what the frack?

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)



Obesity. The BP oil spill. Environmental degradation. Food poisoning, especially from E.coli O157:H7. It's all connected, across multiple networks of industry, lobbyists, political and parochial interests, and markets. But this post is just about one such connection, a lesser discussed link between so-called "natural gas" and degradation of water used for agriculture and human consumption.

An increasingly popular and reckless gas and oil drilling technique, known as "hydraulic fracking" (for non-BSG fans, click here for why the term is both hilarious and appropriate) has led to the quarantine of cattle in Pennsylvania, due to wastewater leakage. Fracking introduces pollutants such as benzene into our food system. Benzene exposure can lead to anemia, cancer, and death.

ProPublica has been doing great investigative journalism on fracking, and a new HBO film, Gasland, also exposes the practice.

Trailer

The Nation also published an expose on fracking last month, beginning with this sharp observation:

In recent years, a broad coalition of energy analysts and government officials have embraced domestic natural gas as a promising "bridge fuel" that could help smooth the transition from more carbon-intensive fossil fuels like oil and coal to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. The catch, though, is that the natural gas industry shares the same history as other energy industries operating in the United States. A string of recent disasters—including the TVA coal ash spill, the Massey coal mine explosion and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill—have demonstrated all too vividly that failure to regulate and oversee resource extraction can lead to catastrophe.

The most important piece of the observation is that, despite the green-washing campaign of the natural gas industry, it is still a fossil fuel. Even though sold as a "bridge fuel," it is not substantially different from oil and coal in terms of the need to engage in extraction methods that are hazardous to our water, air, and food. And while it "burns cleaner" in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide and other pollutants given off relative to energy produced, it is at the end of the day a major producer of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Moreover, natural gas itself, primarily methane, is dramatically more harmful than CO2 as a greenhouse gas if leaked directly into the atmosphere.

Call it "natural" gas and "hydraulic fracturing," but it is still tearing up the soil and earth relied on for farming/drinking/living to get to polluting and unsustainable fossil fuels. Not all that different from deepwater drilling, even if going by another name.