Fracking Addendum

A follow-up to yesterday's post...

I've recently learned that fracking is a terrible name, something that isn't helped by the way it's spelled. F-R-A-C-K-I-N-G. What does that remind you of, hmmm? Nothing polite, that's for sure. It's short for hydraulic fracturing - note: there's no "k" in fracturing; where did the "k" come from? Fracing or fracting would probably have been better names, or at least had less vulgar connotations. 

But, that aside, Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, an engineering professor at Cornell University, explained to me that we're also using the term inaccurately (guilty as charged - see previous post). People use fracking to refer to both the technical action of hydraulic fracturing (injecting chemicals and water into drilled areas) and everything else (the drilling process, the industrial operations on the ground, the wastewater wells). That only serves to confuse the issue and make it harder to talk about.

It also allows oil and gas industries to dodge the question, "Are there any cases of fracking that have caused contamination?" Based on their definition - the technical one - the answer is no. There are very few proven cases of the actual hydraulic fracturing process tainting people's water. BUT if we're talking about all those other parts of the oil and gas development - what is also included in the larger definition of fracking - then yes, there are thousands and thousands of examples. To get around the fossil fuel industry's dodge, the better question is, "Is there any case of oil and gas development that have caused contamination?"

Using "fracking" as a catch-all makes it hard to know exactly what we're talking about. We need to be much more specific and use precise terminology to define and discuss each stage of the process. Otherwise, it makes it all that much harder to communicate about what's already a difficult issue. 

Fracking

I have talked about it endlessly - in seminars, in lectures, in conversations with colleagues and friends. It's all over the news and it's a central issue of Colorado political discussions. I've heard from people who think all fracking should end yesterday, and others who think it's the best thing to happen to America since the Constitution.

But it seems like everyone has an agenda and I'm still not sure if I'm really getting the whole picture. 

There are lot of misconceptions. I don't have the time or expertise to address them all, but these seem like some of the biggest ones. 

• The process requires a lot of water, which is certainly something to be thinking about in the dry, dry west. But - and this is a big but - it doesn't use nearly as much water as people think it does. Take, for instance, California, which is in year four of a big ol' drought. California uses 214 acre-feet of water per year for fracking - about 70 million gallons. Sounds like a lot until you consider how much water California wastes due to leaky pipes - 431,000 acre feet per year. That's over 140 BILLION gallons. Puts the amount used for fracking in some perspective.
• Then there's methane, a rather potent greenhouse gas. People have voiced concerns that the hydraulic fracturing process leaks a lot of methane into the atmosphere, significantly contributing to global warming. This doesn't appear to be true, however. While methane is indeed released, it's a small fraction of the total amount - much smaller than what comes from wetlands, rice paddies, termites (!) and ruminants, aka moo cows. 

• Additionally, natural gas (methane) is the cleanest fossil fuel out there. Natural gas power plants emitted about 56% less CO2 than coal burning power plants. Overall, that's meant a big reduction in CO2 emissions - down below 1994 levels. 

But, there are still some major problems:

• Increased seismic activity. The waste fluid from fracking is often injected deep underground into wells and that is causing earthquakes. In 2013, Oklahoma saw an earthquake rate 70 times higher than it did before 2008.
• Traffic. That might sound trivial, but the number of trucks and heavy machinery involved in establishing wells is tremendous. For communities near fracking sites, that means more tailpipe emissions, more traffic fatalities, more noise. 
• Fracking chemicals. The vast majority of the liquid used in fracking is water mixed with sand (which keeps the fractures in the rock open, to allow oil and gas to be extracted). But the remainder of that fluid is made up of chemicals.  fluids  An EPA report from March found that something like 700 chemical additives are used in hydraulic fracturing. Many of those are considered "proprietary" by the oil and gas industry, which means they're kept secret. And if we don't know what they are, we don't know what dangers they pose to people or the environment.

Some of these issues seem like they could be fixed with better technology and more openness and cooperation. There needs to be more regulation - of that I'm 100% certain.

Even if those problems are addressed, fracking shouldn't be the long-term plan. Natural gas reserves are going to run out and, even if natural gas burns more cleanly, it's still adding to the overall greenhouse gas problem. But as a bridge fuel? As a way to get away from coal and closer to something cleaner and renewable? Seems like fracking might not be such a bad idea.

A Public Perception Problem

Click on the photo above. It'll take you to a pretty amazing map out of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. Go play with it. Then come back.

Did you have fun? Pretty cool, isn't it? There's some good news in there: across the US, the majority of people believe climate change is happening. But it's also worth noting that most people don't believe that scientists think global warming is happening. 

Now where did they get that idea?

Let's take a trip back in time to your high school science days. Remember the scientific method? Here's a very quick synopsis: a scientist asks a question, does research, constructs a hypothesis, tests it repeatedly using experiments, analyzes the outcome (which may mean changing the hypothesis and/or modifying the experiments) and shares the results.

Then the other scientists pick at it and probe it and run their own experiments and argue and question and debate. Why? To find any weak points, holes, mistakes. It's a way to test the strength of an hypothesis.

Scientists never prove anything. They only disprove hypotheses through constant probing and questioning. (And what might be a firmly-held scientific theory today could eventually be changed by the introduction of new information or technology.)

Looking at this from a climate change perspective, you can see where this poses challenges to the general public's understanding of the issue. For the majority of scientists, the facts support climate change and the idea that humans are contributing to global warming. But scientists are still - and should continue to be - probing and testing as part of the scientific method. That questioning can be seen by outsiders as uncertainty. 

