The Capitalist Criminality of (Un)Natural Fracked Gas
https://socialistaction.org/2021/03/18/the-capitalist-criminality-of-unnatural-fracked-gas/
March 18, 2021
By James Fortin
Slick salespeople and evil doers know that if you keep uttering the same
lie that eventually enough people will believe it. So it is with the
statement that the use of natural gas is a bridge to a clean, renewable
energy future.
Exxon Mobil, fifty years ago, was the first to obscure and lie about the
dangers that fossil fuels pose to the climate. But such criminal
“traditions” carries on to this day. Pittsburgh EQT, the largest
supplier of U.S. gas, pumping about 4 billion cubic feet a day, says on
its website as of this writing: “Clean burning natural gas is an
important part of our country’s energy mix, and we are proud to be a
major producer of natural gas and even prouder to produce it in an
environmentally responsible manner.” Whatever the claim, the record on
natural gas says otherwise, overwhelmingly.
Fracking becomes acceptable, even blessed
In a 2010 study conducted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology
economists predicted that the rapidly expanding domestic natural gas
market – successful due to the new science of hydraulic fracturing –
would produce a source of energy that quickly diminished the use of
coal-fired power plants because it was cheaper. That it did. They warned
that the cheaper-than-coal fossil fuel natural gas had the potential to
push aside investments in developing renewable energy such as solar and
wind, as well as carbon capture and storage. That it did as well. It
also was the beginning of the notion of a “transition” fossil fuel.
The giddiness over natural gas by some was evident. Ray Orbach, a former
director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy opined at
the time that the economic advantage of natural gas was “a very healthy
competition” and “a blessing” since it would drive out coal, the most
polluting source of greenhouse gases.
Come along Barak Obama, several year later, natural gas was anointed as
“the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon
pollution that causes climate change.” Fracking spread widely across the
country mostly unopposed with the holy grail of a “bridge” in reality
becoming a defensive wall employed by the fossil fuel industry ever
since. The emerging dominance of natural gas over coal also had another
effect – creation of gas-related infrastructure to include pipelines,
power plants, and home heating appliances. That effectively locked
natural gas into the energy system for decades. After all, who among us
needed to worry about emissions any longer as there now was a plan on
getting us to a carbon-free world.
It was the lower cost of natural gas that retired dirty coal from power
generation, not lofty stated principles or aspirations of the fossil
fuel industry. But with fracking as the method to extract gas from
bedrock, came an avalanche of dangerous, anti-climate consequences. And
now with renewable solar and wind power producing cheaper electricity
than gas, the shoe has been placed on the other foot, and the fracked
gas operatives are denying and stalling.
The destructive health impact of fracking
Although the precise number is difficult to pin down, there are
estimated to be more than 1.1 million unconventionally drilled (aka
fracked) oil and gas wells in the U.S. As the number has grown, so have
the health and environmental effects. None are good.
Fracking operators have avoided disclosure of the chemicals used in
their extraction process. Numerous studies though have confirmed
evidence of cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene, toluene,
ethylbenzene, and xylene contaminating groundwater in the area of the
wells, and populations in the vicinity of wells experiencing
disproportionate occurrences of respiratory, nervous, and immune system
problems. A wide assortment of lesser impacts such as headaches, eye
irritation, and dizziness have been found as well.
In one Texas location a study performed between 2012 and 2015
demonstrated that babies born to mothers who lived within 5 miles of
natural gas flaring during that time frame were 50 percent more likely
to be premature. In other areas excessive nausea, fatigue and cancer
have been attributed to exposure to radioactive materials extracted from
the fracked bedrock together with the natural gas.
In another location the fossil fuel industry has made Washington County
of southwestern Pennsylvania the mother lode of that state’s fracked
gas. Living in the county that has 1600 fracked wells and surrounded by
a half dozen nearby, the members of the Bower-Bjornson family living
there also have experienced what many others in their community have
suffered.
In reporting by Environmental Health News during the summer of 2019 one
of the family’s children, a 13-year-old boy, was found to have eleven
chemicals in his urine known to cause respiratory and gastrointestinal
ailments as well as organ damage, reproductive problems, and increased
cancer risk. The very same chemicals are common to gasoline, pesticides,
industrial solvents, glue, varnishes, industrial waste, and tobacco
smoke – a deadly elixir also prevalent in emissions from fracked wells.
The Union of Concerned Scientist published an exhaustive 475-page
summary in 2020 of over 1500 scientific studies regarding the risks and
harms of fracking. Among its main conclusions the report stated that
“the vast body of scientific studies now published on hydraulic
fracturing… confirms that the climate and public health risks from
fracking are real and the range of environmental harms wide. Our
examination uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a
manner that does not threaten human health directly and without
imperiling climate stability upon which public health depends.”
Our environment is being fracked, too
The attack on public health is part and parcel of the assault on the
environment. With the development of fracking technology came the
exploitation of shale geological formations where 75 percent of U.S. gas
now originates, now found throughout the continental U.S. A poisonous
mix of patently secret chemicals and massive amounts of water, under
enormous pressure, are blasted into the fissures created thousands of
feet below the surface. The deadly concoction – presently with each well
consuming over 14.3 million gallons of water on average – is pumped out
and stored for treatment and further use. The fracked gas now being
produced releases into the atmosphere carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide,
carbon monoxide and methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than
carbon dioxide, alone. Side effects (have that read “cost of doing
business”) include earthquakes, billions of gallons of water poisoned
beyond repair, and despoilment of grasslands and forest.
In the same vein as the travails experienced by the Bower-Bjornson
family are the disturbed lives of those in the household of Bryan
Latkanich, also from Washington County. Having leased his farm in 2010
to fracking, Latkanich ended up with 2 wells 400 feet from his home.
Over the course of 10 years his well became contaminated, the foundation
of his home was damaged, drilling wastewater was secretly and illegally
dumped on his land, and his 2-year-old son experienced a host of
abnormal health symptoms. Of course, Chevron Oil, the well operator,
denied all responsibility for his problems. And to be expected, state
agencies have been ineffectual in providing any recourse or solutions.
Bryan Latkanich summed it up. “I was a total cheerleader for this
industry at the beginning…Now I just want to make sure no one else makes
the same mistake I did. This has ruined my health and my kid’s health
and destroyed my farm. It has ruined my life.” Everywhere natural gas
goes so do poisonous water, polluted air, and contaminated soils.
To state that fracking is an environmental nightmare is grossly
inadequate. The Union of Concerned Scientists study concluded: “The
rapidly expanding body of evidence compiled here is massive, troubling,
and cries out for decisive action. Across a wide range of parameters,
the data continue to reveal a plethora of recurring problems that cannot
be sufficiently averted through regulatory frameworks. The risks and
harms of fracking are inherent to its operation. The only method of
mitigating its grave threats to public health and the climate is a
complete and comprehensive ban on fracking. Indeed, a fracking phase-out
is a requirement of any meaningful plan to prevent catastrophic climate
change.”
Unlike Pittsburgh’s EQT quoted above, Exxon Mobil, the second-largest
U.S. producer of natural gas with a history of hiding the effects of
fossil fuels on climate change, has refrained from offering glowing
comments about its fracked gas production. Instead, it simply wants to
stall. The CEO of Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, earlier this month stated
his company at most would “try” to set a net-zero carbon emissions goal
but not just yet. “We are supportive of that ambition and our goal is to
help society to achieve it…It’s an evolving conversation that I find
very helpful to think through what needs to happen.” More double talk
while the methane gas continues to flare.
Peter Krull, the CEO of investment firm specializing in sustainability,
commented: “Woods and Exxon Mobile continue to live in a fairy-tale
world of inaction while California burns and Texas freezes.” Spending
serious dollars to fight climate change is not in Exxon’s budget.
Spending $19 billion in 2021 for fossil fuel exploration is, however.
Opposition to fracking grows but needs to go further
Welcomingly, there is growing opposition to fossil fuel expansion by the
public as well as climate activists. While mouthpieces for the fracked
gas industry will continue to spread denial about their product’s
dangers, ever fewer are believing their lies. In 2020 major fossil fuel
pipeline projects to fold in the face of massive opposition included the
Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines in the Midwest as well as
the West Virginia Atlantic Coast gas pipeline. Just this past month, in
small-town Belfast, Maine, climate activists mobilized to stop a
40-mile-long expansion of a fracked gas pipeline. Using petitions, mass
attendance at city council meetings, and planning for future
demonstrations and civil disobedience, the climate groups successfully
mobilized public opposition that led Summit Natural Gas to scrap its $90
million project. Lamenting its defeat the gas company offered a bit of
truth: “Our project is not alone in its inability to move forward.”
The fossil fuel despoilers are doing only what the capitalist system
demands of them – make a profit — notwithstanding their high and mighty
comments about how we are all in this together. The negative societal
consequences of their businesses are just collateral damage. Big Oil &
Gas has known about greenhouse gas emissions and their impact for half a
century, just as the tobacco industry knew their products caused lung
cancer, just as the Sackler family knew that their pain pills caused
opioid addiction, just as the plastics industry knows that plastics kill
ocean life. They don’t care; they’re making money.
The American people oppose fracked gas. Only 38% support more hydraulic
fracturing for oil and natural gas, whereas 77% of Americans agree that
wind, solar and hydrogen development is more important than expanded
production of US fossil fuels. Results of a national poll conducted by
the Pew Research Center published in Nov. 2019 showed 67% of adults
think the federal government is doing too little to reduce the effects
of global climate change. Yet, the industry is lightly regulated at the
state level and has remained virtually untouched by the federal
government, whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats. It was,
after all, Presidential candidate Joe Biden who vigorously proclaimed
and who will forever be remembered as uttering the words, “I never said
I opposed fracking.”
Capitalist enterprise with its profit motive has forever privatized the
gain and socialized the pain. Such formulas are in the bloodstream of
the ruling 1%. They cannot put themselves out of business which exactly
is the antidote needed to avoid the pending climate catastrophe and a
host of other calamities. That is where socialism comes in and that is
why working people need to do it for them.
Socialist Action News
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--
Charles Bukowski “For those who believe in God, most of the big
questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the
God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to
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and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ―
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