There is no more time to waste. Science confirms climate change is here and the solution is to stop burning hydrocarbons, quickly.
Will that happen all at once? Of course not, but drilling for natural gas conventionally and burning it close to home is one thing. Maybe even a bridge fuel in some cases.
But natural gas from methane leaking, shale gas fracking, which is then sent via pipeline gouged across beautiful landscapes without local consent, loaded on fuel-sucking supertankers to cross our already hurting oceans to help fuel an emerging economy which is polluting itself to prosperity is not a solution.
Let’s not hide behind the excuse we’re helping the Chinese economy clean up its act.
Whatever extreme carbon exists in our world (arctic, deep water, fracked shale gas or tar sands), it needs to stay in the ground.
There’s a quote by Anthony Ingraffea, a long-time oil and gas engineer who helped develop shale gas fracking for the Energy Department in the U.S. and also coauthored the breakthrough study from Cornell University on methane leakage. He says: “The gas extracted from shale deposits is not a bridge to a renewable future, it’s a gangplank to more warming and away from clean energy investments.”
It won’t be easy and we will all have to give up things. We will also be hypocrites at times because it’s impossible to be otherwise, given the economic model we live within. But we can’t extract and shop our way out of climate change despite what corporate culture and our governments would like us to believe.
Margaret King
Squamish
