The Catskill Chronicle

By Mort Malkin

Gadfly hasn’t spoken of global heating and climate chaos for some time. Many other matters of urgency, both national and international have claimed satirical priority. Meanwhile, different areas of the country have variously suffered: record heat waves, droughts, wild fires, and floods.

Now how can the doomsayer environmentalists claim the same cause for record rainfall and record drought? Well, the entire upper midwest — North Dakota to Indiana and Michigan to Tennessee — would have taken a few days of drought this spring when the Mississippi and its northern branches breeched the levees. In Illinois towns like Peoria and Vicksburg, boats replaced cars for transportation.

The while, Colorado and Arizona would have welcomed some help from Mother Nature in the way of a bit of rain to help the poor firefighters this summer.

In Texas and Oklahoma, the (hard)core denyians of impending climate calamity have long held that view as a matter of political faith. Bringing such folks to a state of reality is no small task; but Nature has wrought a Miracle, though it has taken three years. In that time, the Southwest has had precious little water from the sky and the supplies of water from the rivers and aquifers were drying up. The Rio Grande River is bone dry over long stretches most of the year. For emphasis, Nature has provided periodic heat waves. The farms and ranches of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and environs have become less and less productive — less cotton, corn, soy, beef … Beef as in fast food hamburgers? Enough reason to worry about extreme climate change. Drought in the Midwest and Southwest was so severe in 2012 that the USDA declared 2,244 counties across 39 states as natural disaster areas. But there was nothing natural about it — Nature was saying, “Now, will you believe?”

So, what is the Miracle? A recent poll of voters in the states of Texas and Oklahoma has found that a majority of them now believe climate change is real. It is surely a Miracle in the Texas of Governor Rick Perry and the Oklahoma of Senator James Inhofe.

Do you suppose these born again naturalists will do anything about their new found belief in climate change? Gadfly recommends a first small step. Join in with those of like persuasion: “Creation Care,” “Evangelical Climate Initiative,” and/or “Faith In Action.” For those of linguistic bent, take another look at Genesis 1. The translation, used since James I of England, reads: God said “Let us make a man [and woman] … and let them have dominion over the earth and all its creatures.” Well, it turns out the translation may be faulty. Modern scholars have variously translated the Aramaic and Hebrew to read, not “dominion over it” but “cultivate it and keep it,” “tend it and watch over it,” and “look after it.”

The next step, which may require a leap of faith, would be to join GreenPeace.

Another Miracle in the making is underway with gas drilling. That is, unconventional gas drilling — high pressure, high volume, slick water hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. The term was first coined by the industry, but as reports of occasional fires & explosions and poisonings of farm animals and farmer’s children came to the attention of opponents of fracking, the term couldn’t be better for lawn signs and bumper stickers. One of the best was: Don’t Be Fracking Crazy. Gadfly is having a slogan contest — submit your best Fracking sound bite, and a column sometime in February will report the results. Even fracking proponents are welcome.

To see the evolution of the miracle, we have to look at the hydro-engineering and geology of the process. We need to know some of the numbers. High pressures used in fracking are upward of 10,000 psi. Volumes of fracking fluids used per gas well are about 2 million gallons. The volume of chemicals in the 2 millions gallons per well is 20,000 gallons, not exactly trace amounts. Natural gas is mostly methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times as  potent as CO2. After the frack fluids are injected, about half comes back up with the “natural” gas, and disposal of these toxic waste fluids is another challenging job. As well, the initial gas produced must be vented or flared into the atmosphere.

It all sounds like a delicious appetizer for the goddess of unforeseen consequences. If you don’t believe in the goddess, anyone with a drop of Celtic blood must believe in Murphy’s Law. Or, you may be attracted to the Theory of Pragmatism developed by the American philosopher Charles S.  Peirce, and so, believe in the Precautionary Principle. But not to worry, Congress has exempted gas drilling from the rigors of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Pure Drinking Water Act. Energy comes first.

The drilling companies wisely struck first in Texas, an oil friendly state. What Texan would complain about an occasional little release of pollution into the air or water. Their next target was Wyoming, a state of ranchers who knew of the vicissitudes of working with industry. Then, the drillers went into Colorado, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and rural Pennsylvania — expecting but little opposition from just a few environmental wackos.

Surprise:

•   The folks around Ft. Worth in north TX and Karnes City in south TX started complaining about a rash of symptoms such as: nosebleeds, burning eyes, migraine headaches, and other inconsequential symptoms like bronchitis, asthma, and kidney dysfunction. Farm animals, unable to articulate their complaints, often keeled over and died.

•   In Clark WY, a gas well exploded and released 5+ million cu ft of methane into the atmosphere. Elsewhere in WY, in the town of Pavillion, ranchers complained of water tasting of chemicals. The EPA investigated and issued a draft report that indeed the aquifer below the town was contaminated with toxic chemicals caused by gas drilling/fracking. Naturally, states’ rights were invoked and the study was referred from the EPA to a Wyoming state agency. The ranchers were not amused.

•   In Dimock PA, the water wells of several homes were so contaminated by methane that a resident could light up his kitchen faucet.

•   In Jackson County W VA, residents reported contamination of their well water by fracking chemicals. W Va must have had some suspicion that the gas drilling industry was using some pretty noxious chemicals. The state sent much of the waste water, generated from fracking in W VA, to Ohio for disposal.

•   Ohio was also accepting waste water from PA. All the frack water represented a nice source of income from the fees collected. But then the trouble started. In Ohio the chemical laden waste water was being buried in injection wells under pressure. The resultant swarms of earthquakes alarmed Governor Kasich, and he banned both gas drilling and disposal wells in the state. That’s in corporate-friendly Ohio.

•   Then, Texas and Oklahoma re-thought their experience with multiple earthquakes in areas of gas drilling and pinned the blame where it belonged.

•   In North Dakota and Montana, small towns around the fracking regions experienced a crime wave, even murder, accompanying the sudden influx of out of state workers. They were called roughnecks. One man recently arrived for work in the shale gas fields, called it a war zone. Maybe the air polluted with toxic volatile hydrocarbons depressed their normal inhibitory influences over primitive impulses.

So, we have another Miracle developing: capitalist, conservative America turning against gas drilling and fracking technology. Perhaps, deep in their subconscious they remember that Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton when that company developed the high volume (slick water) fracking techniques used with horizontal drilling.  It was less than 25 years ago.

Who knows where the next Miracle will appear. Big Banking? Genetically engineered foods? Place your bets. And don’t forget Gadfly’s Fracking Sound Bite Contest.

Send your entries to Catskll.Chronicle@yahoo.com and put “Gadfly contest” in the subject line.