Obama is going to make millions of people mad no matter what he does. Check out a new article by Kevin Begos, Associated Press that was posted Saturday, November 17th.  Gas drilling presents Obama with historic choices.

If Obama goes full force with Oil & Gas companies and fully endorses fracking he will make some enemies in the environmental world. Just based on personal opinion, it seems that most people who advocate for the environment tend to be more liberal. This can be bad for Obama and the democrats in general. However, if Obama goes full force and requires much more research on fracking or bans fracking he is going to make enemies as well. Anyone that sees job creation as priority in this country will criticize his decision. Anyone that believes fracking is completely safe and believes all the health and environmental issues are inaccurate will criticize his decision. Either way someone loses, someone “wins” I guess. He just has to decide who deserves to win more.

However, job creation can take place even if a ban on fracking was enacted. Obama wants to put more money into “green” jobs. He could become an advocate for alternative energies and boost the jobs in those fields. Jobs can be created in wind, solar and geothermal energies. Scientists could start researching greener methods of energy, ways to produce energy and how to reduce costs. Look at all those jobs. There will be a lot of upfront costs when investing in these alternative energies more. However, in the long run it will benefit our country, our environment and our economy. It’s just like prevention costs. Yes it costs more to try and prevent problems AT FIRST but will save money in the long run. Isn’t everyone’s goal to create a greener future? For our future generations?

So what if there was a ban on fracking. Well the Oil & Gas company executives would be just fine for awhile. Perhaps all the “little people” who would lose jobs could instead be put to work on these alternative energy projects? Perhaps if both sides collaborated something could be worked out. But let’s face it that wouldn’t happen. The Oil & Gas companies would criticize Obama for causing thousands to lose their jobs. I wish there was a way we could all understand each other! However, if people are suffering in a community that doesn’t affect your life, it’s much harder to have empathy or even believe what’s happening. Apparently documentaries don’t help because many call Gasland a farce, just a way for Josh Fox to make money. Many say that all of those bad things that happened in the documentary can be explained by other things. Guess that is a way for people to sleep at night.

Isn’t this the same as saying smoking doesn’t cause lung cancer? Yes a lot of people smoke and never get lung cancer. A lot of people get lung cancer and don’t smoke. But does that mean we should never talk about the lung cancer-smoking link? Okay so fracking may not have caused all those health problems, the environmental problems, the crop issues, the animal deaths, etc. A lot of things can cause these. But should we ignore the facts that many people have had problems only after fracking began and only after wells appeared on their property? That’s just lazy. Sure, get people to sign massively long, confusing documents to absolve your company of any wrong doing. Even to sign up for a sweepstakes there are 10 page documents you have to agree to. It’s seems as if everyone is constantly trying to cover their own butt and not worry about any negative effects that has. How do we change that? In a culture where anyone can get sued for anything, how do we combat that? How can we fight for the true victims in all of this? It’s easy to not care about fracking if it’s not happening where you live. It’s very easy… but is it right? You can’t blame people for being upset with the Oil & Gas companies who make exorbitant amounts of money from fracking, seem to have no interest in making it right for those who have suffered and are even starting to consider exporting it to other parts of the world!

DISCLAIMER: This blog post represents the opinion of the author- Pheasant Weber. This is not necessarily the view of all the bloggers or my classmates working on this task force. THANKS for reading this blog this Fall 2012 semester.