For NY and CA residents

[dan_s]

If you live in New York or California you may want to read this.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... ikely.aspx

Despite an influx of illegal aliens, we have low unemployment and a booming economy in Texas. Plus, we have cleaner air and water than most of CA and NY. Maybe it is time NY and CA consider supporting the energy industry.

[Laurin_DE]

so... are you saying Texas has cleaner air and water than California and New York because of the energy industry?
can you give me some links to articles or data supporting this?
sounds like a great topic for a controversial university seminar in the fall semester...

[grimaldi]

I'm looking out my 35th floor window across the East River and Queens and the lights are sharp as far as Connecticut--- I don't see how the air could be any cleaner. Don't believe every statistic you read in Fool. Joyce

[dan_s]

I was talking to one of our members in Los Angeles last week and we both commented that the air is cleaner today than when we grew up. I remember growing up in St. Louis and it seemed that 50% of cars had smoke coming from the tailpipe. I think car and truck exhaust is much cleaner today. He said the air quality in LA today is much better than it was in the 60's. I can remember flying into LA in the late 70s and the air was brown. We have made progress.

All I know is that our air and water quality in Sugar Land seems fine to me and we are just a couple hundred miles from the Eagle Ford shale oilfields where they are fracing a couple hundred new wells each month. There is a natural gas field a few miles from my home.

Remember the old pictures of the East Texas oilfields with derricks on top of each other and "gushers" spraying oil all over the place? That area is not a toxic waste dump today because oil is biodegradable, bugs eat it. I lived in Tulsa for twenty years. It is a great place to live and it was once the center of an oil boom.

I don't recommend you drink the stuff, but I think environmentalists claims of how dirty the oil & gas industry is are way overblown. There are almost 8 billion people on this planet and they are going to destroy some environments, but it is energy that improves our standard of living more than anything else.

[dan_s]

Air has gotten cleaner in recent years. But more than half of people in the U.S. still breathe air dirty enough to cause health problems, according to an American Lung Association (ALA) report.

"There is always going to be a dirtiest city," says Joel Kaufman, MD, director of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program at the University of Washington, in Seattle.

Here are the 11 cities (there was a tie for 10th place) with the highest levels of fine particulates, based on annual average. Particulates are tiny (2.5 microns or smaller) and get deep in the lungs, causing health problems. Most of them are in California and none in Texas or New York.

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0, ... 55,00.html

[par_putt]

All I can say is that this week is Texas has been outstanding.
Been here 75 years and like a resort on the golf course.
Don't need to go to Colorado for the summer.....