Are you fracking kidding me?

 

Hi, it’s me again, Wally, your favorite, not-so-friendly alligator mississippiensis and self-appointed liaison for humans to the gator community.  Hey, I got a good joke for you:

Q: Why did the human cross the road?

A: His GPS told him to!

Haw, haw!  I just about laughed myself sick when my buddy told me that one.

Anyway, I’ve been on the road, touring around, seeing the sights.  Thought I would pop up to North Carolina and check out the barbecue.  Now that’s something I can really sink my teeth into (and I have over 80 teeth).  I can settle your debate between Western and Eastern NC barbecue lovers here right now: it is all good!

And there is another controversial topic I am hearing people talking about here: hydraulic fracturing.  “Fracking” is a process to extract natural gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure deep underground.  Isn’t science wonderful?  Well, maybe yes, and maybe no.   Exactly what are these chemicals being used and can they somehow poison our water?  There‘s no requirement for full disclosure of what those chemicals are, and many of you human types are nervous.

Here’s a recap of what I’ve been hearing and my own two lizard licks, for what it’s worth.

1)      Oil and gas companies are pushing to use fracking in order to bring cheap, clean energy to the masses.  Oh, my goodness!  If you believe that one, I have some swamp land down in the ‘Glades I’d like to sell to you (I really do have this land, although it is more under water than some of your human mortgages).  The main concern of oil and gas companies is to make a bazillion dollars this year, and next year, and the year after that.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, so why not just admit it?  Making energy cheaper for you can happen but it’s pretty far down on their priority list, like about the length of Three Mile Island far down.

2)      The fracking process is safe, or can be made safe.  Oh, I wouldn’t bet the farm on that one!  More human humor for you there.  Get it, I wouldn’t bet the alligator’s farm on it.  Never mind, sorry, sometimes I just crack myself up.

There’s no lack of reports detailing problems out there.  And it is not just the number of reports, it is the variety of issues.  Spills and water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming.  Asthma rates three times higher than normal for children in Texas who live in counties where there is gas drilling.  Cattle dropping dead in Louisiana after drinking fluid adjacent to a gas drilling rig.  Nasty chemicals like benzene, thought to cause leukemia, seeping into water supplies at drilling sites in New Mexico. 

Fracking has caused earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.  Yes, you read that right, fracking causes earthquakes.  Hundreds in Arkansas and other states, mostly small ones.  A 4.0 quake actually shook Youngstown, Ohio recently and was blamed on the pumping of fracking waste water underground.  The Washington Post newspaper seems to think that is just fine, that job creation and carbon savings justify inevitable, unexpected and possibly unattractive consequences, as they put it.  Say what?   I’ll tell you what would also create jobs: if an earthquake levels a city, there will be more work to rebuild it, after burying all the dead bodies.

My personal favorite report, one that could easily be made into a B-grade horror movie:  a Colorado emergency room nurse named Cathy Behr nearly died of organ failure after she handled the clothes of a drilling worker who had been splashed in a fracking fluid spill.  Ms. Behr recovered, without much thanks to the chemical manufacturer who delayed providing her doctors with the makeup of the fluid.  If you can keep your breakfast down after reading some of these reports, you have a stronger stomach than I do, and I’ve eaten an entire deer before. 

3)      Alternative energy processes are a failure and may never be cost effective.  Are you fracking kidding me?  If you believe that, me and my kind will be taking back this country sooner than I thought.  Life then will be just like back in our glory days of the Cretaceous period.

You gotta give it some time and effort, folks.  And more than that, cashola.  Your government gave out $72 billion in subsidies to the fossil fuel industries from 2002-2008, but less than one-half that amount, only $29 billion, to green energy companies over the same period.  The discrepancy worldwide is even greater.  Which kind of raises another question, why would you still be providing subsidies to the overwhelmingly successful fossil fuels industries?  It wouldn’t be because they spend oodles on political lobbying ($175 million in the U.S. in 2009), would it?   I’m just sayin’.

Fracking, geez, I’d think about hitting the pause button.  Or even the rewind button.  Hey, maybe you can’t live without oil and gas now but, you also just might want to seriously consider the path by which that would be possible in the future.  It really is all going to run out someday, anyway (unless we do go back to the Cretaceous and bury some more dinosaurs, but I think that is just my own personal dream, however).  I know I can live without it right now, but I can’t do without clean water.  Just the thought sends shivers down my six-foot spine.

Human, this tourista stuff is tiring!  I gotta go find a pond or backyard swimming pool to nap in.  Hopefully one without any benzene in it.  Your hospitality is appreciated!  So I will leave you with a final joke:

Q: Why did the human go out for a drink?

A: His smart phone needed more bars.


For more info on fracking and its potential dangers, click here.


For info on how to contact your elected representative to express your opinion, click here.


For info on other ways to get involved, click here.