Letters: Keep fossil fuels in the ground
Re “Energy boom may augur a new export era,” March 23
Every dollar invested to expand the use of fossil fuels here or abroad is a bad investment. Spending a single penny or drilling any new wells to find more dirty energy is wrongheaded.
We have more fossil fuels in the ground than we can afford to burn. To avoid a climate catastrophe, most of that dirty energy must remain where it is.
Talking about gas as if it were the 1970s is not productive. We must go green by passing a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Our country can be off fossil fuels within the next few decades — or even sooner once entrepreneurs and innovators understand that the days of dirty energy are over.
Farrah Hedayati
Fullerton
The article refers to “the technological revolution of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking … to tap newly accessible massive reserves.” Buried in the story is a reference to the industry’s plan to frack in California in “many prime spots currently off-limits, including California’s massive Monterey Shale formation.”
Before we permit any expansion of a technology that is associated with a lengthy list of hazards (including surface water contamination, soil contamination, waste water disposal, air pollution, water supply threats and earthquake potential), the state should enact a moratorium on fracking so that independent scientific studies can determine the real risk of injecting, under extreme pressure, water and chemicals into the ground.
The oil and gas locked in the shale will remain; it isn’t going anywhere. However, history has proved that once the aquifer is polluted, it is lost forever.
Steve Yaffee
Long Beach
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