Forum Post: Tell Them to Go Frack Themselves
Posted 12 years ago on March 31, 2012, 3:47 p.m. EST by sophiaomni
(289)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
During the next few months New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will be making a decision about allowing hydraulic fracking in the state. After mountaintop removal, this is perhaps one of the most destructive and dangerous practices currently being allowed in our country.
I feel so strongly about this issue that I’ve written a piece about it to try to spread the word about just how horrible a practice this is. If you care about this issue, please read the piece and get involved:
http://ecophany.blogspot.com/2012/03/banning-fracking.html
Or, if you are already up on the issue, just skip the article and fill out the Working Families Party petition to Governor Cuomo, urging him to ban fracking in New York State. It will only take a minute of your time, but it could mean of world of difference for the health of New York State:
http://action.workingfamiliesparty.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5781
This is one concrete way that those of us in the Occupy Wall Street Movement can make a difference in the lives of ordinary people who may soon be at the mercy of the insatiably greedy gas industry. If ever there was a moral evil, this sort of environmentally destructive practice is it!
I don't live in New York State, but I agree that this practice is indeed a moral evil. It's just another way that corporations can rape the environment for their own profit.
Actually this should be an issue that conservatives and progressive should be able to unite upon. Conservatives, after all, believe that one of the only roles that government has to play is to prevent us from harming one another. Well, everything I've read about the practice of fracking clearly indicates that it causes real harm to those who live in the vacinity of the fracking sites. So conservatives should be just as opposed to the practice as liberals.
You are right. Conservatives should be sympathetic, but as you can see from the above comments, they really aren't.
Great post and excellent, informative article. Thanks for shedding light on this important issue.
And thank you for being supportive. I really am committed to doing something about this issue.
That is really great! Keep up the good work. People before money!
Vermont banned fracking.
New petition on Sierra Club site.
Everyone should see GASLAND.
Hi sophi, Thank you for post and links. Please see post: HR1084---A Fracking Issue
I'm very glad that there are other people on this site who think that this is an important issue too!
Hi sophi, It is all about getting the truth out there. Fracking posts always bring out the trolls, which validates our cause as just. Trolls are here to disrupt, and are not worth a second of our time. Just keep posting the truth.
If fracking was safe, then frackers should not have a problem with again being under regulation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
As for low cost and available energy for Americans, keep in mind that the frackers are preparing to sell the gas overseas.
Frackers are afraid of the truth. Best Regards
I honestly don't know whether these trolls really believe the shit they have been spouting or whether they just reflexively hate every position a progressive takes.
Hi sophia, Some trolls are paid. Saw an article recently (will search for link) about fracking companies hiring ex-military psychological warfare types, to deal with the public. Some are just troubled people, looking for some attention.
Fracking, XL pipeline and 9/11 posts get many trolls.
Regarding this--------Troll me, and I will post more. Threaten me, and I will post even more.
Best Regards, Nevada
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/11/2773071/france-frack-ban/
Its final in France. 100% NO FRACKING.
Here, not so much.
I just spoke to Daniel Yergin last week on this issue. He is on the President's energy committee and he said there is absolutely no proof that fracking causes any environmental damage.
The benefits are huge as we will be energy independent for at least 100 years. And this all came from the efforts of one man going against the dictates of the energy department
I think that there is considerable evidence that there are real dangers associated with this practice. All you need to do is read some of the new reports from communities where fracking has been going on to realize that the propaganda from the gas industry that there are absolutely no dangers associated with fracking is pure bullshit:
http://nofracking.com/#regional
If you really want the country to be energy independent, then the best way to achieve that is to support renewable (Green) energy.
I don't think you first comment is true as the President's commission is not associated with the gas industry.
This is a huge huge development that has only occurred over the past 6-7 years and one person, Tom Mitchell, is responsible. The price of both natural gas and oil will drop sharply and we are becoming a energy exporter again. Renewables are a long way off.
You are assuming that the current administration is not as beholden to special interests (i.e., the gas and oil industry) as every other administration has been. If you were to admit that there were at least SOME potential risks involved in fracking, but they are worth the potential benefits (i.e., greater energy independence), you might be able to make a case to some people. But the idea that there are NO risks associated with this practice, when in fact we have much evidence to the contrary, strikes me as being extremely dubious.
