The Oil Companies are starting to wreck America's water supply with Hydro-fracking for "Natural Gas". So let's face this fact: we live in a dark time. Terrible things are happening, things that future generations will cuss us out for. We live when the ecological world that supports human life is being taken away from us. One way to resist our immoral era is to bear witness and say clearly "We are not fooled. We see what's happening. This must be stopped." This essay seeks to bear witness to the evils of Hydrofracking and to encourage New York state to stay fracking free.
Hydro-fracking is the nickname for hydraulic fracturing, a process invented by those Titans of Massive Industrialism at Halliburton. In essence, they explode one of the Earth's bottom floors to release 'Natural Gas" and siphon it off with wells. The process is fiercely complicated, and involves millions of gallons of fresh water and toxic chemicals pushed into the Earth at extremely high pressure. Fracking is like a marriage between a PhD professor in Geology and Dick Cheney: advanced geological information combined with amoral cruel pragmatic self-interest. In fact, Cheney helped pass the "Halliburton Loophole" that allows frackers exemptions from the Clean Water Act.
CBS News reports that Gov. Cuomo is preparing to allow Fracking in south-west New York. Fracking has been on-hold in NY for four years, and perhaps with political pressure, luck and God's grace, fracking will continue to be kept out. But money talks and the Extreme Energy companies have a lot of ca$h to throw at politician$. Money buys propaganda like CNN's relentless 'Natural Gas' ads. Yet some people aren't fooled. This weekend, there was a massive rally in Albany by a group called Don't Frack With NY, where environmental groups and college kids made commitments to resist NY's fracking with non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
Fracking's main problem is the wells leak. The local ground water gets contaminated by the natural gas, the polluted water, and radioactivity. The fracking industry claims to surround and seal the well with a solid concrete tube to protect leaking into the groundwater. Yes, let's fantasize... imagine trying to pour concrete a mile down a hole where giant rocks are under intense pressure. And then the concrete lasts FOREVER and protects the water for generations to come. That is delusion, a pretend design for a well, not a possible future. Safe fracking is impossible.
Even the oil companies admit to themselves they can't keep the wells from leaking. In the new on-line film, The Sky Is Pink, activist/filmmaker Josh Fox shows the documents where companies admit that it's impossible to make permanent well casing to protect the water. Fox made the film "Gasland"
which famously shows a man lighting his water on fire as it comes out of his tap.
Fracking is a sociopathic ruining of the Earth for short-term corporate profit. It's only happening because of corporate/goverment collusion amidst a hurricane of money that buys politicians and a Nazi-like propaganda campaign that would make Gobbels jealous. The GOP convention is tagged with the logo "America's Natural Gas" everywhere, from commercials to the front of Politico's pundits desk.
Hydro-fracking is a very 21st century problem. Humanity has a lot of technical knowledge but not everyone is restrained by wisdom. Halliburton knows how to explode Mother Earth's bones and sniff the fumes, like half-bright boys playing with frogs and firecrackers. Somehow we humans must make these corporations behave in a way capatible with human survival.
Hydro-fracking is so bad, so immoral that it deserves judgemental old-school Old Testament language to describe it: Evil, Abomination and Sin. We cannot properly name the wickedness that's afoot with this project without all the fierce moralistic language of the past. These words have become toxic through misuse in the cultural wars of late, but we need them to describe fracking. Hydro-fracking is an Abomination, a grave Sin that anyone who encourages or takes part in will have to answer for when they meet their Maker. Where's Elijah when you need him to talk about CNN's incessent "natural gas" ads?
Humanity is facing "the end of the world", or at least, the end of humanity, because the Corporations are more powerful than humans, they squish us like bugs, steal our water supplies, deny us a realistic response to the Climate Crisis. We are not, in any real way, planning for long-term human survival on this delicate Earth and that is stupid and wrong! We must organize like the Lilliputians and tie down Gulliver. We must save humanity and this Earth. It's taken so much energy to get humanity here, we owe it to our honorable ancestors to not blow it now.
Fracking will be the most environmentally contentious issue of coming decades. Evidence of polluted water supplies will pile up. Then politicians who helped frack the water will be cast into the Lake of Getting Fired. If Gov. Cuomo fracks NY, he'll lose the political dynasty.
Please write Governor Cuomo and tell him to keep NY un-fracked. Encourage your legislators to pass laws like Vermont's which outlaw hydrofracking. Join the struggle to save Mother Earth from this cruel, blind system that is taking us towards extinction. Join the effort to help humanity win a livable future.
