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1.  

   

   Andy Roon (profile), Mar 29th, 2011 @ 5:56pm

   
   

   I refer you to this: http://reason.com/archives/1999/04/01/precautionary-tale
   
   Remember, anything can be proven dangerous, nothing can be proven 100% safe. Without forward thinking, there will be no progress.

    

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2.  

   

   Michael Ho (profile), Mar 29th, 2011 @ 8:06pm

   
   

   Re:

   The Precautionary Principle takes things to a risk-averse extreme... there's always a balance to be found, but getting that balance right can be tricky.

    

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3.  

   

   Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Mar 29th, 2011 @ 10:17pm

   
   

   Re Playing With FIre...

   Prometheus, who gave humans fire and paid dearly for it, was the Greek god of foresight.
   
   The was also a Greek of hindsight, called Epimetheus.
   
   I think his eyesight was pretty good.

    

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4.  

   

   d_mat (profile), Mar 30th, 2011 @ 3:50am

   
   

   Re: Re Playing With FIre...

   Yep, and although we keep experiencing that difference from our own actions over and over, we don't seem to be learning from it. We still want to move as fast as possible in every direction, without the proper amount of time to make sure we can deal with the consequences. Be it selling weapons, using pesticides, or building nuclear plants. I'm not against technology, I just think we should be a hell of a lot more careful about what we do with it.

    

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5.  

   

   abc gum, Mar 30th, 2011 @ 4:59am

   
   

   Fracking is not a very good idea. In several instances it is highly likely to have caused local drinking water to contain flammable compounds. There are many videos of people setting fire to water exiting their faucet.

    

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6.  

   

   Pixelation, Mar 30th, 2011 @ 5:03am

   
   

   I, for one, welcome our new dinosaur-looking chicken-lizard overlords.

    

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7.  

   

   Pixelation, Mar 30th, 2011 @ 5:08am

   
   

   Re:

   Yes, it's a bad idea.
   
   Welcome to lobbying.
   
   http://www.polluterwatch.com/blog/big-oil-front-group-poured-millions-lobby-against-fracking-reg ulation

    

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8.  

   

   Chris Rhodes (profile), Mar 30th, 2011 @ 8:42am

   
   

   Re: Re:

   Eh, I'm not willing to say it's always a bad idea. Natural gas is a pretty important source of energy. Sure, we could reduce the amount we burn and use coal instead, but is that really better, in the end?

    

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9.  

   

   d_mat (profile), Mar 30th, 2011 @ 9:11am

   
   

   Options?

   I really don't think the conversation has to be on natural gas versus coal. If you look at where the technology is today, despite the lack of big investment in the 20th century, I think we have a lot of other options. I am not going to list them here, you can find them anywhere; but for those who say those technologies are not enough and that we need other sources, just look at the case of Germany, where all of a sudden it is no problem to take 5 nuclear power plants off the grid after 2 years of politicians and "experts" insisting it would be impossible. And East Germany now has a problem of too much power flowing into the grid due to wind turbines.
   
   But this topic is a nice contrast to the article. We need to be careful and bring change gradually, but this is an area where we need to speed up a bit, because the rash decisions in energy policy of 20th century are really hurting us now.

    

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10.  

    

    abc gum, Mar 30th, 2011 @ 8:43pm

    
    

    Re: Re: Re:

    It's possible to extract natural gas without fracking - no?

     

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11.  

    

    Bob Webster (profile), Mar 31st, 2011 @ 8:33am

    
    

    Naturally burning creeks

    "Not too long ago, we created rivers so polluted that they'd actually catch on fire." Not too long ago, creeks in some oil-rich areas of the U.S. could be set on fire because of naturally oozing oil -- pollution not required.

     

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