Hydraulic fracturing — fracking — is a dangerous, wrongheaded and unacceptable practice. It perpetuates our dependence on finite fossil fuels, threatens our environment and provides a temporary illusion of financial gain.
Our citizens would be victims of inhuman, exploitative and uncaring corporations devoted to maximizing profit by any means. Shareholders and executives will accept future fines, victim compensation settlements, and the costs of inadequate environmental "remediation" as long as these are less than their profits.
Extraction firms like BP and Exxon are akin to hydrofracking outfits in that they greedily place human lives and natural resources at risk for their own gain. We in upstate New York often do not appreciate our truly rare blessing in this world of relatively clean and accessible drinking water, which fracking places at serious risk for permanent degradation for generations to come.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, President Barack Obama, and other leaders must prevent any fracking from taking place in our great state and nation and must protect our precious and valuable water resources from exploitation and ruination. We cannot sacrifice our availability of water, upon which all life depends, and the health of future generations, for the sake of our addiction to fossil fuels and in a vain attempt to assuage the insatiable corporate thirst for revenue.
Surely there are better energy solutions for New Yorkers that will not place our lives and liberty in such dire peril.
Justin A. Bishop
Albany