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National Geographic
3 hours ago
- General
- National Geographic
What fracking is doing to the Earth—and to our bodies
Photograph by Richard Hamilton Smith, Getty Images Beneath layers of ancient rock, a high-pressure process is reshaping the modern energy landscape. As fracking expands across the globe, so does the growing debate around its impact. What is fracking? You may have heard about the effects this oil and gas extraction technique have on the environment, but its impacts extend far beyond that. Between 2007 and 2016, oil production in the United States increased 75 percent, while natural gas production increased 39 percent, thanks to a massive increase in fracking. While the industry is booming, many climate scientists and communities have spoken out against the process. But what exactly is fracking and why is it so controversial? Here is everything you need to know about fracking and its impacts. What is fracking? Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique to extract fossil fuels—primarily methane, the principal component of natural gas—from underground rock layers. As well as being commonly used to heat homes, natural gas is also used to generate steam for industrial processes and is the source of 25 percent of the nation's electricity. Methane lies in small pockets within layers of shale rock that formed from ancient seabeds. To reach it requires drilling a hole approximately a mile deep. Once oil and natural gas companies reach the shale layer, the drill then turns horizontally, to encounter as much of the shale as possible. After engineers drill the hole, also known as a wellbore, they line it with a steel casing to stabilize it and then use a 'perforating gun' to puncture tiny holes in the well wall. Then a mixture of water and sand, is injected into the well at very high pressure, blasting through the tiny holes. The water breaks open fissures in the rock, and the sand holds those fissures open. The pressure of the shale then forces the pockets of oil and gas back up to the surface. So what are the environmental issues with this process? For one, a single well can use between 1.5 and 16 million gallons of water. Additionally, the mixture of water and sand blasted into the well also contains chemicals that prevent corrosion in the drilling equipment and reduce friction. The water and chemicals flow back up the well; the water is either treated and then discharged into streams, reused in further fracking operations, or pumped into deep disposal wells. (How has fracking changed our future?) The growth of fracking Hydraulic fracturing was invented in 1947 and rolled out to the commercial market in 1949. Investments and technical developments led to a fracking boom as well as significant growth in U S. oil and gas production in the early 21st century. Advocates of fracking hold it up as a step forward in reducing global warming because when natural gas burns, it emits only about half as many greenhouse gases as coal. In his 2014 State of the Union speech, former President Barack Obama asserted that, 'If extracted safely, [natural gas] is the 'bridge fuel' that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.' The Independent Petroleum Association of America says that fracking 'has created millions of American jobs, reduced energy prices, brought cleaner air…strengthened our national security, and transformed the United States into a global energy superpower.' However, some media reports have suggested that the industry's claims of job creation have been inflated and that an initial boom in employment was followed by a significant loss as cheaper oil and gas prices—ironically partly fueled by the fracking boom—caused the industry to cut back. 'We know, for example, that in the Front Range of Colorado, the amount of smog produced by oil and gas drilling now exceeds the amount of smog from vehicles, so it's the number one source of smog,' says Sandra Steingraber, senior scientist with the Science and Environmental Health Network and co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York. (Fracking boom tied to methane spike in Earth's atmosphere.) Since fracking occurs in rural areas, it brings what Steingraber likes to call, 'urban style smog.' She said that one particularly notable source of air pollutants from fracking is compressor stations, which help push the gas along pipelines. These compression stations pressurize the gas with combustion engines, but the process emits particulates and other pollutants that can impact the cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological health of people in nearby communities. Additionally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that fracking can affect drinking water in surrounding areas. Fracking can leak hydraulic fracturing fluids into groundwater, causing water contamination. Inadequate treatment and disposal of fracking wastewater also threatens the environment and communities' health. In rural Alberta, babies born to mothers living near fracking wells had increased incidence of low birth weight, premature birth, and major congenital abnormalities. Data gathered from more than 15 million Medicare recipients found that older citizens living near fracking sites were at higher risk for dying early than those living in areas without fracking. A study in Pennsylvania found a two-to-three-fold increase in leukemia among children who lived near a fracking well during early life—or while their mothers were pregnant with them. The compendium adds that 'other documented adverse health indicators…include exacerbation of asthma as well as increased rates of hospitalization, ambulance runs, emergency room visits, self-reported respiratory problems and rashes.' 'This is a public health crisis,' Steingraber says. Fracking contaminates a homeowner's well water with methane in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania. A 2011 study found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when water supplies were close to natural gas wells. Photography by Mark Thiessen, National Geographic Image Collection Fracking operations can even cause earthquakes. The primary cause is not the fracking itself, but the disposal of the fluids that are used to break up the shale, which are injected deep underground under high pressure. Studies have connected increases in earthquakes in west Texas to wastewater disposal from fracking. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, fracking is responsible for 2 percent of earthquakes in Oklahoma, and the largest quake known to be induced by fracking was a magnitude 4.0 in Texas in 2018. Should fracking continue? Fracking's advocates assert that claims of health risks and earthquakes are overwrought or 'just plain false.' Others disagree. Cornell University's Robert Howarth—a biogeochemist who has been described as one of the world's premier methane scientists—and professor of engineering emeritus Anthony Ingraffea said in a 2011 commentary that 'shale gas isn't clean, and shouldn't be used as a bridge fuel,' and that the 'gas should remain safely in the shale, while society uses energy more efficiently and develops renewable energy sources more aggressively.' Those who live near fracking operations, meanwhile, must do so in the shadow of uncertainty and anxiety. As one resident interviewed for a Colorado study observed: 'We're lab rats right now. They're learning about it as they're going…We don't know what the impacts are going to be 20 years down the line.'
