I moved to Perth in June last year from a small, rural town in central Pennsylvania. There I witnessed first-hand the impact of the 鈥渇racking鈥 boom 鈥 the rapid exploitation of the unconventional gas resources in the Marcellus shale play.
It hit rural Pennsylvania particularly hard because it is economically depressed, struggling to make ends meet by farming and what's left of manufacturing that has not been outsourced to China, Mexico, and other exploitable labour pools.