First we must look at the entire processes from start to finish (to save Citation note space, all this will be cited at the end from Dangers of Fracking.com). First the water is pressurized and pushed into the ground at high rates of speed which break up the shale and release the natural gas. Also let’s look at just the amount of water needed. It takes an estimated 1-8 Million gallons of water to complete one job. That is just part one of the processes. Second process is to actually move the gas to the refiners. According to the website, it takes at least 400 tankers to move the gas to the refiner. Once the Fracking liquid reaches the site nearly 600 chemicals are pumped into the liquid. (Please Refer to Graph 1). After this, the Fracking mixture is sent down more than 10,000 and kept there. However, the chemicals that have been pumped into the mixture begin to leak into the surround ground water. An interesting and most likely “no-duh” portion is that near the drilling site usually face much more water contamination and over 1000 cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage.
After the water sits, and sits, and sits, the only thing that is retracted is 30-50%! Everything else is left in the tables and can’t even degrade down. After this processes The fluid is to evaporate, and according to dangers of Fracking, harmful volatile organic compounds are then released into the air and create many things, among them ground level ozone. Ending the article we are left with this: 300,000 Barrels of natural gas are created each day. But once we factor in all of the externalities, is this a viable and safe option?
Graph 1
(At 1:08) Homes in areas with Fracking have been depreciated and their value next to zero because of it. Unknowing home buyers may decide to buy the “land mine” and uncover the fact that the previous owners got all the money from Fracking, these new homeowners are just stuck with the side effects. (At 1:46) some side effects on Cater Road were open sores on the people’s legs. Now that just sounds dangerous to me. (Starting at 2:20) The company whom bought the land would bring in water for the people because of how polluted their well water was after the Fracking began. Polluted water? Open sores? Sounds like some kind of plague. Even the water looks bad. It’s a brownish color, stained with Chemicals from the Fracking issues. This video (I am so sorry about the quality) demonstrates my exact fear of Fracking:
Flammable water? You’re kidding right? Flammable Water that can explode the house? You know as much as I am not an environmentalist, I am more of a humanist. People can’t live like that! It seems so… inhumane.
In conclusion: No Mr. Oil Company, you cannot buy my land (well maybe for the right price) because this whole Fracking thing seems like a bad Fracking idea. (Okay I’ll stop with the puns.) The humanity of it and how it’s making people live FAR outweigh the positives in my opinion. But, let me post phrase all of this: People may do, whatever they want to do. If they want to sell their land for oil companies to buy up and begin Fracking, please, do so! It’s your land! However, don’t go selling it to someone who has no idea what their getting into. I just don't think we know enough about Fracking to make a decision either way, and I know we sure don't know enough to do wide spread Fracking either. Perhaps we should limit it to small scale testing until we are able to figure out what exactly Fracking will do to people in the long run. It's like Nuclear testing, back in the 50's everyone thought it was a big boom and a bright light. Then most of the onlookers from the Nevada Tests Sites got Acute Radiation Sickness, diseases and died. Who knows what Fracking will do in the long term. We should just not gamble with human lives.
To Sum This Whole Post Up:
Notes:
The Dangers Of Fracking: dangersoffracking.com
Youtube.com
Meme Generator: http://memegenerator.net/Bad-Time-Ski-Instructor-1
Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/there-are-many-scary-chemicals-in-fracking-fluid-at-this-pennsylvania-site-2012-5
Food and Water Watch: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/
Hi, Jon:
ReplyDeleteOverall, I'm confused by this journal entry. I think you did an excellent job explaining fracking and discussing its potential benefits and harms. You had a lot of interesting facts and details and good illustrations and graphs -- altogether, this was a compelling post (though you still need to work on some of the mechanics of your writing). The problem is that the post doesn't correspond with the journal requirements!!
You were asked to "Select an environmental issue that interests you. Find at least three online news articles about it that appear to represent three different frames. . . For each, describe the type of frame the author appears to have applied. Use quotations or screen shots to identify the words, phrases, and passages the author used in the framing effort and explain how these elements create the frame. Also discuss any explicit or implicit partisan associations you encounter in each article."
While you clearly picked an issue that interested you, the journal post discusses the issue itself. It does not focus to any meaningful degree on the language used in specific efforts to frame the issue for different audiences. Moreover, you often seemed to accept the data presented in the articles as accurate. An important thing to remember about framing is that data can be manipulated as well as language, so in generally you should carefully investigate the sources of arguments before being swayed by them. For example, I would be surprised if the Dangers of Fracking website was presenting facts in an entirely straightforward and unbiased manner. I would say the same about Food and Water Watch -- and I have a friend who works there! These are entities that have agendas and they use frames to support those agendas. They certainly might suggest that "An interesting and most likely “no-duh” portion is that near the drilling site usually face much more water contamination and over 1000 cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage." However, actual data does not necessarily support your argument (based, I assume, on their arguments) that this is really a "no duh" proposition.
You were not required to do independent fact-finding research for this post, but that was because the post asked you to focus on framing language. If you were going to focus on the use or misuse of facts in framing, I would have wanted you to engage in substantial research on their accuracy.
So in the end, I'm going to give you half credit because you did a good job in producing this content -- but next time make sure you read the prompt carefully!