And I think that renewable are a long way off because we haven't been investing very much at all in them. The Chinese and the Germans clearly see the potential of these alternative energy sources and they will be leading the world in developing them. We are so enslaved by our fixation on fossil fuels that we have dropped the ball completely when it comes to renewal energy research and development.
Yergin doesn't work for the administration.
With the advent of these new technologies, natural gas is now the equivalent of $25 a barrel oil. This is very significant news and great news for the US. You can already see what is happening in these areas as unemployment is dropping. And the government was against this. It was one person who did this against the government's wishes.
Yergin is not an environmental scientist. He is a conservative economist, writer, and businessman who works for Fox and the Wall Street Journal.
He is the Co-founder of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. CERA is a consulting company in the United States that specializes in advising governments and private companies on energy markets, geopolitics, industry trends, and strategy. Some of the company's largest clients include international energy companies, utilities, technology companies, and financial institutions.
The claim that he is not associated with the gas industry is a falsehood.
He won a Pulitzer, does not work for Fox and WSJ and has a stellar background. He works for your man Obama and actually earned his way into school.
Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, is a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and leading authority on energy, international politics and economics and is a recipient of the United States Energy Award for “lifelong achievements in energy and the promotion of international understanding.”
His latest book The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, has been hailed as “a fascinating saga” about the “quest for sustainable resources of energy” and “the book you must read to understand the future of our economy and our way of life.”
The Quest is the follow-up to Dr. Yergin’s previous book, The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil Money and Power, which received the Pulitzer Prize and became a number one New York Times best seller that has been translated into 17 languages.
Other significant works by Dr. Yergin include Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy; Russia 2010; Energy Future; and Shattered Peace. Dr. Yergin has also written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, International Herald Tribune, and many other publications. He is also CNBC’s Global Energy Expert.
Both The Prize and Commanding Heights were made into award winning documentaries. The eight-hour miniseries The Prize was aired on PBS, BBC, and NHK and viewed by 20 million viewers in the United States alone. The 6-hour documentary of, Commanding Heights that Dr. Yergin produced received three Emmy nominations, the CINE Golden Eagle award, and the New York Festivals Gold World Medal for best documentary.
Dr. Yergin serves on the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and chaired the U.S. Department of Energy’s Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. He is a Trustee of the Brookings Institution, on the Board of the New America Foundation, and on the advisory boards of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative and the Institute for 21st Century Energy.
Dr. Yergin holds a BA from Yale University, where he founded The New Journal, and a PhD from Cambridge University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He has taught at the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
His Pulitzers are for a variety of issues, but environmental concerns are not among them. He is an industry-friendly economist, not an environmentalist. He is also a shill for the energy industry and the banking industry, both of whom he represents as an undeclared (a la Newt) lobbyist when dealing with the government. And he DOES write for the Wall Street Journal and provides commentary for Fox, both Murdoch organs.
Obama is not "my man". His environmental record has been abysmal. He simply infinitely better than any piece of crap the Repelicans have in the running (or have since Teddy Roosevelt).
A really wonderful response. The pro fracking people are using the oldest fallacy in the world--appeal to illegitimate authority.
He won his pulitzer for an oil book. That's what this issue is about. He sits on the DOE energy board so is very knowledgable about the issue. I know, I can tell from his bio that he is real hack.
Thank goodness the free market is saving us again. All of the government money going into solar, wind and corn subsidies is now worthless.
Yup, for oil, NOT for the environment or toxicity of fracking.
The free market is what crashed the economy, idiot.
Without a move to non-carbon based energy, the planet is doomed to suffer a mass extinction. Hooray free market.
You must love negative attention, posting such idiocy here.
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He sits on your man's energy committee. And you call me an idiot. Did you not graduate from high school, and that is why you have to call people names.
The free market didn't crash the economy. It has brought more people out of poverty than any other program. And it is saving us now.
Yeah, we should listen to some man who has a foul mouth, a sex problem, and is so cowardly that he has to hide behind a ridiculous pseudonym to tell us about the future of the earth. Yeah, you are much more knowledgeable than Dan Yergin.
My man? I don't own anyone.
And you have spouted more inanities than any ten Starsky and Hutch episodes combined.
