Vermont first state in nation to ban fracking for oil and gas

[Ought Six]

http://vtdigger.org/2012/05/04/vermo...r-oil-and-gas/

[linttrap]

Others will follow.

[Ought Six]

If they did, it would be the end for America. The cost of energy would push our fragile economy over the edge rather quickly. Fortunately, sanity and reality will overrule brainless knee-jerk environmentalism, and leave us with a fighting chance.

[Twoolf]

Good for them. The promise of cheap energy is wonderful, but not at the expense of rendering areas uninhabitable. Plus, no one knows what the long term geological effects of fracking will be.

[dharma]

Good point. There have been a million or so fracks done in Texas and Oklahoma, and look what vast wastelands they've become. It's way too early to determine whether fracking is safe or not.

[Brihard]

Good news for Montana, North Dakota, Alberta and Saskatchewan...

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by Twoolf

.... rendering areas uninhabitable.

What are you smokin', dude?

[dharma]

He's understandably worried. Fracking is associated with some very nasty potential environmental effects, as a recent German documentary clearly, uh, documented.

[Twoolf]

Take your pick

https://www.google.com/search?source...ts+of+fracking

[Ought Six]

I looked into it pretty thoroughly. There used to be problems with the illegal or improperly managed dumping of used fracking fluids into pits. States have cracked down and put a stop to that. But there has never been a documented case *ever* of deep fracking itself causing aquifer or any other kind of pollution. There are rare cases where a well casing failure caused leaks, but that can happen with virtually any kind of oil or gas well. The 'uninhabitable areas from fracking' claim is simply false. There are tens of thousands of active fracking wells, and no such thing has ever occurred.

[dharma]

Originally Posted by Twoolf

Take your pick

I appreciate the demonstration of fracking opponents' typical command of the subject. Brilliantly fact-free, per usual.

[Twoolf]

Originally Posted by dharma

I appreciate the demonstration of fracking opponents' typical command of the subject. Brilliantly fact-free, per usual.

Well, I guess thats one way of looking at it if you like to be able to set your water on fire and have your livestock drop dead.

[Ought Six]

Originally Posted by Twoolf

Well, I guess thats one way of looking at it if you like to be able to set your water on fire and have your livestock drop dead.

Sounds like you watched 'Gasland'. If so, be aware that almost everything on that 'documentary' has been debunked.

[linttrap]

I'm guessing the people that are actually experiencing water that catches fire might disagree with the "objective" research proving that they are wrong and must be hallucinating.

No research supporting the goals of any greedy industry.....pharmacy, oil, nuclear, gmo pushers like Monsanto....has any validity at all. Over and over the money has been too much for the scientists to resist.

I will believe what people say who live next to an area being fracked.

And I also don't believe anything that the gov regulatory agencies say about it---the FDA, the FAA, Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Agriculture....they stopped representing the people decades ago.

We are on our own out here and when in doubt? Don't be. You are getting fracked.

[Ought Six]

http://www.energyindepth.org/debunking-gasland/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...932810874.html

[linttrap]

Not everyone believes those are facts. Much as their facts on Fukushima are not facts.

Germany doesn't like those facts either.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-831764.html

[dharma]

Originally Posted by linttrap

I'm guessing the people that are actually experiencing water that catches fire might disagree with the "objective" research proving that they are wrong and must be hallucinating. ... I will believe what people say who live next to an area being fracked.

McAleer said he was inspired to make “FrackNation” after he had an exchange at a question-and-answer session with “Gasland” director Josh Fox over that film’s notorious scene showing residents lighting their water coming from their faucet on fire.

“He admitted that people could light the tap water decades before fracking ever started,” McAleer said in a phone interview. “But he decided not to include it in the documentary because, quote, ‘It wasn’t relevant.’”

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/02/10/n...e-of-fracking/

The whole thing has already been debunked extensively on this forum.

http://thisbluemarble.com/showthread.php?t=43458

But, you have the same cavalier attitude toward research that you do toward facts. Expert opinion? "I just don't believe it! They're all lying to me!" I think I described you well in a post I made earlier today: "the person who is blindly in love with a position [s]he can't defend, won't explain, doesn't understand, and will never change."

[linttrap]

And you are so touchingly trusting to believe them. Might there be some monetary incentive on your part?

[dharma]

Are you familiar with the phrase "ad hominem"? Actually, I'm betting you're not, but Wikipedia is always available.

[Ross]

Vermont first state in nation to ban fracking for oil and gas

I think this is a very very disturbing development .

A classic and very persuasive argument used by the Dark Greens is that
other jurisdictions have acted . The accusation being that your state or
country is backward , ignorant and must do something equally foolish
to prove how concerned for the environment they are . Thus a chain
reaction evolves .



.

[Ross]

Linttrap

Given that cheap energy is absolutely vital to every aspect of our lives
it seems to me that those who wish to deprive society of
cheap energy must accept the need to provide an extraordinarily high
level of proof to support their arguments.

It is a situation where 'I believe ' , ' I trust ' , ' I hate ' are completely
inadequate .

THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS RIGHTFULLY ON YOU and not on Dharma .

[Exodia]

No research supporting the goals of any greedy industry.....pharmacy, oil, nuclear, gmo pushers like Monsanto....has any validity at all.

And which are the non-greedy industries?? So research going on by companies like GE, Siemens, Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc has no validity?

[sandyd]

I'm not sure there is a way to trust either side all the way.

I'll say fracking makes me uncomfortable and so does nuclear energy. But I don't have kids and it it kills yours or your grandkids live only to 30, it won't affect any of mine, so if people want those risks, I won't fight too hard just cuz I'm uncomfortable.

If I had kids, I might. Sometimes it really is better to be safe than sorry

[Ross]

Is the US doing so well that it can afford to surrender 117K jobs ?

What standard and quantity of evidence do you need to deprive 117K people and their families of an income ?

I say a very very high standard indeed .

Booming Eagle Ford Shale: 47k "Shale-Ready Jobs" and $25 Billion in Economic Development in 2011

The Eagle Ford Shale in Texas is the "economic opportunity of a lifetime" and will potentially create 117,000 "shale-ready" full-time jobs by 2021.

http://ccbr.iedtexas.org/index.php/L...ord-shale.html


And for those who are concerned about pollution we have a chart showing
how Natural Gas is starting to shut down coal fired power plants . Surely you approve of that ?



.

[Curious]

Fracking so that we can utilize natural gas for making electricity is less dangerous than making electricity via Nulear Power Plants, particularly if one factors in the ever growing "nuclear waste" issue and how in the heck are we going to store that waste for the next few hundred/ thousand years.

Without fracking, so natural gas production is available as a fuel for our new required power plants, the US is going to be forced to either start building a LOT of new coal power plants or a fair number of new nuclear power plants, in addition to greatly extending the lives of the currently operating nuclear plants.

In my state there have now been a fair number of fracked wells and the few problems have been geographically very limited (immediate well vicinity) and mostly caused by well casing issues, not the fracking itself. (if one visits old coal strip mine locations, which polluted EVERYTHING nearby, one quickly realized that the few problems that have arisen from fracking are very very minor compared to coal strip mine problems).

Curious