TryPeas

The safety and preservation of our planet has become a growing concern for people all around the world. Try Peas is a blog dedicated to providing news, views, and information on ways that we can help try to save the environment. We appreciate hearing from you, so feel free to join the conversation!

Karen has been a travel enthusiast since she was a young child. It has always been a dream of hers to see as much of the world as possible. Last year, while she was sailing transatlantic on the Queen Mary 2, a gentleman expressed an interest in publishing a detailed journal she’d kept of her 7 week European vacation. This inspired her to start an Ezine of her own, and combine her passion for traveling with her passion for saving the planet. She hopes you enjoy reading about her experiences around the world as much as she enjoys writing about them.

Marla is an an avid reader and self-described news junkie. She has both Bachelors and Masters degrees in English and has always had a passion for writing. She has never hesitated to express her opinion about anything. Marla attributes her interest in environmental issues to her Breast Cancer diagnosis 17 years ago. She makes it a point to keep an eye on current news and events that impact our environment and global health.

Andrea has a passion for product specification in the construction, renovation and development of commercial and residential real estate projects. Over the last several years, she has become fascinated with how the construction industry and other businesses related to it are developing and utilizing more eco-friendly, renewable, and sustainable products. This is happening in many other industries as well. In this column, she invites you to share in her discoveries as she explores the “greening” of business. Andrea Goldman holds a bachelors degree in Sociology from SUNY at Albany and a Juris Doctor from Hofstra University Law School.

Dec

Fracking

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Just in case you haven’t had time to keep up with your CSI episodes (“Fracked”, 11/11/2010), fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is a process used by oil and gas companies to create fractures in rocks to increase the output of natural gas from a well that has already been drilled. Millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary (and unregulated) chemicals are injected under high pressure into the well. The pressure fractures the shale, propping open fissures that allow natural gas to flow more freely (see Gasland The Movie for fracking faq’s).

You might be wondering why the fracking lesson? This weekend, New York’s outgoing Governor David Paterson has vetoed the Hydrofracking Moratorium bill. The Governor stated that while the complete moratorium on all natural gas drilling was well-intentioned, passage of the bill would have resulted in putting too many people out of work – work that is permitted by the Department of Environmental Conservation. He went on to say that hydrofracking causes no “demonstrated environmental harm” and referred to the bill as principally symbolic.

While vetoing the bill that had been passed by the New York State legislature, Paterson issued an executive order preventing new drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation until July of 2011. This order will give environmental regulators time for further study of the impact of fracking on the drinking water in the region and to determine whether the economic benefits of hydrofracking outweigh the environmental cost.

Paterson’s executive order was applauded by both the gas industry and environmentalists.

-Marla K.