Tag Archives: Frakking

Occupy Wall Street – On Energy

Woman Dancing on the Bull

Monday, Sept. 17, was the First Anniversary of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests.

The protesters at Occupy are/were demonstrating against the current economic system and to make “Fracking” illegal.  (See “Stop Spectra: Resist Fracking in NYC” or “City Limits, Occupy Wall Street, Opposes Fracking“) Energy Policy and Economics … the intersection of energy and economics in the bio-humanosphere – the memes we knit together at Popular Logistics.

My coverage of Occupy Wall Street started on Sept. 22, 2011, with “Protesting Marked Cards and a Stacked Deck.” Quoting Mr. Buffett’s op-ed in the NY Times, “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” and citing President Obama’s statement about the American Jobs Act, explained on White House . gov and Talking Points Memo, which Senate Republicans subsequently filibustered, I called for repeal of the “Bush Tax Cuts” on the wealthy, and for passage of Obama’s American Jobs, the so-called Buffett Rule.

I concluded,

Tax policy must be linked to fiscal policy. What we are doing today, Obama, Buffett, and the protesters would say, is using tax policy to make rich people more rich…. we should use tax policy to develop infrastructure… to build a 40 kilowatt photovoltaic solar array on each of the 92,000 public schools in the United States…. This would use tax revenues to pay for infrastructure upgrade – and tax revenues pay public schools electric bills. PV Solar systems provide energy without pollution, without toxic wastes, without greenhouse gases. And in the event of an emergency, if disconnected from the grid, we would have a network of 92,000 local emergency shelters with power during the day, when the sun is shining.

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CDC: Health Implications of Hydraulic Fracturing: Unknown

Schematic Drawing of Hydrofracturing

Hydraulic Fracturing 1, Schematic Drawing

The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, on May 3, 2012 issued a brief but unequivocal statement regarding the health implications of hydraulic fracturing here, and reproduced in it’s entirety below.

CDC / ATSDR Hydraulic Fracturing Statement:

CDC and ATSDR do not have enough information to say with certainty whether natural gas extraction and production activities including hydraulic fracturing pose a threat to public health. We believe that further study is warranted to fully understand potential public health impacts.

Image of fire from tap water with various flammable impurities

Frakking 2, Tap Water with Various Impurities

The CDC, in its 47-word statement said, “We don’t know the public health implications of hydraulic fracturing, aka ‘fracking’ or ‘frakking.’ We need to study the issue.” Perhaps the decision makers at the CDC should watch Gasland. But consider the CDC statement on hydraulic fracturing in light of picture 2 and the “Precautionary Principle,”

The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

The Precautionary Principle is described in more detail on Commonweal (here) and Science & Environmental Health Network, SEHN (here).  Burning fuel for heat requires obtaining the fuel and releases various materials into the biosphere. We must understand the consequences and side-effects before we embark on any project. The questions in re hydraulic fracturing are:

  • Are these pictures real or imagined?
  • What are the implications for the water supply and the biosphere?
  • What are the liability insurance requirements? and
  • What are the alternatives?

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