Unless you are an oil industry executive or publicist you at least are willing to admit that fossil fuels aren’t the best. If you are anyone else your opinion probably runs somewhere from apathy to outrage. Mining fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas from the ground is damaging and dirty and it is certainly, in my opinion, on its way out. Someday we will look back and think- we are sitting in a world full of naturally occurring energy in the sun and the wind- why did we go to all that trouble just to try and dig up and refine and transport the other stuff? But we’re not there yet.

Where we are is in an era when the companies that are good at digging up and refining and shipping the stuff underground are clinging with all of their money and power to the idea that they must go on- and there are some good reasons to do it, too, to be fair. Lots of people depend on those industries for jobs. Almost all of our machinery is built to run on that kind of fuel. We are in the habit of using it and there is always next year to change. Ok, that one’s not so good- it kind of sounds like rationalization to keeps smoking- it’s hard to quit even if it’s bad for you so, well, you’ll do it next year, right? Sound like Copenhagen?

Right now U.S. companies are doing all they can to mine natural gas from shale deposits and, in a turn of events, states are trying to stop them but are claiming, according to Reuters, that they don’t have the resources to actually do it.

The battle is a simple one- companies think these shale deposits are their best next frontier for mining gas and the folks with that gas under their land are mostly eager to sell the rights. States are somewhat excited because that would mean tax revenue for them. But there is growing evidence that the mining causes both air and water pollution from the way the gas is drilled, produced and/or processed.

What to do?

Well, New York City actually asked the state of New York to ban shale gas drilling in their watershed. If it’s too dirty for NYC, folks, we have to take a close look at what’s going on.

In some ways Wyoming is the canary in the coal mine on this one, as they are big into on oil and gas. Residents are angry about spilled chemicals or polluted wells they say are caused by the “fracking” method of mining, which is essentially drilling really deep holes and shooting chemicals deep in the earth. There is, to be fair (?) no proof that any of those chemicals are responsible for wells going bad. But in my opinion, it doesn’t take a genius to put 2 and 2 together and see that wells going bad around sites where the chemicals are shot means correlation, one that probably has a toe dipped or a full bath drawn in causation.  

Bottom line: this is damaging and we know better. It’s not the early 20th century anymore, people- it’s almost 2010 and we know this stuff is damaging. Let’s admit it, stop it, and move on.

Photo Credit: arimoore (via Flickr under CCL)