6 thoughts on “Fracking

  1. Oil: greenhouse gasses, funding bad guys, environmental damage
    Solar: toxic chemicals, funding China, inconsistent availability
    Nat Gas: toxic sludge, earth quakes
    Wind: noisy, inefficient, eyesore, kills birds, inconsistent availability
    Wishful thinking / denial: only works in Red States
    Geothermal: Not applicable everywhere
    Tidal: Underdeveloped technology, environmental damage
    Nuclear: risk of leaks, disposal of waste
    Coal: major pollutant, greenhouse gasses

    Pick your poison.

      1. It is half of America’s version of the American way while kicking and screaming and throwing a tempter tantrum about any efforts to improve the situation and denying any adverse effects of the status quo and calling it socialism.

        But my point is that none of these are perfect and if you’re going to throw stones at fracking (perfectly fair), then you also have to propose an alternative you like more and deal with the consequence of that alternative.

        I have no doubt that we’ll eventually come up with better options (probably solar that doesn’t require such nasty chemicals or some kind of bio-engineered bacteria that produces electricity), but that day isn’t today. So, fine, no fracking.. then what?

        ——

        Imagine you’re trying to pick a movie with your wife. You suggest Usual Suspects. She vetoes. You suggest Godfather. She vetoes. You suggest Godfather II. She vetoes. Then she preemptively vetoes part III. You suggest Braveheart. Veto. You suggest fight club. Veto. Matrix. Veto. Borne Identity. Veto the whole series. LoTR. Veto. At some point you’re going to snap at her: “well just what the frak DO you want to watch”? She responds “I dunno.. pick something.” To which you respond by banging your head against the wall until you lose consciousness.

        That is how the conservatives feel.

        The world’s not perfect and until it is, we have to make do with what we’ve got. The right answer is to do pretty much everything while funding the crap out of research into how to do it better.

        But, of course, the Red Shirts get so apoplectic about science funding.. maybe we first need to fund some research into curing their science-phobia (“epistemephobia,” I think) – I’ll set up a kickstarter.

      2. My problem is that we seldom see both sides at the same place….we only get 30 second sound ….we will never find a solution or an alternative in that manner….

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