Dear Editor,

Carbon county residents are turning out in predictable numbers to oppose the gas pipeline. The fact is, they should embrace it and most other diverse industries that want to come here. Why, because your children, and grandchildren, will need the economic diversity or they will have to leave the area.Business as usual in Carbon County is a losing proposition for the next generation. There wasn't much construction in Carbon County when things were good in 2008 and a few years prior.I am in a construction-related business, and I don't waste much time trying to drum up business in Carbon. There isn't much. The older towns of Carbon County have aging infrastructures, which require attention and money, but declining taxpayer populations. Many of the taxpayers are retirement age. School taxes continue to increase yearly in all counties. You need the tax money from businesses and industry to help pay the tab instead of just everyday, aging homeowners.Read the Times News and you can see that many of the newer residents in your towns and townships are "undesirables."If you wonder why you can't leave your doors unlocked, this is the reason. Changes must be made now to keep Carbon County the way it used to be. The area must become more diverse because the coal industry is dead, the textile industry is dead, and big manufacturing is dead. Maybe you have a job. Maybe you have a nice pension from a job you worked at for 40 years.Do your descendants have the same opportunity? Ask yourself this before you say not in my backyard.Personally, I have no stake in in the gas industry. I have never collected unemployment in my life (60 years).However I have four children, and I know that change will need to be embraced for their futures.John FergusonTowamensing Township