We need to address the gas drilling questions in lots of different ways:
1. Why does our society need this gas? Can we reduce that?
2. How much gas am I using personally? Can I reduce that?
3. Do I trust the companies extracting the gas to do so with minimal impact?
4. Do I trust the government (mostly NYS in this case) to regulate it to
ensure minimal impact?
5. What effect does burning the gas have compared to other options?
Addressing all five of those simultaneously, while it would be ideal, is
not really something most of us (any of us?) are equipped to do.
#3 seems to be the question most people can answer most easily, and
that's often where the conversational division takes place, but we could
try to address even the results of that question in a wide variety of ways.
My personal concern right now is with #4, as I'm not convinced that New
York State is up to the task it's setting itself. The current system
for gas permits is not so impressive that I'm eager to extend it to
riskier and more complicated approaches. (See
<http://livingindryden.org/2009/12/gas_drilling_permit_letter.html> for
more on why.) This one at least has the potential for change.
It would be great to address #1, but I'll confess that I have little
idea of how to do that effectively. I don't think phrasing it as a
moral question has much useful political result, unfortunately.
#2 I addressed in part over the past few years by reducing my house's
natural gas consumption by 2/3 (and electricity by about 1/3) - but
given the baseline I started from, there's certainly room for more.
And #5 is a hard question for most people. Natural gas is less damaging
than many equivalent sources of energy. Not perfect by any means, but
compared to alternatives....
So making this work is difficult. Personally, I'm going the route of
"what can I do that has the most likely positive effect" - but I expect
everyone will make that calculation differently.
Thanks,
--
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/
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