Journalists haven't helped this situation. There are a small minority of scientists who don't subscribe to climate change theory. In their quest to be fair, journalists have for years given this minority equal coverage, which contributes to the belief among the general public that scientists disagree - a feeling that shows up quite clearly on that map. 

In short, science has a public perception problem when it comes to climate change. But it might help to make an analogy: to smoking, as the American Association for the Advancement of Science did in their March 2014 report: 

The science linking human activities to climate change is analogous to the science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases. Physicians, cardiovascular scientists, public health experts, and others all agree smoking causes cancer. And this consensus among the health community has convinced most Americans that the health risks from smoking are real. A similar consensus now exists among climate scientists, a consensus that maintains that climate change is happening and that human activity is the cause.  

It took a long time for people to realize that the scientists denying the extent of tobacco's harms were a small but incredibly powerful minority. We see that again with climate change. The vast majority of climate scientists - some numbers put it as high as 97% - agree that climate change is happening now. They may still be pushing and prodding and testing all the theories, but the basic facts all point to climate change. The deniers are again a small, vocal minority that shouldn't be allowed to confuse the issue any more. Asking questions is part of the process. Outright ignoring the science is not.

Unintended Consequences

I've been a little gun shy about the internet for the past month (specifically Twitter), after a run-in with the nastier side of the online world. 

A little background: this fellowship is fantastic but it does not come with health insurance. Since I left my job to do this - and COBRA was prohibitively expensive - it made the most financial sense for me to take advantage of Colorado's shiny new healthcare marketplace, which was set up in response to the Affordable Care Act.

It went into effect in August and, while it's certainly not the best coverage I've ever had, it's way better than not having coverage at all. I can get a flu shot, go in for an annual exam, or deal with a stomach bug without breaking the bank. I don't LOVE it but I'm glad I have it.

Then, in early March, I received a notice from the healthcare exchange, saying my coverage had been terminated. Out of nowhere. I got on the phone and kicked off what became a days-long hold process. Hold times were over an hour, every time I called. I tried direct-chatting with one of the exchange's online representatives. The representative could do nothing and directed me back to the phone. So I took to Twitter, as I and so many other Americans have when complaining about customer service issues with companies like Verizon, American Airlines, Comcast, etc. 

Success! I got a much better response via Twitter than I did using any other form of communication. It still took way too long to get resolved (hours on the phone, even after I had their attention, and an untold number of emails) but the people at Connect for Health Colorado got it fixed.

Here's where the unintended consequences come in: because I was publicly complaining about healthcare, because I tweeted that I still believe in the ACA and because my bio says I'm a former NPR journalist, I made myself into a ripe target for anyone who's unhappy/angry with Obama, Obamacare, the government, liberals, journalists, women, etc. 

In three days, I received hundreds of tweets calling me an idiot, a bitch, a freeloader. Some, like the one pictured up top, hoped I broke my leg (although I did have a defender. Sort of). I also got called out publicly on a couple of conservative websites. It was embarrassing, horrifying and made me want to crawl in a dark hole. And this was nothing compared to what some people have endured.

It was also eye-opening. I was lucky - I was in a position where I had the time to sit on the phone and hash this out to get it resolved quickly. That's time that someone with a full-time job (or two or three) or kids or serious health issues doesn't necessarily have. It was such a long, convoluted process. I only got a brief taste of the frustration that people must feel over this - people who have to jump through all the red tape, who lost their insurance, who are paying more for less. I'm sorry for anyone who's gone through this mess or will go through it. It's maddening.

Here's the deal - I don't love the ACA. While it has allowed me some peace of mind and a level of flexibility that was hard to come by before its creation, it's far, far from perfect. There are some real problems with it that need to be worked out. I also think it's a start and we had to start somewhere. The existing system was unsustainable and it was bankrupting everyone. So let's work on it. Let's amend it, change it, improve it. But how can we have a conversation about fixing healthcare if it devolves so quickly into name-calling and mud-slinging? The level of vitriol surrounding this topic, of which I got a small dose, makes me wonder if that conversation is even possible. 

So for now, I'll be keeping healthcare out of my Twitter feed.

The Black (Ski) Summit

Back in October, I wrote a post about the lack of diversity among outdoor enthusiasts. I brought this up to my friend, Shereen Marisol Meraji (who reports on race for NPR), and we came up with the idea for a radio series on race and recreation. The first piece would be about the National Brotherhood of Skiers - a national black ski organization whose goals include getting more African-Americans out on the slopes.

The group holds a week-long ski summit every two years and, conveniently, this year's summit was at Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado - a mere four hour drive from Boulder. So last weekend, Shereen flew in from LA and we drove up to Aspen to meet with the founders and talk with black skiers from all over the country. Here's the story, which aired on today's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon.

I grew up skiing in Idaho and Wyoming and I don't ever remember seeing ANYONE of color out there. To come to Aspen and see so much diversity out there on the slopes was awesome. I want skiing to be something everyone feels welcome doing. But there was one point that we didn't have time to get into in this piece and that's cost. Skiing is just not a poor man's sport. The gear, the lift tickets (half-day at Aspen is $88), even just getting a cup of coffee on the mountain - it all adds up to a very expensive day.

I don't remember it being this pricey as a kid, or even in college. Did the cost of running resorts become that much greater? Does higher insurance play a role? Or is it just about making more money off people? Maybe that's the way the cookie crumbles now - you can't ski unless you're wealthy. And that's too bad, because I'm not sure there's anything quite like schussing down a powdery ski hill with blue skies above you. I'm not a great skier by any means but I do love being out there and wish everyone who wants to could have that opportunity.