Category Archives: fracking

The business of fracking

Posted on July 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

The federal government should set baseline environmental safety standards for hydraulic fracturing. So pleads the NY Times in this editorial. Again, missing from the discussion are the ancillary effects of drilling, whether for natural gas or oil or even water: The construction aspect of setting up a drill pad etc. means building a new road, chopping up wildlife habitat, clear-cutting forest, touching off noise pollution, etc.

Oil/gas rush in Eastern forests spark questions and then some

Posted on June 9, 2012 | 4 comments

I witnessed the destruction of already diminished hardwood forests in northern Pennsylvania by natural gas drillers punching holes in the Marcellus shale geological formation. Little covered by the mainstream media were such topics as forest fragmentation and the effects on native flora and fauna of road-building. Read more in this piece from the Washington Post.

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Posted in forest fragmentation, forest issues, forests, fossil fuels, fracking, habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, habitat loss

Tagged forest fragmentation, habitat fragmentation, Marcellus Shale, natural gas drilling

Republicans: Natural born oil/gas drillers

Posted on March 16, 2012 | 1 comment

Paul Krugman, the NY Times’s erstwhile columnist, has done us all a favor by laying out the falsity behind the Republican claims of jobs and drilling and jobs and drilling. Read Krugman’s finely honed argument here.

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Posted in fracking, fragmentation of wildlife habitat, Marcellus Shale, natural gas, natural gas exploration, oil and gas industry, oil drilling, oil shale, oil spills, Paul Krugman, petroleum