Fracking-NIMBY

You know all that controversy about fracking to retrieve oil and natural gas from shale deposits?   It's a process where drillers pump chemicals, water, and sand into underground deposits to break up the rock and force gas to the surface to be collected.

Fracking has come to suburbia.   This 12/27/11 Marketplace story explains that because many States have no laws either authorizing municipalities to regulate drilling within their boundaries or banning such regulation, companies are now installing drilling rigs in residential neighborhoods.  Suburban sub-divisions!

According to the story, "companies only need to maintain a set-back of 150 feet when putting up rigs near homes. It's the minimum clearance needed to avoid damage -- in case the rig tips over."   

I suspect that the rig tipping over is the least concern of most homeowners, considering the largely unknown side-effects of the chemicals used and the impact on the environment (e.g., underground water supplies).   How would you like a derrick 150 feet from your house?  That would probably be a great, big, NIMBY.

Climate Change Links

Added some new links to climate change articles. One is from the BBC and consists of a slideshow on how residents are adapting to climate changes (flooding) in Vietnam. Another is an article from Discover Magazine investigating whether the core of the Antarctic icepack is melting.

Climate Change Links

I have run into an annoying number of people lately who still don't "believe" that global warming is happening, or that humans are largely responsible for it. I doubt that there's any way to convince them to read the research, since they've apparently already passed up that opportunity numerous times. The information is out there; for some reason, some people would rather dismiss it as some sort of "liberal conspiracy" or a disguised attack on "our liberties."

Regardless of whether you accept that the human dependency on fossil fuels since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is the culprit, it seems to me that denying that there is a problem is just plain nonsense. Whatever is causing the temperature increase, it's effecting us and our world, and in some very scary ways. Doing nothing would not seem to be an option. Science tells us that there have been at least 5 major extinctions in the past. The difference now is that humans are aware (allegedly) of their surroundings, their impact on the environment, and have some ability to change how they interact with the environment. The dinosaurs weren't and didn't.

I've decided to start collecting links to various online resources that cover the subject of global warming, climate change, or whatever other label may apply. I'm putting the links in a section at the bottom of the blog titled "Links About Climate Change - Especially For Those Who Don't "Believe" In Global Warming." Hopefully, it may be useful to those who are interested enough to read up on the topic. I don't plan to include any technical articles, because they tend to be pretty obtuse and hard to follow. I'd welcome comments as well as other links you may come across.

The first few links are from some Marketplace.org radio broadcasts and Discover Magazine. They present specific examples of how fossil fuels have raised temperatures with unexpected results and how CO2 (from fossil fuels) may be damaging our oceans more than anyone foresaw.