Fracking Jumps The Pacific
Nov. 29th, 2011 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Welp, my cat's dead and National (the local equivalent of the Republicans) is back in power after New Zealand's election this weekend. So I may as well extend my grumpiness with a post about fracking.
I've been paying quiet attention as the gas extraction/mining process known as "fracking" has spread. Fracking is particularly prevalent in Pennsylvania, my old geological stomping grounds. Pennsylvania also has a long history of suffering from mining practices that turned out to be longer-term geological bad ideas. Centralia, PA’s coal fire, started in 1962, is still burning underground. Abandoned mines and mine shafts are a serious safety issue. For a long time, Pennsylvania had the second highest rate of coal-mining-related acid rain in the U.S. (second only to West Virginia).But I digress from fracking.
I'm very curious to see Gasland, the movie about fracking.
Here's an excellent shorter overview from the New Yorker.
Longer piece from the New York Times. This has it all, the happy, the disgruntled, the sick children and dead animals.
What does this mean for New Zealand? There seem to be fracking permits issued for Canterbury.
I've been paying quiet attention as the gas extraction/mining process known as "fracking" has spread. Fracking is particularly prevalent in Pennsylvania, my old geological stomping grounds. Pennsylvania also has a long history of suffering from mining practices that turned out to be longer-term geological bad ideas. Centralia, PA’s coal fire, started in 1962, is still burning underground. Abandoned mines and mine shafts are a serious safety issue. For a long time, Pennsylvania had the second highest rate of coal-mining-related acid rain in the U.S. (second only to West Virginia).But I digress from fracking.
I'm very curious to see Gasland, the movie about fracking.
Here's an excellent shorter overview from the New Yorker.
Longer piece from the New York Times. This has it all, the happy, the disgruntled, the sick children and dead animals.
What does this mean for New Zealand? There seem to be fracking permits issued for Canterbury.
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Date: 2011-11-28 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-28 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 04:36 pm (UTC)This concludes today's broadcast of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
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Date: 2011-11-29 04:40 pm (UTC)It's already happening in several parts of Australia and being protested in others.
VERY bad idea ANYWHERE.
*cries for the planet*
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Date: 2011-11-29 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-29 10:15 pm (UTC)One screw up, and Christchurch will be drinking bottled water, which is a shame, since it used to be fantastic straight out of the tap.
Of course, it's already threatened by dairy farmers taking so much water out of the system that the aquifers under the city are in danger of salination.
/me shakes his head
It's all really frustrating, and disappointing.
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Date: 2011-11-29 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-09 04:41 pm (UTC)I can't believe that New Zealand HAS an equivalent to the US Republicans. I was under the impression that the explanation for the US Republican Party was that America is serving as the planet's insane asylum. Right now the Republican Primary resembles the center ring of the Ringling Brother's Circus (except that the Ringling Brothers clowns are actually funny, not terrifying).