Fracking requires a large amount of water, and in Texas -- plagued by drought in recent years --Â it is draining wells, reservoirs and aquifers. According to the Texas Commission o Environmental Quality, 30 more towns could lose their water supply by the end of this year. The crisis also has been brought on by years of overuse of water by ranchers and growing cities.
Hungry ghost month seems an appropriate time to reflect on our dependency on resources that are being overused. Hungry ghosts, or pretas, are creatures from the Six Realms with big, empty stomachs but pinholes for mouths and soda straw necks. And everything they try to eat turns to ash or fire, or worse. Viewed allegorically, hungry ghosts represent insatiable craving. Something about draining communities of water to extract oil and gas makes me think of hungry ghosts.
I don't know how far "off the grid" one would have to go to be completely independent of fossil fuels, but I'm not sure I could survive there. So I don't consider myself to be an innocent bystander. Still, I continue to be astonished at the willful blindness of my fellow Americans regarding fossil fuels.
In some circles, support for the petrochemical industry is equated with patriotism. I'm sure many of you remember recent political rallies in which flag-waving crowds chanted "drill baby drill!" Calls for conservation and alternative energy research are greeted with suspicion, if not outright derision. Such things are for wimps and socialists; real Americans drill. And frack. And build pipelines.
I'm sure most of you realize the petrochemical industry is behind this manipulation of public opinion. As long as there is a profit to be made, they will tear the planet apart to squeeze more oil out of it. And it's become pretty much impossible to have a rational national discussion about renewable and non-renewable energy, so we seem to be going nowhere. I suspect this impasse will not end well.
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