Slashdot Mirror
Finding Fault With Anti-Fracking Science Claims
A widely carried Associated Press article (here, as run by the Wall Street Journal) reports that some of the convincingly scientific-sounding claims of opponents of fracking don't seem to hold up to scrutiny. That's not to say that all is peaches: the article notes, for instance, that much of the naturally radioactive deep water called flowback forced up along with fracking-extracted gas "was once being discharged into municipal sewage treatment plants and then rivers in Pennsylvania," leading to concern about pollution of public water supplies. Public scrutiny and regulation mean that's no longer true. But specific claims about cancer rates, and broader ones about air pollution or other ills, are not as objective as they might appear to be, according to Duke professor Avner Vengosh and others. An excerpt: "One expert said there's an actual psychological process at work that sometimes blinds people to science, on the fracking debate and many others. 'You can literally put facts in front of people, and they will just ignore them,' said Mark Lubell, the director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior at the University of California, Davis. Lubell said the situation, which happens on both sides of a debate, is called 'motivated reasoning.' Rational people insist on believing things that aren't true, in part because of feedback from other people who share their views, he said."
I've always just called it "confirmation bias." I see it just as much in the left wing as the right, and nearly every other area of human interaction. Why should sciences be exempt?
When some of us question the shaky science of AGW we are called anti-science, 'deniers' and worse. Hell, semi reputable idiots on the AGW team actually say we should be outlawed or otherwised silenced. I await with breathless anticipation the sudden 180, where dissent is again patiotic... and we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Why not lets meet in the middle and admit what my team has been saying for a long time, that science, being a human endeavor, has been politicized. Then we can all agree that every idiot in a lab coat (or worse, a politican who wears one on TV) shouldn't be blindly trusted. That science, and more importantly the ways of science, are important tools to knowledge but that scientists should only be allowed to inform policy decision, never to use argument from authority to impose policy.
Democrat delenda est
Whether fracking is scientifically sound or not, we have just got to stop this desperate scrabbling to dig up any scrap of fossil fuel we can find.
The world is acting like an addict that will do anything to get their next fix, no matter how damaging it could be, or what the consequences could be that we just don't care to think about. I'm no treehugger but even I think this is like raiding grandma's handbag to give to "my man" and it's embarrassing, undignified and immoral.
The first step to recovery is to admit the problem. We're still in denial.
Some "Scientists" insist on presenting as "facts" things which are not necessarily true. As long as scientific studies are being produced with a pronounced bias towards a particular viewpoint, I think people will tend to disbelieve scientific studies that disagree with the view that they hold. When Corporations can pay for studies that "prove" their viewpoint but appear to be unbiased why should we believe everything we are told just because a scientist says its so. If they remain neutral then they gain credibility but the more biased opinions that get passed off as "scientific fact" the weaker their credibility. I am thinking here of some of the studies done with the financing of Big Pharma that just happen to support a product they are selling/developing, and then later we discover it was all a sham.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I call bullsh*it. If you really believed that you would boycot the evil energy companies. Which would of course mean you wouldn't be posting on the Internet.
You want energy. I want energy. They want to sell us energy. Where is the evil in any of that?
God Damn, man! They are selling gasoline cheaper than milk right now (US). All you have to do to get milk is feed cows and wait, gas needs a LOT of work to obtain, complex chemistry to refine and a complex worldwide distribution network for both crude and the end products. If you weren't a fool you would give thanks for the hard work being done daily by millions to supply the energy you take for granted. And those 'evil' profits flow into pensions, dividends and lots of other productive uses. And never forget that those evil profits are the thin sliver left over after expenses and a shocking amount of taxes flowing into the welfare state that I'd bet good yellow gold YOU depend on.
Democrat delenda est
Quite. They call it "water" but what it really is is a chemical cocktail. It's an aqueous solution of some really nasty shit. Because there's also some water in there, they call it water. That's the first obvious nonsense that's going to get people suspicious.
Now contemplate that being injected into the Earth at high pressure.
Not likely to end well. Might be safe under certain conditions. Those conditions will likely not be tolerated by corporations. This is why oil platforms end up exploding. The Ayn Rand cult will push for every corner being cut until you are left with a circle.
Plus, it's hard to take these companies seriously when we're still recovering from their last disaster. Do they think everyone to has collective amnesia.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Course, I'm waiting for the frakking community to tell us that the flammable tap water is normal:
"What you mean your tap water isn't flammable? You got yourself some defective water. After all, it's made of hydrogen and oxygen: one was responsible for the Hindenberg, and the other is used as rocket fuel."
