According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, fracturing fluids typically contain about 90 percent water, about 9 percent propping agents like silica sand and less than 0.5 percent chemicals.
International Business Times, August 11 2011
*thunk*
When experts spew out statements like this, hiding absolute numbers behind safe-sounding percentages, when they deliberately obfuscate the word "chemicals" to make a political point, and when "journalists" cannot be bothered to research what the "less than 0.5 percent chemicals" contains, my heart trembles for any hope of an enlightened citizenry.
But all that sounds like fearful piffling on my part, and even responding to it makes me sound like a liberal loser wonky type.
Heck, air is mostly nitrogen, with a small chunk of oxygen tossed in. I wonder if the committee that spewed this nonsense would mind sitting in a room with only 0.5% carbon monoxide during one of its meetings.
No, that was not a threat. Allowing fracking near someone's water supply, however, is a threat.
We're letting them frack with our water--what would Thomas Jefferson do?
Cartoon lifted without permission from here.
We're letting them frack with our water--what would Thomas Jefferson do?
Cartoon lifted without permission from here.
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4 comments:
But since everything is mostly emptiness, surely we have nothing to worry about. Gosh what I could do with numbers and science if given the opportunity. Probably just as well to hide me with the rest of the bad teachers - by definition, any teacher who has a job (since the bad teachers sadly take up all the spaces that good teachers could have if only it were not for...)
Dear Anonymous,
A shame you hide, you turn a good phrase.
The first step is understanding that our models of atoms are mostly emptiness, then we get to the interesting stuff--electron shells repelling other shells, electrons filling the same energy levels, electron fields merging and such.
All facetiousness aside for a moment (and just for a moment), science works because it trusts nothing to Authority or Power or The Book--or even Science.
I get city water, fracking's not going to do me immediate harm--it might even keep my gas bills in check. But who cares about people, eh?
For some reason your "choose identity" has never taken my google account, so I have to post as anonymous. I am louise. Not hiding, just hindered by technology (there's a shock).
Dear Louise,
My apologies then--as I said, you play with words well, so glad to have a name attached to the anonymous.
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