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First-of-Its-Kind Report Details Planetary Perils of US Fracking Infrastructure Boom
Not 'Freedom Gas' But 'Failure Gas': First-of-Its-Kind Report Details Planetary Perils of US Fracking Infrastructure Boom"These projects aren't just associated with health and safety risks: if even a fraction of them come to fruition, they will condemn the planet to a future of climate chaos."
A first-of-its-kind report released Wednesday by Food & Water Watch details the more than 700 new U.S. facilities that have been recently built or proposed for development "to capitalize off of a glut of cheap fracked gas," and the consequences for the planet and its inhabitants if these projects are allowed to continue.
The report comes a week after top Energy Department officials, in a press release about natural gas exports, referred to fossil fuels as "molecules of U.S. freedom" and "freedom gas." Climate campaigners characterized that widely ridiculed language as just another example of the Trump administration's demonstrated commitment to planetary destruction.
"The Trump administration calls it 'freedom gas,' but what we're really talking about here is failure gas," Food & Water Watch's Seth Gladstone told Common Dreams about the report. "Continuing to invest in fracked gas would represent a failure to address plastics pollution, a failure to prioritize human health and safety, and a failure to protect future generations from climate chaos."
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, has raised concerns about public health in nearby communities—numerous studies have tied fracking to frequent hospitalizations for genital, skin, and urinary conditions as well as increased rates of asthma, cancer, and motor vehicle fatalities. But the concerns don't end there.
"These projects aren't just associated with health and safety risks: if even a fraction of them come to fruition, they will condemn the planet to a future of climate chaos," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter warns in the foreward of the report.
Reflecting on what research on fracking has revealed in recent years, Hauter writes: "Natural gas, touted as a 'bridge fuel' to a clean energy future, was actually helping to tip the scales of climate stability past the point of no return. Fracked gas was found to be a climate killer."
The group's new report—entitled Fracking Endgame: Locked Into Plastics, Pollution, and Climate Chaos (pdf)—focuses on three key industries that are both benefiting from and helping to drive the country's fracking boom: "the petrochemical and plastics industries that use natural gas liquids as a key feedstock for their manufacturing; gas exporters building liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals to ship gas overseas; and natural gas-fired power plants."
"This new analysis paints a devastating picture of what our world will look like if fracking and fossil fuel infrastructure buildout aren't halted soon. But the damage to our bodies is already happening," Dr. Sandra Steingraber, a biologist, environmental activist, and author, said in a statement. "It needs to stop now."
Link to tweet
Read more: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/05/not-freedom-gas-failure-gas-first-its-kind-report-details-planetary-perils-us