No "evil". Evil is a religious term. It's just bad policy.
From the article:
Where was the "public scrutiny" coming from? And regarding the "regulation", isn't a big part of the GOP platform to disband (yes, entirely) the EPA and the Dept of Energy? So where is that "regulation" going to come from then? Is the industry going to regulate itself?
So what's the problem? And natural gas is cheaper still, so cheap in fact, one wonders what's behind the push for increased fracking. Doesn't the "law of supply and demand" indicate that when prices are low, production slows?
There's a serious problem now that energy has completely been disassociated with the "law of supply and demand".
Do you know how much the "shocking amount of taxes" Exxon paid to the "welfare state" in the last three years was? Go ahead, guess. And do you have any idea what percentage of "welfare" ends up going to pay for energy, putting it right back in the pockets of the energy industry? And let's not forget how "shocking" the percentage of Exxon's oil and Koch Brothers' fracking comes from underneath public land. Now certainly they get oil and gas from under private land, too, but the "shocking amount" of gas and oil under the private land belongs to us and the lease royalties they pay are calculated in the most unbelievably bad deal for the owners (us). We got a look at how much of that oil is under public lands when BP killed a bunch of expendable employees and let a whole bunch of it just spill right off your coast. Oh yeah, they still haven't paid but a fraction of the damages they were supposed to pay to all your fellow gulf state folks that had their livelihoods ruined.
And never forget, friend, that your home state gets a lot more money BACK from the federal government than you pay in taxes, so I'd have a much better chance betting "good yellow gold" that you're getting a bigger taste of that "welfare money" than those of us here in Chicago or New York or Los Angeles.
And you're welcome.
You are welcome on my lawn.
>>>Economics is all opinions and "schools of thought" with no predictive power.
The Austrian school predicted the dot-com bubble would crash, which is did during Clinton's final year. Then they predicted another bubble based on housing before it happened, and while it was going-on they predicted it would burst and crash the economy. They got all three things right.
They also predicted the TARP bailouts and stimulus and QE1 would create another bubble, which did indeed happen (the derivatives are leveraged at a higher rate in 2012 than they were in 2007), and now they are saying that bubble will burst too.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
I work in the business and all this fracking panic in the US is justified for one simple reason, the US oil companies are not regulated.
So at the same time I say fracking can technically be done in a controlled and responsible way but not with the present US legislation that has grown companies devoid of any moral.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I see you have been paying attention in straw man creation.
Take something out of context? Check
Place it in context that puts words in someones mouth? Check
Have nothing at all to do with the subject at hand? Check
In case this was a reading comprehension fail, then you will notice that the parent was saying the state of North Carolina has become like a slutty girl. This displays an analogy and a personification, so elementary readers may not fully comprehend the post. In no way does the parent compare anyone in particular with a slutty girl.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
When grant money is on the line science will reflect whatever is required to ensure continued financial support.
Right. Scientists are just trying to protect their paychecks, but the energy companies and their political shills are in it for the good of mankind.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Surely you can't be serious. If I wanted to assure my political future I'd pull a Dick Cheney and tell Americans that they should forget about climate change, CO2 and "peak oil" and burn all of the gasoline they can afford. That's what they want to hear. And if I wanted to keep my campaign coffers full and bring in all of that corporate PAC money, I'd be pandering my butt off not to climatologists but to the oil industry, because that is where the real money is.
But sure, Hitler campaigned on a platform of environmental protection and universal health care, if you say so...
Not really.
However, history shows that while many industrial processes could be made to be both profitable and have a moderated impact on the surrounding environment monied interests dictate that such steps to moderate the impact will not be taken unless forced. Even a small increase in profit is enough to damn basic steps towards safety and basic wellfare of those working and living in and around industry. Thus it is the job of government to ensure that such practices do not produce profit.
"I'd love to see the money oil companies spent on defending their dirty businesses go to research and development of cleaner technologies."
I'd love to see their money go to paying my mortgage and buying me a corvette, but it's their money.
You did mention subsidies and I agree with you completely. In the case of subsidies it's not their money. But instead of giving that money to some other business venture I'd rather give it back to the tax payers and let them decide who deserves to get it. Government and business need to be kept separate for the exact same reason that government and church do. When state and church lay in bed they tell us what to do with our minds, when state and business lay in bed they tell us what to do with our bodies. It amazes me that so many who are opposed to religion making its way into politics don't see the problem with government and business mingling; or maybe they do, they just don't see the similarities between regulating thoughts and regulating trade.
