“Land Men” seek to get the rights to frack by signing land owners up. It seems like easy money, but the deal’s fine print and the process’s environmental effects can be devastating to locals.
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Lest We Be Complacent
As I’ve observed many times, nothing good comes to locals from fracking.
Ranchers reported abandoned oil wells spewing wastewater. A new study blames fracking. • Louisiana IlluminatorFracking wastewater, injected underground for permanent disposal, traveled 12 miles through geological faults before bursting to the surface.Keep it in the ground. Make energy profiteers pay for the damage.
Vicious Cycle
One possible consequence of methane release is a persistent blanket of it that accelerates global warming and grows worse as methane trapped in permafrost and ice is released. The sea is already “boiling” with methane off the coast of Russia.
Natural Gas Health Risks
Personally, I liked cooking with natural gas or propane. The instant response of the burner to my adjustments was easier to manage than the electric with its minutes of lag. However, a growing body of research is pointing to health problems with asthma caused by gas. So much of the world’s lethargic response to the dangers of dependence on fossil fuels is because we can’t immediately see the harm. We love the convenience and it’s cheap. But the insidious long term effects are costly in dollars and human suffering.
PSE Healthy Energy – Nitrogen Dioxide Exposure and Impacts from Gas StovesThis peer-reviewed study, published in Science Advances, is the first to quantify the link between stoves and asthma due to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposures in the home.Leave it in the ground.
Fracking Hurts Locals
Sara Rasmussen of Johns Hopkins reviews the science that establishes the harm that Fracking does to its neighbors. There is no free lunch- “mailbox money” comes with ruinous health consequences and impacts on quality of life. We need not mention that fossil fuels threaten life as we now know it and possibly the survival of large swaths of humanity. Those who make money in this dirty business work to suppress and discredit this sort of information.
Let’s keep the fossil fuels in the ground.
Reminder
Lest we become inured to the dangers we face …
Climate change quick facts:
• The Earth is now about 1.2 C warmer than it was in the 1800s.
(Source: United Nations IPCC, World Meteorological Organization, UNEP, NASA, climatedata.ca)
• 2023 was hottest on record globally, beating the last record in 2016.
• Human activities have raised atmospheric concentrations of CO2 by nearly 49 per cent above pre-industrial levels starting in 1850.
• The world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target to keep global temperature from exceeding 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels, the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change including sea level rise, and more intense drought, heat waves and wildfires.
• On the current path of carbon dioxide emissions, the temperature could increase by as much as 4.4 C by the end of the century.
• In April, 2022 greenhouse gas concentrations reached record new highs and show no sign of slowing.
• Emissions must drop 7.6 per cent per year from 2020 to 2030 to keep temperatures from exceeding 1.5 C and 2.7 per cent per year to stay below 2 C.
• 97 per cent of climate scientists agree that the climate is warming and that human beings are the cause.Yet Another Pollution Incident Denied
(The accused says it wasn’t them, the politician says it’s premature to fix blame, the EPA says fracking is the likely source — the familiar dodge. Meanwhile, the victims must tough it out. Fracking does nothing good for locals. Moreover, the gas they want to sell is speeding us all toward more climate disasters.
Radium from Marcellus Shale
Studies of mussels downstream of a fracking water treatment facility found them to have radium which was likely from the produced water of fracked wells. “[The researcher explained] that other types of wastewater generally do not contain many radioactive particles, but oil and gas wastewaters found deep in the earth and brought out by fracking often contain specific unique element ratios—a kind of signature that can be traced. The unique ratios of radioactive elements allowed the team to identify that the source of the contaminants is likely the treated Marcellus Shale wastewater.”
Mussels downstream of wastewater treatment plant contain radium, study reportsBurrowed into streambeds and rarely moving for their decades-long lifespans, freshwater mussels are biomonitors, meaning they indicate how clean their environment is, according to Penn State researchers. As the bivalves feed on organic matter and filter the water around them, their inner tissues and hard shells begin to reflect whatever is in their environment—including radioactive particles.The evidence keeps piling up. The harmful effects and risks of fracking are serious, and the benefits to society are next to nil. We know we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground, but the energy industry seeks to obscure and marginalize the risks. Moreover, it has a poor record of doing the right thing to mitigate the damage it causes.
