A priceless legacy

As a person with ancestral connections to Shetland (maternal grandmother), I enjoy seeing a splinter (via the Shetland News) of what it must be like to live there.

I frequently feel concern over the many environmental issues facing Shetland. I have come to see your battles with the energy empires as the essence of struggle that many places on the planet currently endure.

With the independence of Scotland added to the mix, it’s clear that the small family of islands to the north with resources galore is a jewel much sought after.

All manner of songs that will be sung to woo your marriage to this or that enterprise, whose benefit will be tenable at best and tenable only if those who love the natural world see to it that care is taken to preserve your priceless legacy.

The people of New York State are currently faced with a cabal of energy companies who wish to hydraulically fracture deep shale structures to obtain the natural gas miles below what are the major aquifers that supply the state’s water.

The debate reduces to a simple choice: do the project and risk the water supply of much of the state for a one time extraction of natural gas or leave it alone.

Needless to say the television commercials promoting “fracting” have promoted it as a safe enterprise, even though in some places where fracting has gone forward – when people turn on their faucets so much natural gas has entered the water supply of local wells (Pennsylvania, USA), that if one puts a match to the faucet spout, flame takes fire.

The situations vary with each project and each geographic region, but one thing is clear: energy enterprises have accidents and some of them are spectacular in the damage they render.

It’s a matter of history and no amount of corporate PR can spin that truth away.

The Shetland islands are the classic Davis vs. Goliath – I hope Shetlanders have their slings in hand.

Rodger Parsons
New York
New York
USA