Energy

New York Greens Say ‘Banning Fracking Isn’t Enough’

(REUTERS/Phil Noble)

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Andrew Follett Energy and Science Reporter
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Environmentalists now believe “banning fracking isn’t enough” and all infrastructure that supports natural gas must be stopped or destroyed, as shown by a speech published Friday on the blog Ecowatch.

New York state banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in December of 2014 due to alleged environmental impacts of the oil and natural gas extraction process.

The environmental activists unveiled a petition to ban storage and transportation of natural gas products like methane, propane and butane in New York. The petition only managed to get 1,000 signatures in person, despite being literally 40-feet long.

The speech called for environmentalists to protest against and ultimately shut-down three different pipelines, several power plants, and other systems which help transport natural gas across the state.

“As we disperse from a single statewide fight against fracking to a multitude of local infrastructure fights, our activism diversifies and becomes more community focused,” Sandra Steingraber, the lead environmental activist, said in the speech. “We want an end to New York’s ruinous dependency on fracked gas, along with all of the hateful, harmful infrastructure that comes with it. We seek to replace every burner tip—from power plants to basement furnaces—with energy systems that look up—to the sun and the wind.”

Fracking, not government green policies, caused carbon dioxide emissions to drop sharply in 47 states and Washington, D.C. in 2015, according to both Scientific American and the Energy Information Administration.

Studies show that fracking for natural gas is responsible for almost 20 percent of the drop in carbon dioxide emissions, while solar power is responsible for a mere 1 percent of the decline. For every ton of carbon dioxide cut by solar power, fracking cuts 13 tons.

Despite the many benefits of fracking, environmental groups continue to blame the process for flaming tap-waterpovertyincome inequality, a new housing crisis, and even low sperm counts. These objections have all been all conclusively debunked.

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