Today’s essential reads.
FRACKING:
Why We Need to Calm the Natural Gas Frenzy
We need a more balanced look at what’s to be gained — and lost — if we embrace natural gas too heartily. Despite its many positives, natural gas is no panacea for a country with a long history of over-dependence on fossil fuels that still hasn’t come to grips with climate change.
Since 2008, Abrahm Lustgarten has reported for ProPublica on the environmental threats posed by gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in communities nationwide. He won the George Polk Award for his coverage in 2010, one of the most prestigious prizes in environmental journalism. In this episode of High Country Views, Cally Carswell talks with Lustgarten about new research into the relationship between fracking and water contamination, the difficulty of drawing causal connection between the two, and whether the oil and gas industry can be trusted –as it currently is in most states –to use best practices in drilling that robustly safeguard public health.
Cornell Economist: Pa. Drilling Affects S. NY
A Cornell University economist says the community effects of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are already apparent in New York’s Southern Tier, even though gas development has been on hold in the region for three years.
BP OIL SPILL:
Nothing Evinces Hypocrisy More than Obama’s Oil Policy
President Obama has asserted ad nauseam that expanding oil drilling would not affect the price of oil and generate price relief at the gas pump. He has scoffed at the ‘drill, baby, drill’ plan, denouncing it as insufficient in dealing with our “long-term” energy needs. Now that his reelection prospects are beginning to wither, Obama is undergoing a foxhole conversion and easing his aversion to that “addictive” black substance. Or, so it seems.
The Watson Report: BP Oil Spill – Criminal Negligence or Deliberate Sabotage? (VIDEO)
In this special video report for Prison Planet.tv members, Paul Joseph Watson analyzes the evidence for both criminal negligence and deliberate sabotage of the BP oil well and explores who is benefiting from the oil spill, both financially and politically.
Nick Collins pulled a dredge up alongside his oyster boat, numbly resigned to finding his worst fears realized. “I knew there were going to be dead oysters, ” he said after emptying a load of shells onto a metal work table at the bow of the Broad & Tracy, the largest of his family’s three-boat fleet. “It’s still sad.”
Opponents of Coastal Oil Drilling Join Hands in Solidarity
Last year’s BP oil spill has faded from the headlines, but that doesn’t mean Nina Perino is ready to forgive and forget.
RADIATION:
Understanding Risk Perception to Avoid Its Risks
Some recent stories in the news make clear the powerful role risk perception psychology plays in our lives, and the dangers of The Perception Gap; when we’re too afraid, or not afraid enough, and that gap causes risks in and of itself.
Back-up Generators Put to Use at Nebraska Nuclear Plant
A nuclear power plant in Nebraska, which is being threatened by rising floodwaters, switched to back-up generators for a time after a water-filled berm protecting the site collapsed Sunday, a statement from the plant said.
