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Chevron Gives Residents Near Fracking Explosion Free Pizza
Lasrick writes "Chevron hopes that free soda and pizza can extinguish community anger over a fracking well fire in Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania. From the story: 'The flames that billowed out of the Marcellus Shale natural gas well were so hot they caused a nearby propane truck to explode, and first responders were forced to retreat to avoid injury. The fire burned for four days, and Chevron currently has tanks of water standing by in case it reignites. Of the twenty contractors on the well site, one is still missing, and is presumed dead.' The company gave those who live nearby a certificate for a free pizza and some soda."
As a bonus, Dunkard Township residence can reheat the pizza with their kitchen faucets
. . . that is just part of life, especially something as dangerous as extracting oil or natural gas. When that happens, it only seems reasonable to do something to generate good publicity. However, it is better to do nothing at all (except apologize) than to attempt some insulting gesture. It makes it seem like the residents' exposure to potentially toxic smoke is worth nothing more than a coupon for free pizza. It is insulting. Maybe they should actually pay to send out some doctors or some other meaningful assistance for the residents.
But... if I boycotted every corporation that did something so outrageous as this, I would have no car, no gas to put in it, no clothes to wear, no shoes, nothing to eat or drink nothing to see, hear, or read. we as a people are deeply indebted to evil, and/or depraved assholes. so thank you, you despicable worms... thanks for making our modern world possible.
There lawyers are really really clever.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Man, I don't want soda, I want brawno! Because it contains electrolytes!
And they doused the fire with water? Like, from the toilet?
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Are there risks with fracking?
Groundwater contamination, for one. Especially, flammable tap water. Perhaps you dismiss that as anecdotal, but it's not as if scientist have been given the access, data, and funding to run these claims to ground... that will take another ten or twenty years, by which point the perpetrators will have long since taken off with the profits while the general public gets stuck with whatever environmental catastrophes this created.
Don't get me wrong... I wish fracking was as safe and plentiful as proponents claim. And maybe it's worth some amount of contamination even if it isn't safe. I just wish these things could be determined objectively and scientifically in the best public interest instead of this same old sh*t where the powerful simultaneously exert influence over corporations, media, government, and public opinion to effect the fattest profit instead of the utilitarian good.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Yup, don't like fracking - it carries too high a risk of polluting my landscape, and quite likely turning a beautiful view into a rubbish-tip. In the UK, the government has even gone on record to say the extracted oil & gas won't reduce anybody's energy bills. It will, however, make a shit-load of money for some people who already have too much, and who seem willing to rig the deck to make sure they get their way.
Don't like nuclear fission power either - it produces *filthy* dirty waste, that we have no idea what to do with. AFAIK, not a single nuclear power station has yet been decommissioned and cleaned up anywhere in the world - quite a few are mothballed, while an alleged "decommissioning" process achieves almost nothing and stretches endlessly into the future at vast expense to the tax-payer (cos poor little private sector can't take the pain, so public sector has to take that task on, or private sector will take its ball home).
Both these technologies are amateurish, half-assed, ill-thought-out, poor examples of our abilities at this climactic moment of the 21st century, and I'm embarrassed to be a member of the same species that wants to do this crap. Come on ... we're capable of better than that.
For some reason, many of my peers in this /. community seem to take umbrage whenever there is any criticism of any industrial process if there is some kind of "technology" aspect to that process. There appears to be a belief that so long as a process makes money and is technological, it must be undertaken, irrespective of the impact on this one uniquely precious planet that we have here. I will continue to try to understand this point of view, but I fear its exponents are blinded by the flashing lights.
Sigh.
If you don't pray in my school, I won't think in your church.
Well, the risk of environmental contamination is pretty real and the consequences severe. Fracking works by injecting ridiculous large quantities of chemicals and water into bedrock and then the pressure from the heat and gas sends a lot of those chemicals and water back to the surface where it is collected in ponds. While there might not be clear evidence of the fracking process itself contaminating the groundwater, leaks of chemicals at the surface have happened and the consequences can be particularly nasty. To add insult to injury, many of these fracking companies have traditionally considered the cocktail trade secrets, so local residents, first responders, and regulators don't always know exactly what the contamination risk might. Fracking leading to fire shooting out of your faucets might be an urban legend like nuclear explosions at power plants. That does not mean that there is not a real risk of a significant catastrophe. The nuclear industry is tightly regulated. Fracking regulations, until recently, have been largely nonexistent.