Dear Readers,
April is the month of spring; it is during this month that Earth Day is celebrated, that the weather grows warm again, and that the natural beauty of spring all around us reminds us of our environment. For these reasons, as well as the recent controversies concerning environmental policies both at UNC and in North Carolina at large, this month the Carolina Review has taken on the challenging task of exploring environmental issues.
Perhaps one of the largest environmental issues facing the United States today is fracking, a controversial means of extracting natural gas from shale rock. Staff writer Charlotte Adams reports on the nature of racking in North Carolina in her article, entitled “Fracking in NC: A Positive Future in Sights for Drillers”. However, since fracking is such a polarized issue, writer Alexander Thomas also wrote on the same topic, providing a more legislative look into the complex situation. Also on the national level, new writer Charlotte Story examines the future of environmental policies for conservatives, and senior James Braid reports on the rhetoric of the global warming movement. Associate Editor and CRDaily Editor Lea Palmer provides a look at the Keystone Pipeline, a center of legislative concern. Returning writer Ian Richardson focuses upon the global lack of effort to improve green technology. Finally, Nathan Cole examines the state of the petroleum and gas industry.
Environmental issues are also quite visible on the UNC campus, particularly during these spring months. Staff Writer Connor Herring provides an in-depth look at the UNC Divestment Movement, which has gained steam to divest UNC from coal, and features an interview with a highly active member of the Divest movement. New addition Zach Dvorak meanwhile crunches the numbers on UNC’s use of green energy in order to determine how much money such technology actually saves our University. His conclusion: “Even at full efficiency, the payback of this project is likely to be decades.”
Finally, a number of our writers chose entirely different topics. Associate Editor Mauricio Baretto, inspired by Senator Rand Paul’s recent 13-hour filibuster that mainly focused on the Obama Administration’s cavalier understanding of their drones, writes on the legal and constitutional boundaries to America’s drone program. Tim Bame reports on the recent visit of Cherie Berry, the so-called “Elevator Queen”, to UNC in early March. In a special feature, 2010 UNC graduate and returning Carolina Review Staff Writer Duke Cheston returns to argue the disastrous biological and social effects of pornography.
We hope that you enjoy this issue, and that you come to see that conservatives do indeed have a great deal to say on environmental issues. And remember: we’re not biased, we’re just right.
Sincerely,
David Ortiz, Editor-in-Chief
drortiz@email.unc.edu
