Editor:
Re: Is LNG really clean energy? Lakes District News issue Oct. 29, 2014
Thank you for your thoughtful and thought-provoking editorial in this week's Lakes District News.
The short answer to the question of whether LNG is cleaner is no. Although it may be cleaner when we actually burn it, the extraction, transportation and processing makes LNG not only not clean, but one of the dirtiest kinds of fossil fuels we can inflict on our already tortured little planet. The whole answer is in This Changes Everything, by Naomi Klein. The information about LNG that she sites in this book comes from the scientist who developed the fracking processes that make LNG profitable.
For anyone who really wants to know more about LNG in particular, and the climate crisis in general the depth, scope, and magnitude of it, and what we can do to stop it, I encourage you to read Klein's immensely important book. Published this year, it explains everything: how rich and powerful fossil fuel corporations have co-opted our democratic governments until they are either unwilling or unable to turn us toward a more sustainable future; how and why the climate change deniers interrupted progress toward sustainable energy systems; how the economy-vs-environment argument is part of the denier strategy; and the role that free trade plays in all of it.
No LNG is not cleaner; it is not a bridge to renewable green energy, it is a gangplank to a faster way to drown.
Hilda Earl