The Issue: Whether the enterprising spirit behind fracking for natural gas and oil reflects greed.
Daniel Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament speaking in defense of fracking, made an error in trying to defend the concept of “greed” (“Those Greedy Frackers,” Editorial, July 6).
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins of traditional Christian ethics. That is why the word is often used so effectively in protest. Instead, Hannan should have changed the word to “reward.”
Reward, not greed, is the catalyst for innovation, services, study, business, invention and even development of natural resources.
In the movie “Wall Street,” Oliver Stone did a disservice by popularizing the expression: “Greed is good.” The proper expression for accomplishing human advancement is: “Reward is good.”Seymour Yusem
The Greens don’t like fracking because they don’t like prosperity.
One of the reasons that the United States has been relatively quick to make use of its own shale-gas reserves is that, broadly speaking, Americans own whatever is underneath their property and thus have every incentive to “search for shale in their own backyards.”
These small details matter enormously and help explain the United States’ advantage.