The National
12 hours ago
- Politics
- The National
Iraq made Blair a pariah – Starmer risks the same with Iran
Then, as now, America was acting as virtually a rogue nation giving no thought to the different opinions of its allies. Then, as now, the American president had a skewed vision of the situation in that part of the world and no clear idea of the forces which would be unleashed by his actions and how to restore peace. Then, as now, Labour were in power and had demonstrated they were willing to support America in any course of action they decided upon no matter what the consequences might be. Today those consequences look even more terrifying than they appeared when America, with support from Britain's armed forces, invaded Iraq in 2003. This time the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs more heavily in the air. READ MORE: Casual threats of annihilation from Trump are not reality TV stunts And this time America's president is even more unpredictable and reckless than George W Bush, even more unlikely to apply logic to any decision as to his future course of action. Bush's justification for taking action against Iraq had nothing directly to do with the terrorist atrocity of 9/11. There was no suggestion, far less evidence, that Iraq was in any way linked to the plane hijackings which led to the demolition of the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York. America was so desperate to take action – any action – in what it had dubbed the 'global war against terror' in the aftermath of 9/11 that it alighted on the claim that Iraq had in its armoury weapons of mass destruction that posed a potential threat to the US and its allies. There was, in fact, no evidence to back up that claim. Most of the Western world regarded Bush's claim with justified scepticism. However, Britain pledged its support. It's important to remember that in Bush's State of the Union address in 2002, in which the president started to put together the case for action to remove Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, he railed against the so-called 'axis of evil' which included Iran as well as Iraq. The US grudge against Iran has deep roots so it's no surprise that it could one day lead to the possibility of military action. Americans have been easily persuaded by presidential warmongering even without any compelling evidence it was needed. Even before that State of the Union address, a survey suggested that 73% favoured military action to oust Hussein. The government was not willing to let the small matter of there being no evidence of the existence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction deter it from waging war. Then national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN: 'The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he [Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.' The British people were less easily fooled, but, alas, the same cannot be said for their government at Westminster. Its Prime Minister Tony Blair ignored the millions in his country marching against the invasion of Iraq and ploughed on regardless. There was some opposition within his own party. Robin Cook, then the leader of the Commons and a former foreign secretary, resigned from Blair's government in March 2003 over Iraq. He said at the time: 'I can't accept collective responsibility for the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support.' However, Blair brushed off the resignation and most of his ministers and Labour MPs watched in acquiescence as the invasion proceeded. At the time, the Prime Minister was fond of telling us that if we could see the evidence that was on his desk proving that Iraq did indeed have weapons of mass destruction then we too would back his decision. Some time after Hussein was deposed and executed, when the weapons of mass destruction theory had been well and truly dismissed, I watched Blair tell a private meeting of Scottish editors that there was at that time no further evidence of the existence of those weapons but he still supported the invasion anyway. Today I'm still not clear what motivated Blair. READ MORE: The facts are clear. So why won't the BBC report on Israel's nuclear weapons? Did he really believe Iraq posed a threat to the rest of the world, despite all the evidence to the contrary? Or did he support Bush in a bid to cement the relationship between his government and Bush's Republican regime? A Guardian column by Steve Richards queried this interpretation. He suggested that both Blair's support for the invasion and David Cameron's decision to call the Brexit referendum were the result of a lack of prime ministerial depth and experience. Whatever the answer, history will judge. The big question now is whether Keir Starmer will duplicate Blair's blind allegiance to a US president's decision, no matter how crazy. And secondly, will anyone in his government have the guts to advocate standing up to Donald Trump and tell him that joining Israel's bombing of Iran is not only immoral but will move the world closer to nuclear destruction? The answer to that first question looks dangerously close to Starmer hitching his future of Trump's insistence on supporting Israel in all matters, from the unrelentingly inhumane genocide in Gaza to buying into the president's paranoia about Iran's alleged closeness to developing