#101 / Frack No

On April 6th, the Los Angeles Times ran a story on the oil resources contained in the Monterey Shale Formation, which underlies a good part of the California Central Valley. The formation is found in Monterey County, too, and along the coast. See the map above for locations, and get a bigger version  of the map by clicking on the image. 

The headline and the tone of the article was congratulatory: "Vast oil trove trapped in Monterey Shale formation." All we need to do is to figure out a way to extract the oil! In other words, this was a story about how the heroic work of engineers and scientists can find a way to extract all that oil, and the article implicitly conveyed the idea that finding more hydrocarbon resources, and developing them, was a very "good thing" for everyone. Keeps those gas prices down!

Think again!

Anything that increases the ability of human beings to burn more hydrocarbon fuels is a BAD thing, not a good thing. Let me refer you to an article from the New York Times, published on March 31, 2014. The New York Times article reported on a recently-released report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. group. That report is pretty clear about the disastrous impacts that global warming is bringing to our planet, and the threats those impacts make to our ability to maintain human civilization: 

The report attempts to project how the effects will alter human society in coming decades. While the impact of global warming may actually be moderated by factors like economic or technological change, the report found, the disruptions are nonetheless likely to be profound. That will be especially so if emissions are allowed to continue at a runaway pace, the report said.

Check out the last sentence. Burning more hydrocarbon fuels is BAD.

Period.

Image Credit: 
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-monterey-shale-g,0,4387547.graphic#axzz2yDsO0dg3