It promises to be an historic and potentially tragic performance when the General Assembly raises the curtain in May with the controversial issue of fracking taking center stage. If lead actors Sen. Rucho and Rep. Hager get their way, the fracking of NC will be a done deal by the time the curtain drops and the lawmakers take their bows this summer. Rep. Mitch Gillespie is committed to the same conclusion to this NC shale play, just on a longer time line. One legislator is willing to delay his gratification, while the other two are hell bent on launching NC down the dangerous and unnecessary road to fracking perdition ASAP. In the upcoming battle of the fracking bills, its Rucho/Hager vs. Gillespie, and no matter which side wins, North Carolina is the loser sooner or later. Here in Chatham on the front lines of the battle, the current BOC majority has taken on the roles of pro fracking supporting actors.
As the political drama unfolds and the tragedy plays out to the cheers and jeers of a house divided, it is time for all citizens to revisit the question: Why are some legislators foisting fracking on NC, and what’s the rush? We have long standing laws against such invasive drilling processes. Why do some lawmakers now want to deep six them? The standard knee jerk, two-word answer to that query by the pro fracking contingent is jobs and revenue. There are other words and phrases that get bandied around like “energy independence, cleaner than coal, cheap fuel, home grown energy source and patriotic.” But those are just fluff and icing. As usual, it all boils down to one thing; the hope for and promise of lucre. Fracking is touted as a “kick-start” to fuel the state’s economic engine and a vehicle to deliver jobs. That was, is and ever shall be the primary rationale for the fracking frenzy on Jones Street.
The real tragedy of the drama in the General Assembly and its potential conclusion lies in its fatal flaw. The rush to frack NC is built on a faulty premise that leads to hollow promises. This makes the move to frack as bogus as the infamous conclusion to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ fracking report stating their opinion that fracking in NC can be done safely if the proper protections are in place. For an informed, insightful and rational analysis of what’s wrong with the pro fracking premises and promises, take a look at what Will Morgan of the NC Sierra Club has to offer by clicking here.
All fanciful wishful thinking aside, given the reality that NC will never profit from pro fracking legislation, this whole NC shale play should remind us of the title of one of Shakespeare’s works: Much Ado About Nothing. The theme of that comedic performance is also one of deception and self-deception. Unfortunately there is no humor to be found in opening a NC shale play, especially for the audience seated in the Chatham and Lee sections of the theater.
Scatter Will Morgan’s seeds of knowledge far and wide through word of mouth, social media, letters and op eds to news media and emails and phone calls to state legislators and the governor (and governor wannabe’s). (See House and Senate and Governor.) Also, check out the Food and Water Watch website. Risking the health and welfare of NC’s citizens, natural resources, infrastructure, climate and culture for a pig in a poke brings no reward (profit) to anyone, while turning NC into a veritable fracking pig sty.
— Gary Simpson
DENR’s Fracking Report a Mystery
Everybody loves a mystery. It is the most popular genre of books checked out from public libraries. Therefore, everyone knows that you never read a mystery by starting at the back of the book. You don’t want to know the ending to the book until … well, until it ends.
On the other hand, hardly anybody loves to read long, technical reports. Take, for example, the draft report on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) recently completed by the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). Nearly everyone wants to cut to the quick and find out how it ends without having to wade through the 400+ pages of technicalities. People are interested in the conclusion. To this end, the 3/16/2012 news release from the DENR’s division of environmental education and public affairs begins where folks want it to … at the end:
Hydraulic fracturing can be done safely in North Carolina as long as the right protections are in place prior to issuance of any permits for the practice, according to a draft report issued today by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
So, although few North Carolinians want to read the DENR report like a mystery (i.e. reading everything before the conclusion), if one were to do so they might well conclude that the report is, indeed, a “mystery” after all. That is, after reading all the “ifs, ands and buts” contained in the report along with the admitted omissions and general lack of significant data, sound research or adequate time to prepare the report (not to mention the pittance of monetary funding and staffing), the real mystery is how the report can offer the conclusion that fracking can be done safely in NC. Honestly, one would expect just the opposite conclusion. Ah, but that’s what makes for a good mystery, doesn’t it? If you could guess the outcome before reaching the conclusion, it wouldn’t be a mystery.
However, the unfortunate truth about the conclusion of the draft report of the fracking study mandated by the controlling party in the General Assembly is that it was actually all too predictable from the get go. All pretense aside, this was an ideologically, politically driven study pushed by a group of legislators more than ready to “carry the water” needed to drill into current state law and enable the oil and gas industry to frack with NC. With the Party’s war on regulation and its sights set on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the Federal level and the DENR on the State level, DENR staffers must surely understand how the fracking mystery (report) is supposed to end.