nuclear weapons. That claim has already led to a split between Trump and his director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who testified in March that Iran was not building a nuclear bomb. The president's annoyance was clear in his dismissal of her opinion this week, when he snapped 'I don't care what she said.' Starmer said on Tuesday that Trump has said nothing to indicate he would direct US missile strikes on Iran. Nothing that is apart from confirming on Wednesday that he has approved a plan to do just that. He told CBS that he has not yet made a decision on whether to enact that plan. The truth is that no one, probably including the president himself, knows what Trump will do next. Things don't look good. According to a 'senior intelligence source', the president has held off from strikes to see how Iran responds to his demands for 'unconditional surrender', which seems to translate as an abandonment of its nuclear programme. The heat was turned up even further yesterday when Israel's defence minister said Iran's supreme leader 'can no longer be allowed to exist' after an Iranian missile attack hit a hospital. It's hard to overestimate the damage done to Israel's claims of moral superiority in this conflict by the damage caused by its missiles hitting hospitals in Gaza. What is clear is that Israel and Iran are nowhere near a solution to their dispute and the pressure is mounting on Trump to make a decision. Starmer has admittedly advocated further negotiations rather than American bombs but if Trump goes ahead with military action it looks more likely that Britain will support him, at the very least by allowing him to use the Diego Garcia UK military base in the Indian Ocean. The record of Labour MPs – and particularly Labour MSPs in the Scottish Parliament – of standing up to their Prime Minister's folly on other matters is poor. READ MORE: David Lammy heads to US as Donald Trump considers whether to strike Iran The party's leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, has urged Starmer to do more for Scotland after its by-election win in Hamilton but any criticism of his performance after major U-turns on election promises has been either missing or heavily coded. That's not going to change if he moves to back Trump's action. Blair's support for Bush moved many former Labour supporters to ditch the party and embrace the SNP and independence because of the urgent need for Scotland to develop its own foreign policy. That urgency has increased rather than faded. John Swinney really has to capture that renewed urgency with real passage and focus, together with an indication of a route to independence, at the SNP's national council meeting tomorrow.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pence says Trump shouldn't take advice from Putin on Iran-Israel conflict
WASHINGTON ― Former Vice President Mike Pence said his ex-boss, President Donald Trump, should not be taking advice from Russian President Vladimir Putin about the conflict between Israel and Iran. Pence's June 15 remarks on CNN's "State of the Union" came after Trump said he discussed Iran and Israel in a phone call with Putin on Saturday, as the two countries have traded attacks following Israel's widespread June 13 air strikes targeting Iran's nuclear program. "As Vladimir Putin continues his brutal and unprovoked invasion in Ukraine using drones provided by Iran," Pence said. "I would say respectfully to the administration, we ought to be looking elsewhere than Vladimir Putin for advice on how to deal with this situation." Trump presidency: Trump says Putin called to wish him a happy birthday ‒ and talk about Iran Detailing his one-hour June 14 call with Putin, Trump said Iran is a "country (Putin) knows very well." Trump added that Putin "feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end." Trump has embraced a friendly relationship with Putin, a stark departure from former President Joe Biden, who helped rally much of the world to condemn Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Trump has blamed both Putin, long considered a U.S. adversary, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Russia's war in Ukraine. 'Full strength and might': Trump warns Iran against attacking the United States Pence, a staunch defender of Israel, said the United States needs to continue supporting Israel "with the support they need." He also applauded Trump for the president's statement earlier on Sunday, warning that the "full strength and might" of the U.S. military would be used if Iran attacks the United States "in any way, shape or form." Pence ended his political relationship with Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. As vice president, Pence refused to act on pressure from Trump to reject electoral votes submitted by states before certifying Joe Biden's 2020 election victory. In the 2024 election, Pence declined to endorse Trump's presidential bid. Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Pence says Trump should not take advice from Putin on Iran-Israel
GMA Network
a day ago
- Politics
- GMA Network
VP Sara Duterte to skip SONA anew —House SecGen