I don't really care too much about "viable alternatives." I'm more worried about legal alternatives. As with all scarce resources, prices will rise as supply diminishes. When people are hungry for energy there will be a lot of money to be made in providing it. I'm not so worried about running out of fossil fuel as I am about legal barriers in place preventing new startups with mere millions from competing with the big boys who have the courts and police and politicians in their pockets.
The "unwitting Democrat" was bought and paid for. Are you really that naive? Do you believe that your Dummycrats are any more honest than the other party? FFS, look at NAFTA. It has destroyed the economies of TWO nations, and it was pushed through by a Democratic administration.
Wake up and smell the horse shit, dude!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
And in other news, if you make something hot enough, it freezes!
No. This meme gets repeated, but it is still bullshit. The spectrum is actually two axises. Being far to one side of an axis does not mean you come out magically on the other. It is simply that extreme governments like fascism and communist-socialism tend to be authoritarian as well, and if you are authoritarian enough, left/right differences disappear. Same with extreme libertarianism: if you do not believe in any government, then right/left cases to have any sensible meaning and you end up with anarchy.
The axises are [social support]/[social darwinism-inherited wealth] and authoritarianism/anarchy.
Great Intellect...
In all fairness to the DOE, they did develop a breeder reactor system that could meet all of our energy needs for hundreds of years to come, and was passively cooled so that it could avoid the fukishima like meltdown problems the current generation of reactors suffer from. It was just politics that stopped it from being built on a larger scale.
Sorry but the fact the gas companies got exemptions from the clean air and clean water acts makes me highly suspicious they knew from day one this was risky and they wanted to limit their exposure to lawsuits and fines. Shattering bedrock releases the gas just like it's supposed to do. The fact it migrates upward isn't shocking. Why exactly would you assume gas would stay put once you shatter what was containing it.
Take, for instance, the recentish revelations that climate models weren't taking clouds into consideration very well, if at all.
Or look at the spread of predictions, with the extreme ones predicting 20-30 foot sea level rise by 2100.
Or the 1970 (?) climate models which predicted global cooling.
It's all just science, nothing remarkable in its variability, but the left wing fanatics take the extreme predictions as gospel and refuse to even admit there's any uncertainty, while the right win uses the uncertainty as excuse to doubt everything.
I figure that all those who take definitive positions are the true fanatics, whether left or right, refusing to recognize the reality that the future is not as predictable as they would wish.
Infuriate left and right
If you so much as question the "scientific consensus" you are demonized and called a moron. If you find contrary evidence, you get frozen out of academia.
So, when someone isn't convinced about AGW, they're called stupid or kooks or nuts or crazy or morons. That isn't how to persuade someone to change their thinking. I'm personally on the fence about AGW and fracking. I could be convinced one side or the other is right, if only the two man camps weren't populated with so many abrasive douche bags.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Except that right now, the extreme right end is elected to Congress, and the extreme left end (in this country) is mostly in history books. Can you name a single Democratic Congressman who with politics similar to Hugo Chavez? Not "as reported by Fox News" or in the fevered imagination of that pill-popping-sex-tourist-draft-dodger with the radio show, but actually making speeches, or proposing legislation? There's nothing close. "Hard left" in this country is to propose a 70% marginal rate on very high incomes (not unheard of in our history, and not bad for the economy) and single-payer health care (like those radical leftists Canadians). "Close the carried-interest loophole", whoa, strong stuff.
Note that, since high marginal tax rates are part of our own history, and single-payer health care is just across our northern border, that promoting these things is in no way "to the exclusion of reality". They've been tried, and they work fine. Whereas, the right wing in this country proposes things that, if/when they are measured, are demonstrated not to work well (everything from abstinence-only sex education, to charter schools, to cutting government spending to "stimulate the economy"). The two "ends" in this country are in no way equivalent.
You can literally put facts in front of people, and they will just ignore them
Including such facts as "This benzene-toluene mixture we combine with diesel fuel and water, then pump at high pressure into the bedrock where your drinking water comes from is totally harmless. Trust us. No, of course we won't let you test the chemicals we use, that's proprietary."
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
There's no confirmation bias in his comment, it is accurate. Tobacco is in fact an addictive poison that kills almost all its users with no beneficial effects at all, while marijuana is benign if eaten (if smoked can contribute to emphesyma), can be helpful for some medical problems, is not addictive, is not carcinogenic, and in fact has no bad side effects at all (although the main effect is unpleasant for some people).
No, he's accurate. The confirmation bias is your own, not his.
Free Martian Whores!