Still, the heart and soul of the report does present to any who will read it with a critical eye a study that tells a story far different than its prescribed ending. This is, in fact, one of those stories to which the savvy reader can write their own ending based on the sound material presented … or lack thereof. Left to our own conclusions, an informed and educated public can see the folly of declaring NC safe for fracking, given all the contingencies spelled out in the initial draft. NC is in no way prepared to move forward in implementing legislation and regulation to allow fracking. And that is exactly the message that concerned citizens should be sending to the DENR, the General Assembly and the Governor before the final report is due in May. There’s time yet for a new ending.
If we truly want to “get it right” as fracking proponents claim NC can and will (when no other state has), then time is our best friend, not our worst enemy. There’s no mystery to that conclusion.
NC Fracking Study Nears Completion
It is arguably an ill-conceived and poorly timed study on the feasibility of shale gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has the unenviable task of heading the study given too little time and too few funds. The final report is required by May of this year. While input at public hearings has been predominantly unfavorable toward legalization of fracking, no observer following the progress of this process will be surprised if the final report is anything but favorable.
No one in the pro fracking camp wants to appear to have their minds already made up in favor of scrapping current state laws prohibiting horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. But while the perception of prudence (i.e., “We’ll drill, but only if it’s safe”) is the goal of “legislative speak,” there is little evidence to convict the fracking proponents on Jones Street of forethought, caution or objectivity. Indeed, the blatant disregard for decorum by the ruling party, especially in the (mis)conduct of multiple special sessions, reveals an “ends justifies the means” and “winner take all” bravado unmatched by previous legislative bodies. The Speaker of the House has been anything but shy or discreet in proclaiming that he will strike wherever and whenever he has the means to overturn the Governor’s veto of S709 (a.k.a. Drill, Baby, Drill bill). While hyping shale gas as a “bridge fuel toward energy independence,” the majority party continues to dismantle bridges of cooperation that reach across the aisle and build the public trust.
The truth is this fossil fuel energy source touted as being cheap, clean, abundant and made in America for Americans is coming up short on all counts. It turns out that because of the huge amount of gas wells fracked over the past few years, there is a large reserve that has driven down the price of natural gas to all time lows. If you think that’s good news, it’s not. It means drilling companies are now curtailing production in order to raise prices. The only way to be profitable is to ultimately create a global market that inflates the gas balloon. Once American dependence on gas is established, it’s no longer cheap. Here’s more bad news. In the mean time the profitable markets are all foreign. That’s right; Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) burned by the Chinese will ironically be “Made in America.” So much for cheap home grown gas to fuel America’s energy independence. The new “Saudi Arabia of Gas” will be selling it to the highest bidder.
As for clean, research studies are showing what a skeptical public has always realized. You can’t believe what you see on gas industry TV commercials. While natural gas burns cleaner than coal, the large volume of methane that escapes into the air and ground water throughout the extraction, storage and transport process puts it atop the potent polluters list. Could better technology, best management practices and more stringent regulation, monitoring and enforcement lessen the pollution? Most certainly, but it would take a big bite out of industry profits, and for some smaller players signal “game over”. An already under regulated industry (think Halliburton Loophole) continues to balk at increased regulation.
What about abundance? Does a national 100 year supply (40 in NC) of gas sound too good to be true? We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that estimates of supply have been overly optimistic and skewed as well. Take a moment to read at least the Conclusion to this eye opening article in The Oil Drum.
As the study remains on the fast track with the final set of public meetings and input scheduled for March, and as fracking proponents gamble on NC’s energy, economic and environmental future with a pro drilling stacked deck there is good reason to call for caution. All citizens who are concerned about this issue should attend an upcoming meeting and speak up, or send written comments to DENR. Now is also a good time to drop an email or make a phone call to the Speaker of the House encouraging him and his colleagues to slow down. We still have much to learn about how to do it right… or not do it at all. And the gas isn’t going anywhere soon. It can wait, and so can we.
– Gary Simpson
A Well-Informed Public is a Pain in the…Gas
You’ll never find that statement or anything close to it attached to public relations ads and commercials from the natural gas industry. The pharmaceutical industry must be green with envy. It spends half of its TV commercial time disclosing the dangerous and sometimes deadly side effects of the latest wonder drug. Yet, the natural gas industry is given carte blanche to conduct and promote its business as though fracking for shale gas is all sweetness and light with no sour dark side.