Vice President Sara Duterte will not be attending the fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on July 28, House Secretary General Reginald Velasco said Thursday. "We received this note [from her office] that she won't be attending this SONA," Velasco told reporters. Still, Velasco said the House remains prepared to receive the Vice President should she change her mind. He said aside from a reserved seat, there will be a designated holding room for the Vice President and her immediate staff since she is considered as an institutional guest alongside heads of government agencies and justices of the Supreme Court. "We are not excluding the possibility that she will attend," Velasco said. "There will be a seat for her reserved at the center of the [House plenary] gallery, the VIP gallery. If she decides to come, there will be a seat for her," he added. 2025 marks the second straight year that the Vice President will miss the SONA. Last year, the Vice President also skipped the President's SONA by saying that she is appointing herself as the designated survivor. Her statement drew flak since a popular US and South Korean series titled Designated Survivor is a story about a Cabinet official who is a designated survivor and thus skipping the State of the Union address, only for all the rest of those present in the address to be killed in a bomb explosion. Marcos and Duterte formed the Uniteam and resoundingly won the 2022 elections over their rivals. Their relationship, however, has gone sour. The House of Representatives impeached the Vice President in February over allegations of confidential fund misuse and making threats to kill the President and his family.—AOL, GMA Integrated News
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Sen. Alex Padilla: If Law Enforcement Detained Me, ‘Imagine What They're Doing to People Without Titles'
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla spoke about being detained and handcuffed on the ground by law enforcement while attempting to question Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem during a press conference. 'If that's how they treat a senator trying to ask a question… then imagine… what they are doing to so many people without titles,' he told CNN's Dana Bash during an appearance Sunday on State of the Union. Video of the dramatic moment quickly spread across the internet. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Padilla 'tried to manufacture a viral moment.' 'Nothing could be further from the truth,' Padilla said in response. Homeland Security on X alleged that Padilla 'lunged' at Noem, but video of the incident does not show the senator lunging at all. Sen. Patty Murray called DHS' claim 'a lie.' 'We all saw the video,' Murray wrote on Bluesky. 'The Senator clearly identified himself, and he did not 'lunge' toward anyone. If these miserable propagandists will lie to you about roughing up a U.S. Senator in a room full of reporters, what won't they lie to you about?' Padilla said he was in a federal building nearby to receive a briefing from Northern Command about the Trump administration's decision to federalize the National Guard in response to protests against immigration detentions in Los Angeles when he heard Noem was holding a briefing in a building 'a couple of doors down' from where he was. Padilla said that Trump sending in the Marines only 'escalated the tensions in Los Angeles.' So he saw the press conference as 'an opportunity to ask a question, maybe get answers that DHS, including the secretary, will not provide in committee hearings in the Senate, will not respond to the letters that we have sent inquiring. It was an opportunity to ask a question and do my job as a senator, do my job as a senator in questioning the cabinet secretary.' When Bash wondered whether law enforcement knew that Padilla was a senator, pointing out that he identified himself as such, Padilla said, 'This is my hometown. They know who I was. And what does it say about the secretary to not know who the senator from California is, the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration?' Padilla said he was 'escorted by an FBI agent and a National Guards member' from the time he entered the building, and he criticized Noem for allowing his detention rather than de-escalating. 'How does the secretary of homeland security not know how to de-escalate a situation?' he said. 'It's because she can't or because they don't want to. And it sets the tone. Donald Trump and Secretary Noem have set the tone for the Department of Homeland Security and the entire administration in terms of escalation and extreme enforcement actions.' Criticizing the Trump administration's immigration enforcement, Padilla said, 'If all the Trump administration was doing was truly focusing on dangerous, violent criminals, as they suggest, there would be no debate… But we have seen story after story after story of hardworking women and men, maybe undocumented, but otherwise law-abiding, good people, being subject to the terror that this immigration enforcement operation is subjecting the people to.' 'I needed to speak up,' he added. 'I needed to try to get the information from the secretary that they have refused to provide in hearing after hearing.' More from Rolling Stone Shakira Says Being an Immigrant Under Trump 'Means Living in Constant Fear' Trump Nixed Israeli Plan to Assassinate Iran's Supreme Leader: Report Internet Trolls Around the World Are Mocking Trump's Military Birthday Parade Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