Ever hear of the board game Monopoly? Ever hear of the Robber Barons? That's the free market, and that stupidity is what you support. The regulation, mitigation, and supplementing of the free market is what produced more wealth for everyone. THe unregulated free market has produced wars, famine, and world-wide poverty while advantaging a select few. If you haven't noticed the unregulated free market has led to fully 50% of the American public living in or near poverty. If you haven't noticed, 1% of the population owns 43% of the capital. Great fucking system.
Your support the affirmative action president who is learning on the job. Nice comment he made with the open mic the other day. Putin is doubled over laughing.
The rest of the world realizes the benefit of the free market, that's why the trend is going towards it. Just because you believe these ridiculous statement doesn't make it true. You are a bitter old man trying to fight the 60's again and the world has moved past you.
Our poverty rates are high because we are in a recession and your President can't understand why the economy is not responding to his futile attempts to grow it. He is trying everything and the only thing that is working is what Friedman said it would - liquidity in the monetary supply.
But I know you are smarter than Friedman and Yergin. What happened, where did you get fired from that you are so bitter?
"affirmative action president"
There's that famous racism again. I only wonder why it has taken you so long to repeat it again.
Piece of shit.
He obviously doesn't know his constitution as the Supreme Court pointed out this week.
Nice role model, he should be telling his people to take the hoodie off, no tattoos, pull up your pants and stay in school.
I guess that earthquakes aren't a danger, then, because they have been linked to hydraulic fracking:
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-07/europe/30368594_1_shale-gas-fracking-process-tremors
Doesn't everyone love a good earthquake every now and then? They probably have earthquakes all the time in places like Ohio, don't they??? This couldn't possibly have anything to do with fracking, right?
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And all this means that he speaks the gospel when he says that there are absolutely no possible risks involved in fracking? What about all the studies that have been done linking fracking with increased risks of cancer rates, pollution of water supplies, air pollution, not to mention the destruction of pristine nature areas transporting equipment to drilling sites and transporting waste products from them? What about the numerous stories of people living near drilling sites who turn on their taps and have flames come out instead of water? What about the earthquakes recently in Ohio whose epicenter is clustered around a wastewater injection well for a hydraulic fracturing operation?
I guess that all these studies and all these reports by all these people living near fracking sites have been made up just to embarrass poor, amazing Dr. Yergin, who alone knows the real truth about how wonderful and safe fracking is.
Just because a person has a Ph.D doesn't mean that they can't also be a corporate whore. And, if your hero Yergin claims that there can't possible be ANY dangers involved in fracking in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, then he is either a complete boob or a corporate whore.
My money says whore, but I may be wrong and he might simply be a boob.
I love how you have to resort to invectives and name calling. Keep it up people will really listen to your message.
Just yesterday the EPA dropped a claim in Texas regarding the contamination of the water source from fracking. This is the third reversal in three months.
Nice of you to call him a whore and a boob. What does that make you?
I didn't call you a whore or a boob. But someone (Yergin) who, despite evidence to the contrary, maintains the position that fracking is absolutely safe must be either a shill for the gas industry (i.e., a whore) or completely ignorant of the issues (a boob). I suppose that there might be another alternative, but I can't think of one right now.
Just because he disagrees with you makes him neither a whore nor a boob. Looking at his background, he seems pretty qualified.
Nobody cared about fracking for the 60 years it has been used until liberals found out it was going to revolutionize hydrocarbon recovery and provide 100 years of cheap energy.
Now, we can't have easily recovered energy just out there for all to use! The next thing you know we'll see an economic recovery and jobs for the proles and we just can't allow that to happen, stop the economic recovery now! Think of the elite!! How can they be elite if the proles are making money and driving nice cars and living in McMansions!!!
Oh, now I understand. This is just a liberal conspiracy, right? And I suppose all the reports that have been coming out about the dangers of fracking are also part of the same liberal conspiracy.
And I didn't even know I was part of that conspiracy. Thanks for filling me in!
The only impact on peoples lives that your anti-energy activism will accomplish (if successful) is to make energy that much more expensive for the same people you claim to care about.
"Green" is bullshit. You are just a Drone.
The Chinese and the Germans certainly don't think that "green is bullshit." They're investing huge sums of money in alternative energy because they know that it's the future. It's only silly reactionaries who think that the only source of energy comes from fossil fuels.
Not that I'm necessarily calling you a silly reactionary....
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