The Disconnect

Some friends of ours were recently deciding on a new stove/furnace for heating their home, and much of the consensus was to go with gas.  It's cheap, so why not?   (never mind the fact that the only reason it's cheap right now is because investors ran to it as a potential safe haven after the stock market crash of a few years ago, producing a multitude of new wells which are losing gobs of money at current gas prices, but I digress...)

We all need to remember that each and every decision we make has consequences.  The enemy isn't Exxon, Chesapeake Energy, or Monsanto.  It's us, particularly the ways in which we choose to spend our money on seemingly innocent things.  The methods we use to heat our home, get to work, and the food we choose to feed our families all have dramatic consequences.  This cognitive dissonance allows us each to maintain a perfectly clean conscience while going about our daily lives in the ways to which we've become accustomed.

This excellent article should help to bridge that gap.  (this particular instance is fracking for oil, though plenty of similar stories abound for gas as well).

It's becoming increasingly clear that the corporations who provide for our needs are ready not only to go to the ends of the earth, but to the end of the earth.  Mountaintop removal, fracking for gas, tar sands, fracking for oil, and tight oil are all dramatically more harmful than their conventional counterparts (which were in and of themselves enough to destroy the biosphere).   How long will we continue to pay for it?