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Frack Is Whack, Yo
Christine Pelosi, activist and daughter of that Pelosi, responded to a major offshore earthquake with the sophistication and nuance you would expect from a San Francisco Democrat:
What on Gaia’s green earth does fracking have to do with a 6.9 submarine earthquake? Nothing whatsoever, but political agendas must be served. A few of us Twitter insomniacs challenged Pelosi’s scientific illiteracy, but she doubled down on her fracking derangement syndrome. And she added that we were all sexists anyway.
While Pelosi and her ilk flatter themselves as the “reality-based community,” they regularly hold science in contempt, especially on environmental issues. Tying fracking to yesterday’s quake is as silly as blaming second-hand smoke, chemtrails or a vengeful Poseidon. Add in their global warming fear-mongering, and lefties are as superstitious as medieval villagers.
Pelosi the Lesser tried to backtrack a bit, saying she didn’t technically blame the quake on fracking, but why link the two if they’re unrelated? If Michelle Bachmann tweeted, “BREAKING: 6.9 earthquake off N. CA coast. Another reason I oppose gay marriage/gun registration/estate taxes,” she would be ridiculed, and rightly so.
In a rational political world, I could excuse Pelosi’s lapse in scientific knowledge. But these are the little idiocies that daily destroy jobs, energy independence and our economy. It’s long past time to push back against these costly liberal myths.
Published in General
Science is only reality based when it supports a leftist agenda. Or, agenDUH.
Yeah, because there weren’t any earthquakes in CA before fracking came along.
Perhaps we should also point out to Ms Pelosi that the gas in the rocks was (and is) made by Gaia, not fossils. That would really freak her out!
Oh, and the Climate has been changing for as long as that gas has been there.
One of my Navy nuclear instructors spoke to a group of anti-nuke protestors in Boulder, Colo. She started by casually mentioning that high-altitude cities like Boulder get more radiation than sea-level communities. There was a gasp in the crowd, followed by murmuring. She never could get to the meat of her presentation because the crowd alternated between calling her a liar and asking panicked questions about when the radiation would kill them.
No, she probably sincerely believes that fracking causes earthquakes.
It possibly does, and that is one of the anti-fracking memes. Typical of progressive thinking, the risk is utterly unquantified and often, as here, simply a matter of tying words together.
What the scientific study says:
blah-blah woof-wooflow probability blah-blah woof-woof blah-blah woof-woof blah-blah earthquake woof-woof blah-blah woof-woof small tremors blah-blah woof-woof [emphasis added]What the Liberal Fascist ideologue/neurotic takes as Gospel truth: FRACKING EARTHQUAKES [emphasis is native mode of thinking] The belief in the power of words to create and change underlies much magical thought.
Back in the day, before nuclear power was run out of town to the sound of wet towels snapping, several of us at Westinghouse served as public acceptance speakers – in addition to our full-time jobs. Following Three Mile Island, many audiences reacted similarly to my mention that the reporters from the west coast received more much radiation during their flight to Harrisburg than they did standing the whole time they were at the site making their reports. (That calculation didn’t include their return flight.)
It’s such an uphill battle. Fracking is the new nuclear. And the damage done by well known folks has been, and is now with fracking, incalculable. Plant an idea in people’s minds – with the ‘Precautionary Principle’ as the basis for the ideologues’ mischief – and one has a recipe for a nation displaying scientific ignorance.
I’m very pleased for her that she’s against fracking on the fault line. But seriously, is anyone considering fracking near a fault? Anywhere?
An active fault is unlikely to have a substantial reservoir near it, surely? Wouldn’t the fault make the reservoir leak anyway? In which case there wouldn’t be much point in fracking the reservoir, since you would only lose the hydrocarbons.
Do her words have any meaning, or are they just imitations of sounds others make?
Aren’t fracking-induced earthquakes a good thing?
By triggering early release of energy, earthquake magnitude is reduced?
So. Cal can handle a couple more 6.5-7.0 earthquakes every few years if that saves them from an 8.0.
By triggering early release of energy, isn’t earthquake magnitude reduced?
So. Cal can handle a couple more 6.5-7.0 earthquakes every few years if that saves them from an 8.0. ·0 minutes ago
I’m surprised she didn’t mention the risk that fracking might cause Guam to capsize.
As a geologist, this kind of thing sets my teeth on edge. Utopian-Progressives think of themselves as people of science, when the reality is that they’re more like the witch-burning peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
I daresay that Ms. Pelosi is equally opposed to fracking far from any tectonically active regions. The earthquake simply gave her an opportunity to pander to other scientifically-illiterate Utopian-Progressives (and make herself a laughingstock to the rest of us).
Speaking of fault lines – and the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant that sits near the San Andreas and Hosgri fault lines. If there was a major quake in that area, I would be most happy (and safe) to be in the control room of the plant as the entire facility was designed to withstand a ground acceleration greater than the worst-anticipated event. Just sayin’.
I heard very similar arguments relating fracking to the flooding that devastated Northern Colorado last summer. As I recall, there was a concern that the floodwater could be contaminated by the chemicals used in fracking, but somehow that morphed into a causal relationship. And we’re the anti-science party?
Johnny Dubya @ #17 writes: “As a geologist, this kind of thing sets my teeth on edge. Utopian-Progressives think of themselves as people of science, when the reality is that they’re more like the witch-burning peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” YES!!!
An active fault is unlikely to have a substantial reservoir near it, surely? Wouldn’t the fault make the reservoir leak anyway? In which case there wouldn’t be much point in fracking the reservoir, since you would only lose the hydrocarbons.
It depends on what one means by “on the fault line”. California is a tectonically active area with a lot of oil and natural gas production, and I suspect that when Ms. Pelosi says, “on the fault line”, what she means is “in California”.
In fact, there is oil production parallel to the San Andreas Fault, in the San Joaquin Basin. But the idea that an operator would frack into an earthquake fault, and that such a frack job would cause an earthquake by injecting huge volumes of frack fluid (mostly water) into the fault and “lubricating” it–well, let’s just say that it is quite absurd.
If anyone is interested in talking points on fracking for discussion purposes, The WSJ had an excellent article. It covers the description, application safety features, drinking water, earthquakes, regulations…
The Facts about Fracking, 25 June 2011 – The real risks of the shale gas revolution, and how to manage them
One great quote: “…EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, a determined enemy of fossil fuels, recently told Congress that there have beenno ‘proven cases where the fracking process itself has affected water. ‘” (Emphasis mine)
The Senate Climate Action Task Force would never stand for this fracking non-sense.
“…lefties are as superstitious as medieval villagers.”
Beautifully put.
http://fracknation.com Hearing Journalist Ann McElhinney speak about this with her husband Phelim McAleer is a real treat. Their documentary, FrackNation, has been making the rounds over the past year or so, and is worth viewing.