And fracking will continue providing energy independence for America, despite a few people in PA being able to light their water on fire.
The stakes are a lot sharper than just "a few people in PA being able to light their water on fire", even if one were to accept the premise that their inability to carry out normal life going forward is No Big Deal, as you so blithely seem to do. The stakes are more like
millions of people don't have drinking water anymore, and local governments are bankrupted- you are aware of where NYC's water comes from, and how by spending millions to preserve land around their reservoirs, they have saved $billions in construction and running of treatment plants in addition to all the other wildlife/air quality/recreational/etc. benefits of open space, and how they basically have some of the best water in the country because of it, and how it could all come crashing down if we blindly charge ahead with "drill baby drill", and cause
economic devastation greater than the value of the gas? (Sorry for the run-on sentence there.)
And keep in mind that those poor folks in PA are not getting compensated for damages at all, because the state government is rather deliberately looking the other way and refusing to do due diligence to see whether water supplies
can be held harmless in the face of fracking- both from overuse (since fracking uses a
lot of water), and also from the more well-publicized contamination issues. Now look, I'm very much a pragmatist here-
if they can find a way to do it that's guaranteed to not f**k up these people's lives, and actually be serious about paying damages when they mess up, I'd be willing to accept some drilling. It is way better than coal, that I recognize. But we all know what those "if"s add up to. First and foremost, the government needs to do get its head out of regulatory capture, do its job and regulate- and if that means a moratorium, if that means some marginal plays are just going to have to wait, if that means we don't drill anywhere near important reservoirs, then
fine. Take the time to get things right first, take
all the externalities into account.