In 2011 the industry milked this double standard exemption for all it’s worth with glowing ads/commercials touting natural gas as the panacea to America’s energy needs, economic woes and climate change concerns. This time-consuming and expensive promotional propaganda is fueled not by choice, but by necessity. While many politicians of varying stripes and wide-eyed owners of land covering shale gas have taken the bait hook, line, and sinker, much of the general public won’t touch fracking with a ten-foot pole. What the industry won’t tell us and denies when confronted by reality is, nevertheless, being seen, heard, smelled, tasted and otherwise felt by ever expanding numbers of victims directly affected by fracking’s collateral damage. With their quality of life gone and their survival in jeopardy, they are becoming the warning label that the industry won’t print. (See: http://www.cwfnc.org/water-and-energy/fracking/carol-and-carolyn/.)
While the industry is literally gaining ground in terms of land acquisitions and leases, it continues to lose a ground swell of public support as wary citizens drill down to expose the dirt about fracking’s underbelly and the industry’s general disregard for everything but profit. A November 18, 2011 report from a federal panel on natural gas drilling underlines such public concern in stating that the industry and the government need to do more to address environmental concerns: “Environmental issues need to be addressed now—especially in terms of waste water, air quality, and community impact,” declared subcommittee chair and MIT Professor, John Deutch. One of the more critical and perhaps unexpected conclusions of the report states:
If action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country—perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades—there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences and a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity.
The entire report shows that the panel wants to believe that America’s natural gas resources can be golden and that the industry can be the goose that lays the golden egg. An objective examination of the industry nest, however, reveals what a well informed public already believes. Fracking for natural gas looks and smells like a process producing rotten eggs unfit for public consumption. Such a report should spur the industry on to spend more time and money on cleaning up its act instead of pumping out glossier ad campaigns to polish its image. That would be the proper response. A skeptical public can hope for the best but expect simply more gilding of the lily (or rotten egg in this case). A well-informed public is the industry’s nemesis; a real pain in the gas.
~ Gary Simpson
Hear This: Fracking May Not Bring Economic Rewards After All
“Envirospeak” is a foreign language, unintelligible and despised by most Republican legislators, and some Democrats as well. It is, therefore, ignored by them at best and attacked at worst. Those suspected of speaking it are perceived as “irrational zealots,” “environmental extremists” and no friend of commerce and the economy. It is for this reason that stewards of the earth (and champions of health and wellness) live these days with constant migraines. It comes from beating their heads against a veritable brick political wall when seeking in vain to shed light on the negative environmental and health impacts of certain practices…like fracking for shale gas for instance.
To gain the attention and capture the ear of such legislators, one must learn to converse in their native tongue…“Econospeak.” Because their sun rises and sets on the ringing of the bell on Wall St., at the end of the day everything is about the economy. It’s all about money…making it, holding it and making more of it in a business friendly unfettered market. That’s why an article in Energy Policy Forum describing a “fatal flaw” in an IHS Global Insight report is critical for fracking skeptics to read and share with their Econospeaking legislators and neighbors.
The article exposes a very likely false economic assumption that drives the push for shale gas extraction as a cheap, home grown, for domestic consumption only alternative fuel. WHAT IF natural gas prices skyrocket, fueled by the global export of this homegrown commodity? Suddenly the rosy picture wilts as global economics dictates the game. The warning of the article should cause fracking fans to swallow hard before placing their economic eggs in this fragile basket:
To predicate our own national energy policy on unconventional gas when the track record has yet to be known fully could prove a very risky bet. To assume low gas prices at consistently depressed levels over the next 25 years is naive to the extreme. Without exception and by IHS’s own admission, every benefit claimed in this report drops by the wayside if gas prices rise. And such benefits will plunge from a cliff should exports ramp up prices considerably.
Read the article, as well as those that follow it. Then use your Econospeak voice to spread the word that the natural gas goose will more likely be laying rotten eggs rather than golden if allowed to nest in NC.
The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow… Or Soon Thereafter
Cross your fingers and toes (if that is your style). Trust and pray (if that is your persuasion). Whatever the method, let’s all hope that Paul Krugman in his recent NY Times op-ed column isn’t just seeing sun spots when he peers into his crystal ball and observes the dawning of a new energy era:
“The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago. But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power. If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives.”
On a planet dominated by fossil fuels and in a world society ruled by fossil fools, solar energy has been eclipsed by a “business as usual” mentality and mantra that has effectively pulled the shade on this most promising form of alternative energy. But as the cosmos shifts and the sun rises anew on countries around the globe, some folks are beginning to see the light. It’s not primarily an enlightenment based on moral, spiritual or philosophical truths and ideals, but rather on the realities of the almighty economy. In a “show me the money,” topsy-turvy world where economic concerns trump those of environment and ecology every time “the rapidly falling cost of solar power” can be a game changer. That’s the hope.
