Persuasive Essay On Fracking

When does protecting one’s well-being and those of others for the sake of using natural gas become a priority? This is just one of the questions asked when hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, grew in notoriety here in the United States. The United States should stop using this form of drilling if it truly wants to protect its citizens. It must be stopped because it is putting our health at risk by poisoning the water that we drink, wasting billions of gallons of fresh water, and polluting the air that we breathe.

Drilling for natural gas has been going on since the early nineteenth century and our energy consumption has increased dramatically since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. In the last few years fracking has been making headlines in the news, however not for particularly good reasons. This method has been around since the 1940’s but has gained popularity as a way of tapping natural gas in recent years due in part by the oil crisis and tensions in the Middle East. Since the U.S. has an abundance of natural gas trapped beneath its soil (Daniel 2) one may think that this is a great direction that we are headed in order to sustain our energy needs and not be dependent on foreign oil.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of extracting natural gas from deep in the ground. This method requires a company, usually an oil company, to drill deep into the earth’s crust and into the beds of shale, and then drill horizontally. Water, along with sand and other toxic chemicals, are then pumped into the shale rock to fracture it and letting all the natural gas that is trapped in the rock to flow up to the surface where most of it can be collected (McGlynn 1055).

One of the biggest issues with frac...

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...l “green.”

In summation, fracking is not as good as everyone thought it would have been. With poisoning the water, as well as wasting perfectly good fresh water, and polluting the air it is far from a suitable alternative to oil and coal. It needs to be stopped and we need to focus on better alternatives. As technology advances we have come up with new methods of creating energy to sustain our needs such as using cleaner alternatives in the forms of solar and wind power to help keep the world moving. Therefore, Congress should pass a federal law to prevent this form of extracting natural gas. The people need to contact their state representatives and demand they pass a bill to end these harmful events from continuing. They need to hear our voices and represent us, not the big oil companies. We need to pressure the Governors and the President before it is too late.