This week, Stephen Moore wrote a great piece on fracking that is worth reading in its entirety.

The game-changer for the U.S. has been the shale oil and gas revolution over the past six years brought about through new smart drilling technologies. The U.S. is now the largest natural gas producer in the world. And as America has produced more natural gas, we have shifted away from coal.

This, according to the Energy Information Administration, accounts for more than 60 percent of the carbon emission reductions in the United States. Obama never mentioned that.

Here’s the real stunner: if we want to reduce carbon emissions further, investing in natural gas is a far more efficient strategy than going all in for so-called “green renewable energy” sources.

Over the last seven years, the U.S. government has spent almost $70 billion in tax, regulatory and spending subsidies to the renewable energy sector. But wind and solar energy after this avalanche of government support account for only about three percent of electricity production.

By contrast, the shale gas explosion has been almost entirely devoid of subsidies–yet its output has exploded.

So one would think the climate change marchers who descended on Washington last week and all their green allies would be beating the drum for shale gas and hydraulic fracturing as an environmental godsend. No.

The one common theme of the green marchers these days is they hate fracking, even though it has done more to reduce greenhouse gases than all the government subsidies to wind and solar power combined.

Readers of this blog or of John Locke Foundation research will know that, on top of all this, studies keep confirming that fracking is safe, and it has the potential to create jobs and spur economic growth.  Far from calling on politicians to stop fracking, we should be excited about the prospect of developing a shale gas industry here in North Carolina, and about the clean energy and jobs it would bring with it.