ican711nm wrote:We have drilled in Texas, Alaska and in many other places where wildlife not only survived but multiplied and flourishes to this day.
I think I posted this someplace--maybe on the global warming thread--but many years ago we lived in the Texas Panhandle. Oil and natural gas exploration was just getting started in that area then, but there were a number of flyash and carbon black plants, both heavily polluting the air, land, and water. Once the oil companies came in and starting serious drilling and built or enlarged a refinery and began following local, state, and federal requirements to meet environmental concerns, it was technology developed by the oil companies that put scrubbers on the refineries and other carbon processing industries, learned how to capture escaping fumes so the area no longer smelled terrible, and now there is no evidence of polution from the heavy oil, gas, and other industries anywhere in the area from the Oklahoma line to Amarillo. It has been a beautiful thing to watch.
The most interesting thing though is that when we lived there decades ago, there was minimal and widely spaced industry and virtually no wild life. Maybe a jackrabbit or cottontail or a coyote once in a great while but you could go days or weeks without seeing any kind of wildlife except for a few birds and a tarantula now and then.
Now the whole area is heavily industrialized and teeming with oil and gas wells and much other industry. It is also teeming with deer, a few antelope, grouse, pheasant, qual, and quite an assortment of other critters. The deer have come in so thick that we don't drive certain roads after dark if we can help it for fear of hitting one.
A beautiful clean environment, wildlife, humans, and oil and gas production can thrive quite compatibly all in a relatively small area and certainly within large spacious ones.
I think in all things, practical common sense should override kneejerk emotionalism just about every single time.
