Hydrofracking inthe United States alone created 725,000 jobs from 2005 to 2012.
Of course this timeperiod encompassed one of the worst financial recessions in modern times. Thenumber of jobs that were created actually helped to decrease the nationalunemployment rate by 0.5% when the rest of the nation was suffering withunemployment (Valdamins, 2015). Since the ban on hydrofracking in New York, tensof thousands of people have lost their jobs and instead of ceasing thehydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale region altogether efforts in Pennsylvaniahave certainly increased. Carbon Dioxideemissions in the United States have decreased by 12% since 2005 according tothe U.S. Energy Information Administration (Lindstrom, 2016). Almost 70% of thedecrease in C02 emissions can be directly related to the rise in natural gas usagerather than coal, which was more prevalent in the past (Costigan, 2016).
 Discontinuing hydrofracking long-term willlikely lead to an increase in natural gas prices and thusly encourage thepopulation to switch back to coal or other fossil fuels for energy production,which will likely lead to a subsequent rise in CO2 emissions in the future. The discontinuationof hydrofracking will also negatively impact the economy. With the ever risingdemands for energy and the inability of the United States to meet those demandswe will be forced to import much more natural gas. Since the United States isamong the lowest in average market prices for natural gas, this means that wewill be paying a lot more for the imported gas.
Similarly, since the United Stateswill not contribute the almost 9% of the World’s supply of natural gas that ithas in the past, prices elsewhere will likely increase as supply diminishes anddemand continues to increase (Miller, 2013). In conclusion, I urge you to lift the ban onhydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale Region of New York. Once the ban haslifted you can look forward to an influx of new jobs, more natural gas usagewhich will in turn lower our CO2 emissions and help to combat global warming,and finally to ensure that the World Wide cost of natural gas won’t increaseastronomically when we are unable to provide 9% of the World’s supply.