It may not be tomorrow morning. But I’ve got my fingers and toes crossed, and I’m a hoping’ and a prayin’ that before my last sunset I’ll see solar arrays eclipsing drilling rigs, mine shafts, smokestacks, dynamite sticks and uranium rods. It will take a cosmic shift, a paradigm shift in human nature as we know it to save us from ourselves and preserve a semblance of life on earth as we have come to know it. Putting the world right side up is a lifetime mission with a here and now urgency. The emergence of cheaper photovoltaics is a ray of hope filtering through a smokescreen created by a behemoth fossil fuel industry more interested in preserving the past and living for the moment than in creating a future with any hope of sustaining a reasonable quality of life for all.
Cross your fingers. Fold your hands. Here comes the sun… we hope.
~ Gary Simpson
For the entire Krugman op-ed that also addresses the follies of fracking, follow this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/opinion/krugman-here-comes-solar-energy.html?_r=3&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y
And for some local hopeful sunshine, follow this link:
http://theabundancefoundation.org/solar-double-cropping
Political Dialogue as Toxic Dump
As I’m reading the ‘letters to the editor’ section of any given newspaper, or scanning local chatlists, I begin to feel my shoulders tighten, my pulse race, my jaws clench. Ugh! I know I’m not alone in this visceral reaction, wanting to care about the democracy in which I live, but more and more, finding political discourse so toxic that I feel pushed away. I do want to engage, but have no desire to demonize those on the ‘other’ side (and, of course, I don’t want to be demonized either.) Sure, I have similar physiological reactions when reading about policies I find upsetting, policies that elicit strong feelings of powerlessness. The question I have to ask myself is, “How do I choose to perceive those who support these policies and whose beliefs are so different from my own?” Is it possible to share my ‘truth’ in a manner that is (I’m really going to say it!) civil, treating the ‘other’ as another human being, just as I am? I believe in debate, but it’s the context of debate about which I’m increasingly concerned. According to a new non-partisan website, Civil Politics, (a collaboration of the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California: http://civilpolitics.org/) without civility in political discourse, “Compromise becomes far more difficult; Reasoning becomes far less responsive to facts; Good people are discouraged from entering politics. Good public servants are driven out of public service.”
I’ve spoken with many people who care about and want to participate actively in our democracy, but the toxicity of our current political environment leaves them feeling that their civic engagement will be limited to voting only. Sure, voting is vital in our culture, but there are other portals for shaping our policies that may no longer be inviting due to name-calling and demonizing. I cannot tell you how sad I feel that political dialogue seems to have become a combative spectator sport.
Ask yourself, do we treat family members, friends, and work colleagues with the same disdain that we might when writing a letter about the ‘other’ side, or for example, speaking at a Board of Commissioner’s meeting? Whatever happened to the Golden Rule –”Treat others as you wish to be treated.” Do we so compartmentalize our lives that the practice of the Golden Rule is applied only to those within a very narrow sphere of our existence, limited, perhaps, to our churches, synagogues, spiritual and philosophical communities? I can radically differ with someone, but it’s important for me to remember that they, too, are a flawed human being, just as I am. I don’t know their history and they don’t know mine. I generally have little idea what factors in their lives contribute to the beliefs they hold. If I had some sense of their history, perhaps I’d be a little more understanding of how they arrived at their viewpoint. I‘d likely not agree with them, but it might soften my attitude, allowing me to connect with their humanity, and on occasion, build a bridge (could it possibly be true?) to collaboration. Yep, the last I heard, we are ALL humans. I think it’s easy to forget our shared humanity when we’re so triggered by different viewpoints that we become very reactive. No matter how someone else acts, I believe I’m still responsible for my own conduct in any given situation.
So, where do we go from here? One of the questions I ask myself is: “What is my responsibility for moving in the direction of a less toxic political environment?” OK, ‘outing’ myself in this essay is a good start. Of course, I need to keep ‘walking my talk’ in the political conversations I have with all and sundry (boy, are those headwinds strong!) and in the letters I write to elected and public officials, addressing them as folks with different values, not as ‘evil’ people. My question to you, dear reader, should you happen to agree with me, is “how will you move forward on this same path?” I increasingly believe that every small step I take in this direction is akin to a pebble thrown into a pond, beginning with my acceptance of the common humanity of the ‘other’ and spreading outward from there. Hey, come join me – it’s lonely out here!
Submitted by Jan Hutton, MSW, a Chatham County resident who works with the non-profit, The Compassionate Listening Project, www.compassionatelistening.org
