testing above ground in the the desert...... How is ending those things a number one problem? I always thought ignorance and people not wanting to check into things, being too lazy to check into things or simply not telling others about the ills because they make money off it was the number one problem. I guess we have different priorities when it comes to number one problems. I like to drink clean water, eat clean food and breathe clean air. Some people just don't care about those things I guess.

A more accurate label for someone who wants to keep his drinking water clean and safe would be "realist" not "environmentalist."

What good is clean air if we have no clean water? We are entitled to both.

What good is clean air without clean water? We are entitled to both (clean air AND clean water).

From the article: "Environmentalists, in other words, should hope fracking is safe" Hope fracking is safe? Hope fracking is safe? HOPE that injecting water at pressure great enough to fracture rock and thereby possibly release methane into the groundwater or contaminate groundwater with fluids (which frackers will not identify) during the extraction process is safe???

Whoa whoa whoa. I live in WV, and fracking is completely destroying communities here and across the northeast. It's the most intensive industrial development we've ever seen. Let's not forget, they burn diesel in all the trucks, pumps and compressors, and soot from burning diesel is the #1 environmental cancer risk in the US. Has the author of this article hasn't heard of methane leakage? Even at conservative estimates, the amount of methane spilling into the atmosphere at the wellhead makes the whole operation worse for climate change than coal. Plus, burning gas doesn't guarantee we won't burn coal as well. If climate change is your biggest concern, efficiency and renewables should be the path - not opening the tap on a whole new fossil fuel.