LNG - Fracking

ALBANY — The Cuomo administration announced Wednesday that it would ban hydraulic fracturing in New York State, ending years of uncertainty by concluding that the controversial method of extracting gas from deep underground could contaminate the state’s air and water and pose inestimable public-health risks.

Advocates of high volume, slick water horizontal hydraulic fracturing, popularly known as fracking, often champion the catchphrase: “Drill a well, bring a soldier home!” This can be found on placards held by pro-frackers at demonstrations and on billboards across the United States. You can buy T-shirts and bumper stickers on eBay that picture a gun-toting soldier with the same slogan. After all, natural gas is supposedly “Clean, Abundant, American!” But fracking will not accomplish what they expect. Only a genuine peace would do that.

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Albert Einstein is rumored to have said that one cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that led to it. Yet this is precisely what we are now trying to do with climate change policy.

The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, many environmental groups, and the oil and gas industry all tell us that the way to solve the problem created by fossil fuels is with more fossils fuels. We can do this, they claim, by using more natural gas, which is touted as a “clean” fuel— even a “green” fuel.