For years we have pointed to the residents’ of Dimock, PA experience as evidence of the damage caused by fracking. Now, after fourteen years, residents have hopes that their homes will enjoy good water. It took a dramatic and controversial documentary film and aggressive litigation against a recalcitrant company. I hesitate to say that anybody
“Direct action” is the term that is used to describe protests. Some are benign, like the caroling against fracking described below. Others are disruptive and seek to get in the way of business as usual to bring attention to the issue being protested. Direct actions become more extreme when the stakes are high and civil
Gutsy Greenpeace protesters in small craft blocked the way to port for a liquid natural gas tanker because the US producer uses fracking. Direct action like this is risky both physically and legally. The rest of us are heartened to see so many people organizing to make our world survivable in the long term and
Phys.com, a site that reports science news, spun the finding that earthquakes caused by fracking could be mitigated as “Good News.” This would only be something to celebrate if fracking, or removing fossil fuels from the earth’s crust, was a good and desirable thing. It is not. We are killing the planet. Those earthquakes that
Better regulation is not the answer. Nothing good happens to the neighborhood when fracking comes. Bad air, bad roads, bad water, noise, illness, and it’s hurting Mother Earth too. The drill-baby-drill crowd will lie, cheat, deceive, and leave a mess for others to clean up.
We would all welcome the use of drilling technology that did no harm and left fossil fuels in the ground while tapping the always-on heat stored in Earth’s core. But, even if we aren’t fracking, and we don’t intend to produce gas or oil, I’m skeptical that we are capable of punching holes through the
“Twenty years after the first gas well was fracked on the Renz farm in Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County, a body of evidence points to the possible correlation between the drilling technique and health harms, ranging from cancers, respiratory ailments, lower birth weights, and cardiovascular disease.” Our politicians evade the issue because there is a
Those dismissing the environmental impacts of fossil energy want us to ignore the enormous future costs. We must not burn fossil fuels because the damage they cause will show up decades later. This video shows visual simulations of the future flooding caused by sea level rise. Places my grandchildren are living now will not be
As we reel from the ravages of two major hurricanes, and anticipate more and worse, there are still those among us who disbelieve the dire warnings of science. Will we learn to “keep it in the ground” soon enough to save our children?
Here’s the CBS News explanation of why the issue is controversial. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/why-fracking-is-a-major-issue-for-securing-pennsylvania-voters
Here is CBS News on the pros and cons of fracking and politics. What do you think?