Q:   "I take it that those who oppose the pipeline support fracking and deep Gulf drilling."

Absolutely not!

I support the development of non-polluting alternative energy sources. And there are a LOT of them out there that damned few people are taking advantage of. And certainly not the entrenched power companies.

As a friend of mine once put it, "We'll have widespread use of solar energy when the power companies figure out how to run a sunbeam through a meter!"

Wind can be harnessed most easily via wind turbines, but there are other ways as well. There are several different ways the sun's energy output can be utilized. And we haven't even talked about tidal power yet. And how about the power that can be derived from the inexorable force of ocean currents? There are ways of tapping into these tremendous, and essentially free and ongoing energy sources.

There are a number of ways these things can provide non-polluting and virtually unlimited energy. Continuing to pollute our planet by burning fossil fuels is not only short-sighted and short-lived, it's economically unsustainable. Even if, for the time being, it IS profitable to certain people.

Fossil fuels are getting harder and more expensive to find (drilling in the arctic ocean or miles down in the Caribbean), and generally dirtier and dirtier (e.g., tar sands). And fracking pollutes ground water that people need for drinking and irrigation, and in some places it causes clusters of local earthquakes! What do we do when we've use all the fossil fuel up? I mean, there is not that much of it left. We've used up the easily accessible stuff.

Don Firth

P. S. And Goofball, my neighbor's yappy little Yorkshire terrier is out in her front yard barking its fool head off again. Why don't you join him? After all, you make almost as much sense as he does!