Fracking? Burning water? Are we in a mad, mad Alice-in-wonderland world?

A glass of burning water?

How can that even be possible?

What kind of world is this where some things really don't make any sense? Well, maybe they do in the short-term, but not for long.

Like what's going on in the U.S.

The government wanted the country to become energy independent. And it has achieved that goal. The U.S. is now producing more oil domestically than it is imported from foreign sources. And the U.S. is now the number-one natural gas producer in the world.

How did we do that?

The answer is hydraulic fracturing -- fracking -- which is a way of cracking open shales --fine-grained underground rock -- using pressurized water and toxic chemicals to extract liquid gas and petroleum.

Two things tell a lot about fracking:

Fracking wells go thousands of feet deeper than traditional natural wells.

Fracking requires a lot of water -- between two and five million gallons of local freshwater per well, which is up to 100 times more than traditional extraction methods.

So how does this affect our water supply under the ground and above the ground?

The federal government says not to worry. But you have to take their word for it because there is no federal agency watching out for us. In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It also exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals they use in fracking.

Now I know I'm living in an Alice-in-Wonderland world!

Let me describe that world to you.

In my mind's eye I can see myself falling slowly through a crack in the large, domed U.S. Capitol Rotunda wanting to scream out that this is madness, but I can't. Down below me the peoples' representatives are scurrying about like modern-day Mad Hatters muttering, "The Halliburton Loophole, The Halliburton Loophole."

Then in a Looking-Glass I find myself holding in my hand I see reflected a veritable tsunami of identically-shaped, black-suited Tweedledees and Tweedledums pouring into the Rotunda and then spilling into the Halls of Congress. Unable to speak, I wave vigorously but can't get my representatives' attention. However, these industry lobbyists stop the Mad Hatters dead in their tracks and smile reassuringly as they stuff money into their pockets.

As I approach the marble floor, I hear a conversation going on below me.

Mad Hatters: "Will our water be safe?"

Tweedledees: "Of course it will."

Tweedledums: "Of course it will."

Mad Hatters: "What chemicals do you use?"

Tweedledees: "Proprietary secret."

Tweedledums: "Proprietary secret."

Mad Hatters: "Would you drink water near a fracking site?"

Tweedledees: "Of course not."

Tweedledums" "Of course not."

Raising the Looking-Glass over my head, I can somehow see reflected in it all 40,000 fracking operations put in place in the U.S. And oddly enough I can tell that most of them are located in areas where water is scarce, and more than half of them are in areas experiencing drought, such as California until recently. I can also see waste fluid being poured into open-air pits to evaporate. And I can see these pits releasing what looks like toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.

Hitting the floor of the Rotunda with a thud, I am aware that I am much smaller than the Congressmen and lobbyists swirling around me, and I try desperately to avoid being stepped on. In a tiny voice I shout that being energy independent is a great thing for the U.S. but achieving it by severely damaging our water supply puts us all at great risk. No one looks down at me.

How can we pull ourselves out of this mad, mad Alice-in-Wonderland world into which multi-national corporations and their army of lobbyists have thrust us?

If fracking is as deranged an idea as it appears to me, wouldn't the sane approach to energy independence be to launch a national defense solar and wind campaign like a massive military operation in order to preserve our precious water?

Rick McManus, who lives in North Hollywood, California, wants to see the world remain a beautiful place for everyone now residing on this planet and for untold generations to come. His novel EMPTY EARTH is available on Amazon.com. And his latest novel ATHENA: A TEENAGER FIGHTS THE CLIMATE CRISIS is also available on Amazon.com