Fracking is a bad idea. But how bad is fracking? Pretty awful, particularly if you are confronted with dozens of rigs, fracking equipment, trucks and spills, … But exactly how bad is fracking? Stubborn scientists are digging deep to find out more about the dirty secrets of the fracking industry. The scientists that advised the US Environmental Protection Agency about the impacts of fracking on water rejected the greenwashing communication about their report, which “does not reflect the uncertainties and data limitations described in the body of the Report”. Just before Christmas, other scientists published an article confirming that oil and gas operations in Texas leak almost twice as much gas as has been estimated. That gas, so-called fugitive methane, is a very powerful greenhouse gas and even a little bit of leakage calls into question the status of gas as low-carbon or a transition fuel. To top it off, researchers at Yale University found that many of the fluids used in and created by fracking have been linked to reproductive and developmental health problems.
This steady flow of new scientific studies about how bad fracking really is will not stop in 2016. You can count on Food & Water Europe to continue to keep you informed in 2016 about exactly how bad fracking really is. We’ll help you connect with your Member of (European) Parliament, other European Union institutions, and your national, regional, local politicians to share exactly how bad fracking is, and why we need an immediate ban on fracking.
Help us get the word out further and ask your friends to sign up to stay informed, too. It’s going to take as many people as we can get to ban fracking.