"You wouldn't build a nuclear power plant — you wouldn't build some sort of a smelter — lightly regulated. But for some reason we feel that that's OK to do with fracking. No, if we want to be serious about using fossil fuels and trying to find a way to do it in an environmentally responsible manner, then we all have a stake in it. The companies have a stake in it, the neighbors, the community has a stake in it, and, yes, the governmental regulators have a stake in it."

— Russell Gold, author of the 2015-16 Penn State Reads book "The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World," speaking in an interview with College of Communications instructor Katie O'Toole Tuesday evening (Oct. 13) at a Penn State Reads community event at the Days Inn Penn State, downtown State College. The event was co-sponsored by the University Libraries' Pennsylvania Center for the Book, Penn State's Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Schlow Centre Region Library, and the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.

Gold also spoke to Penn State students Monday (Oct. 12) at the HUB-Robeson Center, the Presidential Leadership Academy, and to several classes during his visit to the University Park campus.