According to the UK Progressive in a report posted on Jan. 16, 2013, it published that the resources extracted by fracking, which is a form of natural gas drilling, are being considered as a resource to be exported to other countries. Pennsylvania residents are extremely opposed to this because this will damage the environment with both ecological and toxic impacts to the community.
Fracking is a rather controversial method of extracting natural gas resources from the Pennsylvanian Marcellus shale reserve underground, but it also can have a significant impact on the environment. The drilling process alone can lead to the contamination of the surrounding area in preparation for fracking.
Specifically, fracking is a process by which millions of gallons of high pressure water are injected into a hole already drilled. But, it's not only water that's part of the mix, the solution also consists of other toxic chemicals required for the extraction to be possible. That being said, the result here would be considerable discharge into the surrounding rivers and other water sources.
The purpose of fracking was thought to be beneficial to the community, mainly due to the fact that it could finally be less energy dependent upon traditional fossil fuels and also save on energy costs to residents.
However, it is questionable that the benefits might not necessarily outweigh the consequences of such actions.
Taking action against fracking
According to Credo Action, it stated that the push to get industries to export fracked gas all over the world has been set in place and motivation to let the Obama administration know to reject the idea of exporting fracked gas out of the country. For those who want to push back this action taken by the fracking industries, people have the opportunity up until Jan. 24, 2013 to express their disapproval.
At this point, 19 fracking industries have applied for permits to push natural gas resources out of our nation and at this point there is a given opportunity to intercept this and submit public comment to the Department of Energy to reject this notion.
There is thought given that this will encourage a massive increase in fracking, thus having a major impact on climate change due to the fact that natural gas is made up of methane and the emissions can contribute to greenhouse gases and that the equipment used for the drilling process can result in leaking methane emissions from the drill sites. So this would only magnify the problem of the climate change situation. In fact, fracking is considered to be even worse at contributing green house gas emissions than coal.
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