People that read my posts know that I like to stay on the sunny side. Some things need to be said, however.

To those of you that are not from an area of the country that has gas and oil, you may not understand; please research it. The real shame is that the answers to our energy needs, with a re-think, already exist, and are being shoved aside.

My farm in Doddridge county is a mess, caused by drilling and fracking. Friends and relatives are separated. The human cost to my own family has been devastating and demoralizing. People have spent years, and indeed lives, improving their farms and forests, with an eye to the future, only to have it all ruined – not by nature or God, but by man.

We have LIVED in W.V., not like the posers that have sold us out. We will be the ones left to sort it out, to try to rebuild and reclaim the mess. Secret, sacred places (unknown to the armchair deciders) are just plain gone, and even those that initially welcomed this development are leaving. Wilderness with roads and wells are no longer wild. It is heartbreaking, especially when the answers to energy and food are within reach without this destruction.

I’ve been told that most of this resource is bound for overseas and is to be used to make unwanted plastic, to be sent back so we can pollute with it, when anything that is plastic can already be made from renewable, biodegradable vegetative sources, some of which are illegal. What a diabolical, wicked system, the heads of which don’t live here and are hard to find. They must hate their offspring, too.

I have seen things with my own eyes, in the woods and wild places that I don’t speak of often, ancient, mysterious beings for whom I weep. When I was a timber cutter I had to at times work for others. Their idea of forestry and mine were worlds apart, but you have to do what you have to do. It often was the case that the jobs with the biggest trees came to me because I was good at felling them with the least damage.

I hated cutting the big trees; I love them. Often before cutting these trees I would speak, with my inner voice to the them, begging forgiveness and expressing my reluctance to take them from their home. The trees laughed, and in a loving, forgiving, way expressed that it was all right. I got a sense of long-range patience, a big circle, that told me they would be back again. Peace, love, and the best of luck to us all. Hopefully, we will exist long enough to see this madness end.

– John Merrill, Randolph County, WV –

But the prices for crude oil, US natural gas, and natural gas liquids have all plunged. Revenues from unhedged production are down 40% or 50%, or more from just seven months ago. And when the hedges expire, the problem will get worse.

Layoffs are cascading through the oil and gas sector. On Tuesday, the Dallas Fed projected that in Texas alone, 140,000 jobs could be eliminated. Halliburton said that it was axing an undisclosed number of people in Houston.

Suncor Energy, Canada’s largest oil producer, will dump 1,000 workers in its tar-sands projects. Helmerich & Payne is idling rigs and cutting jobs. Smaller companies are slashing projects and jobs at an even faster pace.

And now Schlumberge, the world’s biggest oilfield-services company, will cut 9,000 jobs.

Larger drillers outspent their cash flows from production by 112% and smaller to midsize drillers by a breathtaking 157% (estimate by Barclays). Many companies are now locked out of the capital market.