Using natural gas for heating and electricity will not cause less global warming than using coal and oil. The inevitable leakage from gas drilling and pipelines makes gas just one more dirty fossil fuel.
We do need to listen to the scientists. However, exemptions, legislation and policies that serve as industry standards make it impossible to collect the very data essential for sound science.
Non-disclosure agreements with affected landowners are common, even legitimized into law with "doctor's gag orders" legislation in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Colorado. We do not see the data industry scientists gather. They present lawyers and public relations operatives who have an agenda.
In New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation has some scientists but also relies on outside consultants who can be funded by people with vested interests.
A horrific example of lack of federal oversight obscuring scientific inquiry occurred recently in Arkansas where a pipeline transporting Canadian heavy oil burst, flooding a neighborhood and threatened a lake.
Keeping the current moratorium on shale gas drilling in New York is essential and, furthermore, plausible. A recent study out of Stanford and Cornell universities lays out an action plan to entirely power New York with wind, water and sunlight within the next 40 years. It is based upon sound engineering, science and conservative economics.
New York should use its enormous innovative and university resources to lead, not follow, into the 21st century as we undeniably and inevitably must transition, and quickly, away from finite and dirty fossil fuels to a sustainable and robust clean energy economy.
Mary Menapace
Skaneateles