Fracking Crazy

The United States has gone fracking crazy, a phrase that can be interpreted in a number of ways. Fracking is the latest assault by the oil and gas industry to extract product fossil fuels from the ground. It has been very lucrative, and is also highly controversial. Fracking requires lots of water and is often happening in areas where there is little water. There is growing evidence that the mixture with chemicals for extraction is affection water sources. It also appears to trigger frequent earth tremors and quakes in regions which have little history of these events.

I think fracking is crazy, because outcomes aren't known, and it encourages dependence on fossil fuels rather than developing energy alternatives It also makes me angry to read that fracking is going on in New Mexico's stunningly beautiful Chaco Valley, in the state's northwest. This was a place of inspiration for the artist Georgia O'Keefe, an Easterner who fell in love with the landscape of New Mexico.

Some of you will recall that I made several trips to Ghost Ranch, a conference and retreat centre in the high plateau of northern New Mexico. I loved it there and it turned out that the retreat house I stayed in twice was spitting distance to the adobe house O'Keefe used as home base for painting forays, including those to the Chaco Valley. Her view to Padernal mountain (below) was virtually the same as from the Ghost Ranch retreat house called Casa del Sol.



It seems that energy extraction trumps safety and beauty and common sense in the States these days. None of these have value anymore because they can't be measured by money.  Of course we have our own claim to non-sense in Alberta these days.

There is also a rich cultural history for the aboriginal peoples of this region:

...the massive buildings of the ancestral Pueblo peoples still testify to the organizational and engineering abilities not seen anywhere else in the American Southwest. The canyon that was central to thousands of people between 850 and 1250 A.D

Do you know anything about this region? Are you familiar with the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe? Are you concerned that fracking may be coming to a backyard near you?