Re: My e-mail to incoming PA House majority whip Stan Saylor

[pay...@zoominternet.net]

On Fri 12/31/10 1:46 PM , Patrick Walker pjwalk...@yahoo.com sent:

After a conversation with John Trallo, where I heard new PA House majority whip Stan Saylor's rah-rah views on gas drilling, I posted the following e-mail to his Web site. While climate change effects are hardly the only dangers posed by gas drilling, they may ultimately be the worst, affecting the whole human race. Also, I think we everything to gain by debunking the gas industry's claim that they are an unrgently needed solution to climate change--a claim that is the basis of their "clean natural gas" advertising campaign.   In any case, here's my e-mail.   Subject: Duly informing our PA General Assembly about ALL the facts on natural gas drilling   Dear Representative Saylor:   As majority whip, you now occupy a position vital to the welfare of all PA citizens. And when it comes to natural gas drilling in our state, your actions will impact not only our state, but our nation and potentially the whole world. I certainly have a sense of the awesome--and onerous--responsible with which you're entrusted. I can only hope--for the sake of everyone's future--you share that sense.   Natural gas drilling is clearly an industry where contracts affect not just parties to the contract, but their neighbors (deeply) and potentially many other people (in the long run). Where this industry is concerned, accurate, up-to-date knowledge of the science facts is vitally important. I hope you and the legislators you have the power to influence and inform are staying abreast of the latest science regarding gas drilling.   On that topic, are you aware of the study, released in November, by Cornell PhDs Robert Howarth, Anthony Ingraffea, et. al. indicating that once extraction is factored in, natural gas obtained by unconventional drilling is potentially dirtier in its greenhouse gas effects than mountaintop coal? In other words, this study, the most recent and comprehensive to date, will, if it stands up to peer review (expected in a few months), refute the gas industry claim that natural gas is a viable "bridge" or "transition" fossil fuel that helps ease the switch to renewable energies. In fact, if the study is correct, heavy reliance on natural gas will only worsen the world's worst environmental problem--with potentially catastrophic effects for humanity.   I don't know if you are personally a climate change skeptic, but I would point out that there is almost universal agreement among credentialed climate scientists (a FACT underreported in the media) that climate change is occurring and is caused by humans; a scientific minority--and a small one--only debates how serious the consequences will be. I hope you are not willing to gamble with humanity's future that that small minority is correct.   If you will contact me, I'll be glad to send you documentation backing up every scientific claim I've made in this letter. Meanwhile, I intend to publish this letter in every media outlet I can find, to make it clear that I have made an urgent appeal to you to understand the best available science facts. I can only hope you fully grasp the high responsibilities you have undertaken and will share these facts with your fellow legislators.   Sincerely,   Patrick Walker

[Patrick Walker]

Thanks to Maria for posting this. To his credit, Rep. Saylor did get back to me, though his brief response was (as one would expect) not quite satisfactory from our viewpoint. Anyway, here's the response I sent him; my counterarguments should clearly indicate what he said. (He sent his response by snail mail, and I don't have a scanner.)    Dear Representative Saylor: Thank you for your prompt, serious-minded response (via traditional mail) to my e-mail concerning anthropogenic global warming and Dr. Robert Howarth’s study of the greenhouse effects of unconventional gas drilling. In your response, you disagreed with me that there is “almost universal agreement” about anthropogenic global warming. Now, I suppose this question can turn on how one defines one’s terms, but the question is too important to let it hang on mere semantics. So instead, I offer you the following Internet links, which show just how wide the agreement is, especially among climatologists (the most relevant scientists here). I believe that when I wrote of the “almost universal agreement,” I had confined myself to climatologists. Note also that the dissenters tend to come from the ranks of the less-credentialed and less-published; while not definitive proof that they’re wrong, the lesser professional standing of the dissenters should be a persuasive argument for laymen like you and me, who must rely on the best available scientific authority. http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html http://planetsave.com/2010/06/27/the-scientists-do-agree-on-global-warming/ http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-19/world/eco.globalwarmingsurvey_1_global-warming-climate-science-human-activity?_s=PM:WORLD Also, in your response, you referred to human-caused global warming as “a mainstream theory.” I believe the extent of agreement among climatologists (documented above) make “the mainstream theory” a wording far truer to current facts. Finally, I have a philosophical problem with your framing of global warming as a factor that “must be considered when making economic decisions.” I see no reason why the extent of our state’s and nation’s reliance on natural gas obtained by unconventional drilling should be treated primarily as an economic decision, when it’s simultaneously an environmental, community rights, civil rights, health, and esthetic decision (to name just the dimensions I can now think of). In short, it’s a decision about the common good—the sort of decision that is the very heart of politics. I hope you and your fellow representatives will follow not just sound science and economics, but will consider all these other crucial human dimensions in making it. Sincerely, Patrick Walker --- On Wed, 1/12/11, pay...@zoominternet.net <pay...@zoominternet.net> wrote: