Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
Last winter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy predicted that the snowballing Marcellus Shale gas boom and spinoff industries will create 30,000 high-paying West Virginia jobs by 2020 and 58,000 by 2035 – vastly outstripping the fading coal industry.
Projections in a three-part study titled “America’s New Energy Future: The Unconventional Oil and Gas Revolution” said horizontal drilling and “fracking” have opened an era in which “shale will create millions of jobs and trillions in investments over the coming decades.”
Now, however, a contradictory study by the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative says early estimates have been far too rosy.
Ted Boettner of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy said gas field work so far is “less than 1 percent of the state employment mix.” Which assessment is most accurate? Continuing developments in coming months and years will provide an answer.
Nobody can predict economic outcomes precisely, but it seems that West Virginia is changing. As coal’s dominance slips, a different future is taking shape.
State leaders must manage this transition wisely, imposing strong safeguards to prevent ravages such as those that accompanied previous industrial booms. As for us, we hope the Marcellus upsurge brings even more jobs and prosperity than the wildest forecasts.
Everything bad is good again. Until we are told by the experts that it has been changed back.
In our era, we’ve grown accustomed to having one study supersede another; to seeing one recipe for health turned completely on its head when another body of experts takes a second look at something that had seemed settled.
But it used to be that changes were years, or decades, in the making.
Not these days. The big news on cholesterol two weeks ago didn’t even make it for a couple of days.
One problem with these kinds of changes, of course, is that the people will soon enough simply tune out.
It’s unfortunate because there are, in fact, a few verities, though it’s not a little difficult to get a handle on them when recommendations seem to come and go like the tides.
Do you need to take medication to lower your cholesterol? Maybe, or maybe not. You could talk to your doctor.
Proponents of the nuclear deal with Iran are calling it “a victory for diplomacy.” That very much remains to be seen; certainly it is a premature judgment. The same is true of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dark prophecy that the deal is “a historic mistake.”
The real significance is that the deal was done at all, thanks to the relentless diplomacy of Secretary of State John Kerry and his ability to keep the United States’ fractious allies in this endeavor.
Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium above 5 percent, the level for running a power plant, and to degrade or neutralize its stocks of 20 percent enriched uranium.
In return, the sanctions that have seen Iran’s oil exports cut in half and its currency depreciate 50 percent against the dollar would be eased by $6 billion to $7 billion.
The deal could collapse if the U.S. Congress, goaded by Israel, passed tougher sanctions during the life of the agreement; there will be plenty of time for that if, after the six months have passed, Iran thumbs its nose at the world and begins work on a nuclear weapons capability.
But Tehran should keep in mind Winston Churchill’s admonition, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”