AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Old silo golf course declining revenue11/14/2023 Unlike nearby Pittsburgh proper, there are no new, shiny condo developments and tech incubators in these chopped-up old mill towns. Whereas “fracking” has taken on all kinds of significance in the national conversation about everything from climate change to the economy, in a lot of Pennsylvania towns that never recovered from the loss of manufacturing or mining jobs, it just means “money.” But the bigger draw for residents of the region, of course, is a financial one. Which was why, over several months last year, I headed out to talk to people who live near a proposed fracking well, on the site of the last functioning steel mill in the county.įrom an energy efficiency standpoint, the mill is an ideal site for a fracking well: Natural gas produced on-site could directly power the operation. On the national stage, fracking is celebrated via monologues by various working-class characters in ads, defended breathlessly by top-level Republicans who insist that Biden will ban it (again, he won’t), and praised at rallies in the heart of gas country.īut, like so many policies framed as concessions to swing states in the general election, neither candidate’s stance on fracking bears any strong resemblance to the complicated lives of people who actually have to confront it. The Trump-Pence campaign refers to fracking as if it were a sort of sacred ritual deeply meaningful to the identity of Pennsylvanians (and our 20 electoral college votes) - as if babies here are born with a drill clutched in one tiny fist and a seismograph in the other before being baptized in gasoline and Yuengling. To support our nonprofit environmental journalism, please consider disabling your ad-blocker to allow ads on Grist. Moreover, we are the third-largest net supplier of energy, extracting more than four times what we consume. We are the second-largest producer of natural gas in the country, after Texas. Pennsylvania, which rests atop the majority of the highly productive Marcellus Shale, does a great deal of it. In actuality, it is a method of oil and natural gas extraction in which a concoction of chemicals and minerals are injected into tunnels drilled parallel to the ground. You might be forgiven for assuming fracking is simply a synonym for “American industry,” as that’s how it’s used in a lot of political rhetoric. Biden denied it, but Trump warned ominously: “You know what, Pennsylvania, he’ll be against it very soon.” “If you want to kill the economy, kill the oil and gas industry,” Trump opined during Thursday’s final presidential debate, before launching into the usual accusations that his opponent will ban fracking. But the 2020 Pennsylvanian stereotype of choice perpetuated by Trump and Biden has not been so easy to stomach: that we Keystone State denizens are all wholehearted devotees of fracking. Part of the business of politics in general, and elections specifically, is to appeal to swing states using these kinds of caricatures. Wawa convenience store debate, pointlessly coy hints at an allegiance with the Flyers or Penguins, a professed devotion to one hideous sandwich or another. My home state of Pennsylvania is always on the receiving end of some heavy pandering by presidential candidates: some feeble stabs at the Sheetz vs.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |