Paul Driessen in a recent article he had at Townhall.com on September 21, 2014 tries to argue that the extraction of oil and natural gas via fracking is an incredibly worthwhile and safe activity. There are numerous flaws in his argument, but the biggest one is that he denies that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the earth and that they will lead to dangerous problems.
He dismisses catastrophic climate change as a “phony crisis.” Unfortunately, he could not be more wrong. The earth is still heating up, even when compared to the hot year of 1998, which is the cherry-picked year deniers like to start from to make their claim that there has been a pause in warming. Yet there are clear signs of heating in the oceans, which means there is more heat available for the long term. There is also the problem of continuing emission of CO2 that keep raising the concentration of that gas in the air. And as reported by the NOAA reported on October 21, 2014, the previous 12 months were the hottest twelve-month period since records began being kept in 1880 (http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/21/3581943/hottest-12-months-on-record).
Just to be absolutely clear, with the obvious continuation in global warming, there is no excuse to promote fossil fuels, no matter how much money can be made from them. The consequences are dire for our children and grandchildren.
His claims of the safety of fracking are also bogus. He conveniently fails to mention the earthquakes being caused by fracking. He tries to downplay the dangers of fracking by claiming that with proper enforcement of the safest procedures there would be few problems. Unfortunately, American industry has a sordid history of cutting corners to increase their profits. Just look at the disaster caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. Though Driessen claims that using proper procedures to build and install the wells for the fracking can make it safe, in fact inevitably there will be deterioration of these and the result will be the poisoning of our water supply. As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/15/drinking-water-contaminated-by-shale-gas-boom-in-texas-and-pennslyvania-study), such poisoning has already happened in Texas and Pennsylvania. There are also the dangers from the fracking water itself, which is often not disposed of properly. As reported at, The California State Water Resources Board has confirmed to the EPA that at least nine fracking sites were dumping their waste water into aquifers, polluting them with the fracking chemicals and other pollutants. (http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/10/07/central-california-aquifers-contaminated-billions-gallons-fracking-wastewater)
Driessen also tries to claim that people fight fracking out of money. He cites the 13.4 billion dollars that supposedly goes to environmental activism each year. Of course, when you spread that money among all the different environmental causes, it’s only a drop in the bucket. He also makes a series of mostly laughable claims about environmentalists’ motives: that they want to “eliminate fossil fuels, gain ever greater control over our lives, reduce our living standards, and end free-enterprise capitalism.” Environmentalists do want to reduce or eliminate fossil fuels, but for the good reason that the continued emission of CO2 will be harmful. The idea that environmentalists want “ever greater control” is especially inane—as if environmentalists have much control currently. Environmentalists want reasonable regulations so humans don’t poison the earth. If business and government worked together for the health of the planet, there would in fact be no reason for lower living standards. Environmental regulations are hardly the cause of low living standards around the world. That can be blamed on overpopulation and overuse of local resources, not to mention a lot of military violence, government corruption, and corporate greed.
In sum, Driessen tries to pull the wool over his readers’ eyes by ignoring the real problems in the world and painting a falsely rosy picture of the future. Unfortunately, many readers are all too gullible. They want to believe that the future will be safe and prosperous. Yet such a belief guarantees it won’t happen.
