We noticed a letter to the editor, published by the increasingly anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post Gazette, in which the author says pipelines, like the proposed $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline that will run from West Virginia to North Carolina, are “parasitic worms” traveling under the surface. Obviously it’s another case of FDS–Fracking Derangement Syndrome–which has metastasized in the head of someone who grew up watching Captain Planet cartoons. Fossil fuels are evil, don’t ever cut down a single tree, throw away your flyswatter–you get the idea. Rather than pipelines “worming” their way under the ground like parasites that eventually kill its host, we’d say a better metaphor is that pipelines carrying natural gas and oil are like the veins and arteries in your body–delivering life-giving nourishment (energy) to every part of the body. Without them, you’d die. In fact, counter to the notions of this silly letter writer, without natural gas and oil and the pipelines they run through, many millions of Americans would die…
