It's mostly about the boom in North Dakota with warnings about the dangers of fracking.
It seems to me to have a wistfulness for the buffalo commons idea that was going around before this all started. The author in one part seems to be concerned that the oil is exported only by risky pipelines or dirty fossil fuel burning semis with no mention of railroads.
Otherwise the usual stuff about trading jobs for overcrowding, loss of the prairies, fracking danger, flaring, and the threat of the bust..
One good thing though. The author said we could use the oil bonanza to "finally free itself from its boom-bust history by taking advantage of a natural resource both abundant and inexhaustable - the ever present wind". I'm glad he thought of that maybe we'll have to try it. Wish somebody from North Dakota had thought of that. Oh wait: we did. If the rest of the country had the same balanced policy toward all types of energy development, this country would be better off. Sorry about the preaching.
It did have a couple of nice human interest stories even if they, too, were on the negative side of the boom.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/02/21/why-you-want-to-live-in-north-dakota/
ReplyDeleteThe real answer - to avoid DC winters.
anon 1
As my daughter would text: LOL.
DeleteYes, to avoid DC. Any season. Period.
It's mostly about the boom in North Dakota with warnings about the dangers of fracking.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me to have a wistfulness for the buffalo commons idea that was going around before this all started. The author in one part seems to be concerned that the oil is exported only by risky pipelines or dirty fossil fuel burning semis with no mention of railroads.
Otherwise the usual stuff about trading jobs for overcrowding, loss of the prairies, fracking danger, flaring, and the threat of the bust..
One good thing though. The author said we could use the oil bonanza to "finally free itself from its boom-bust history by taking advantage of a natural resource both abundant and inexhaustable - the ever present wind". I'm glad he thought of that maybe we'll have to try it. Wish somebody from North Dakota had thought of that. Oh wait: we did. If the rest of the country had the same balanced policy toward all types of energy development, this country would be better off. Sorry about the preaching.
It did have a couple of nice human interest stories even if they, too, were on the negative side of the boom.
Sums it up very nicely.
Delete