Petition To Demand A Ban On Fracking In Indiana

Hydraulic fracking is harmful to the environment. If natural gas from fracking was not so long ago considered as a bridge from dirty coal to more climate friendly solutions, it is now being more and more regarded as a gangplank to a warmer world.

Indeed, fracking has been proved to be linked to important leaks of methane – a 23 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

To be considered as a climate-wise alternative, methane leaks should have to remain as low as two percent. However to a recent study, those leaks are as high as six to twelve percent.

Hydraulic fracturing is not park of the vital energy transition. Fracking is just pursuing our headlong rush, or as we say in French, "une fuite en avant" as it gives us the illusion that we can keep on using polluting and inefficient means of heating our houses and moving our cars and trucks when better solutions are at our disposal.

Far better solutions like low carbon energy sources such as renewables (solar, wind, geothermal…) and energy efficiency can be part of an energy transition that is safe for our climate. While the former are gaining traction, the former could do much more.

An energy transition based on these two could bring thousands of local jobs and money without any risks. As a matter of facts, it has already started.

Hydraulic fracturing consumes vast amounts of precious water. As more and more countries are getting drier, using energy sources that consumes vast amounts of water is just sheer madness.

Climate Progress reported that each fracking job requires several million gallons of water, of which only around a quarter is being recovered. The remainder is just lost forever.

Hydraulic fracturing also contaminates soils, air and water. We depend on clean soils in many ways. Feeding ourselves is but one. Clean air is even simpler to comprehend as we breathe the air around us. So if hydraulic fracturing pollutes both soils and air, how can we live healthily with it?

Shale gas drilling has been linked in many occasions to flammable drinking water. The Economist among other news groups have published articles on this.

Hydraulic fracturing injects in our environment a cocktail of water, sand and no less than hundreds of chemicals that can cause cancers or are neurotoxins. Not the kind of stuff you want anywhere near you or your community.

Hydraulic fracturing also causes earthquakes. Drilling holes in the soil and injecting massive amounts of chemicals and wastewater is not exactly what could be considered as safe regarding earthquakes.

A recent study from one of the world’s leading seismology labs quoted by Reuters show that ” powerful earthquakes thousands of miles (km) away can trigger swarms of minor quakes near wastewater-injection wells like those used in oil and gas recovery.“

To Triple Pundit, the US Geological Survey (USGS) linked up to 50 earthquakes to fracking in Oklahoma. Magnitudes were ranging from 1.0 to 4.0.

Hydraulic fracturing also puts arsenic in groundwater tables. Arsenic is a poison of choice if you want to dispose of an Emperor or a King. Most unfortunately to people near fracking wells, it also has been found in groundwater near them.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found traces of it on multiple occasions as the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica both reported.

Hydraulic fracturing doesn't benefit anyone except Big Oil and companies. Because of all the negative side effects, our communities can lose a lot because of fracking. The ones who benefit from it are Big Oil. As I noted in my review of Promised Land, a clean energy alternative however can benefit our communities at large.

Instead, rural communities can be revived thanks to wind power’s money. For example, there is a small city from Southern France that earned huge amounts of money – 2.3 million euros (more than $3 million) -thanks to a few wind turbines. I only ask that consideration be placed heavily with Indiana's wildlife such as the endangered Indiana bat with wind power construction.