The Los Angeles city council voted on January 26th to ban introducing new oil and gas wells due to public health concerns as well as environmental activism. In the article it is noted that over half a million LA county residents live within a quarter mile of a gas/oil well which releases dangerous toxins such as benzene. Also, the county plans to phase out all domestic oil wells over the next five years. If put into action this has the possibility of losing jobs for Californians and hiking up gas prices. On the other hand it is a big win in lowering California’s CO2 emissions and keeping residents safe.
In my opinion this is a great step towards lowering fossil fuel emissions in California. However, we are teetering on a dangerous line between making gas prices in California unbelievable. The benefit of higher gas prices is that it encourages drivers to invest in more fuel efficient cars (fun fact: my mom just bought one yesterday). I also believe that by outlawing, and phasing out oil wells, residents, especially those in the black and african american community, who are disproportionately affected by oil well pollutants, we can kill two birds with one stone lowering fuel emissions and protecting Californians from preterm births, asthma, cancer, and respiratory diseases.
I like your take on this, Marcello, and congrats to your mom. Crazy to think so many people live so close to a fracking site. Fracking can be done safely and it has gotten us off coal… and provides lots of jobs. But I agree with you, we need to shut it down. However, our demand will remain the same. So does that mean we now import nat. gas? Think about what’s happening in Europe right now… Russia just completed a pipeline to Germany, the most alt energy developed country in the world, which desperately needs Russia’s nat. gas. They just shut off the pipeline now that Russia has forces in Ukraine. There is an argument for being self sufficient for ones energy needs. But maybe let’s keep the mining out of urban populations. What do you think we can do to reduce our demand so that we can shut down fracking sites without having to then get nat. gas from other places?
I feel it is very important we move beyond nat. gas. Eventually, if we could find a way to sustain life without nat gas, thousands would be out of jobs. I feel moving to nuclear energy to keep those jobs and have cleaner gas is a great place to end up.