This is a guest post by Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D., a research scientist and policy wonk, who encourages the scientific community to get engaged in the policy-making process
People wonder why the public is skeptical of climate change. I would argue that it is partly the fault of those on the left who for better or worse get the science wrong when arguing their case. When people go out on a limb to claim that extreme weather is occurring due to climate change without any scientific support, they clearly open themselves up to criticism when cold weather events like “snowmageddon” hit us. Similarly, when the impact of oil spills is exaggerated or endangered species protections are misused, there is a natural backlash, especially when the science says something different. There are metaphors and allegories that relate; chicken little, the boy who cried wolf, Harold Camping, etc.
Indeed, there are cases where the science justifies the outcry. And in those cases, if activists want to win support for their causes, they should ensure they are using accurate arguments. Stay true to the facts. And, if they make a scientific claim, show the evidence that supports that claim. When I say evidence, I mean real, tried and true, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, not a story about your cousin who claimed his toilet water caught fire because it was contaminated with methane gas. There could be other explanations for that.
A hotly contested issue that is popping up in all sorts of places is whether fracking, a process of extracting natural gas, is too risky an operation for Americans to welcome into “their backyards.” The debate is multi-faceted but largely focuses on whether toxic chemicals used in the process are contaminating drinking water in areas close to the drilling. A second issue is whether the fracking process causes natural gas to leak into wells and aquifers. Lisa Jackson, Head Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, recently stated in response to a question from the U.S. House Oversight Committee,
“I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water, although there are investigations ongoing.”
And yet, opponents of fracking continue to mistakenly claim the opposite is true. Why is the misinformation lingering out there? Without doubt, it’s because many people are motivated for various reasons to oppose any form of fossil fuel use. I can appreciate that. There’s also a problem when community leaders and other activists promote unscientific arguments.
This happened in a recent episode of The Colbert Report, where Stephen Colbert made a fracking mistake. During that episode, he committed more than 5 minutes to the issue. And, in some cases, he ran with material that isn’t supported by the science. In one particular instance, he used a clip from CNN that makes the following unsupported claim,
“The chemicals which are very dangerous, neurotoxins and carcinogens and the gas itself migrate into the aquifers and then you get this kind of situation where people can all of a sudden light their water on fire…”:
That’s just not based on the facts, according to the Head of the EPA. Because Colbert gets it right most of the time, I have to wonder whether this was a genuine mistake or if he has allowed himself to be duped by the anti-fracking voices. Either way, the impact is that millions of well-intentioned viewers are now empowered with false information.
You have to agree, though, the shtick about the coloring book is fracking hilarious!
If we are to take the moral high ground on this issue, we have to wait for the evidence. We should get that evidence from the results of the EPA’s scientific study.
In the meantime, there are issues regarding fracking that merit scrutiny, like where and how do they dispose of the contaminated water leftover from the process and what happens when they have a blowout or a spill. Perhaps, these issues are worthy of opposing fracking all-together. But, it should be our goal to accurately report the science.
Follow Jamie Vernon on Twitter or read occasional posts at his personal blog, “American SciCo.”
July 13th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
You said:
“I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water, although there are investigations ongoing.” And yet, opponents of fracking continue to mistakenly claim the opposite is true. Why is the misinformation lingering out there?
Fracking Deniers?
Environmental Panics are not scientific in nature. Science is used to support the panic, or suppressed if it denies the panic.
If anti-frackers want to bend the science to suit their cause, they need to do what the climate alarmists do, use a different sentence structure, like this:
“The fracking process itself is consistent with affected water, … there are investigations ongoing.”
July 13th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
People wonder why the public is skeptical of climate change.
Its difficult to get worked up over prognostications of an apocalyptic event when its prophets live their lives in a way completely antithetical to what they preach. I’d be a hell of a lot more worried about global warming if algore lived his life in the same manner he demands me to.
Similarly, when the impact of oil spills is exaggerated or endangered species protections are misused, there is a natural backlash, especially when the science says something different. There are metaphors and allegories that relate; chicken little, the boy who cried wolf, Harold Camping, etc.
Impossible I say … If reading Mr Mooney has taught me anything, its that only Republicans wage a war on science.
In the meantime, there are issues regarding fracking that merit scrutiny, like where and how do they dispose of the contaminated water leftover from the process and what happens when they have a blowout or a spill. Perhaps, these issues are worthy of opposing fracking all-together. But, it should be our goal to accurately report the science.
I’m sorry .. is the a pod near you? This is almost a complete 180 on your part.
July 13th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
I would suggest that before you complain too much about Stephen Colbert’s take on the subject you remind yourself that he is first and foremost a comedian and as such he has a bit of a lower bar to surmount when he does a piece and I would argue that his use of CNN clearly meets the minimal standards to make his shtick work.
As for where this mis-information is supposed to be coming from maybe a quick perusal of the video store would be a place to start. “Gaslands” a quite popular “documentary” on the subject has a scene where a fellow lights his water from his tap on fire. Since the film is relatively popular it is likely that one of the Colbert Report writers has seen it and used that information in the background development of the piece.
July 13th, 2011 at 3:30 pm
The scene in which someone burns the gas that is mixed with his drinking water has a lot to do with why people are suspicious of ‘fracking’. If the ‘pro-fracking’ people want to convince us otherwise they have to show they fracking is not the cause of that rather flamboyant contamination. That you were unable to include a link to evidence that the contamination was not caused by gas-drilling is compelling…..
July 13th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
If the ‘pro-fracking’ people want to convince us otherwise they have to show they fracking is not the cause of that rather flamboyant contamination.
Ahem … drumroll please:
July 13th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
A good first run at debunking the flaming water claim is done in http://www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/debunking-gasland/
it includes a reference to the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission which says that the methane was biogenic and not caused by fracking: see link for details:(http://cogcc.state.co.us/library/GASLAND%20DOC.pdf).
In fact the litrature is pretty clear that methane has always been an issue in that area….maybe that is why they chose it as a place to mine methane?
If the one source is not enough a quick Google search of “gaslands false fire claim” gets about 6600 results. A quick perusal of the first half dozen links pretty throroughtly debunks the scene from the movie.
July 13th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
“Without doubt, it’s because many people are motivated for various reasons to oppose any form of fossil fuel use.”
Oppose *any form* of fossil fuel use? If you are going to preach about not overreaching with unsubstantiated claims (a position with which I agree) it’s best not to overreach with your own unsubstantiated claims.
July 13th, 2011 at 4:41 pm
I’ll admit that for this one it’s a bit difficult to tell which side he’s actually promoting since he waffles more than usual here with the coloring book, but as a regular viewer I’d have to say that he doesn’t believe or support the claims of “very dangerous, neurotoxins and carcinogens and the gas itself migrate into the aquifers…”
The Colbert Report show rarely quotes news clips to positively promote them in the viewers’ eyes. Either he looks completely ridiculous fake opposing it or the news clip looks completely untrustworthy/false. He uses official news clips the same way Tosh.0 uses YouTube videos – to poke fun at them.
July 13th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
I’d be more open to “scientific evidence” as an unbiased source of information if that information was truly unbiased. And that goes for all the issues where we see competing “conclusions”. At one time science could more or less be relied on to give us unbiased answers to the use of new ideas and products. Unfortunately, as industry realized that the general public were willing to believe science and based there will or ill will towards a product or process, the science world became corrupted by selling research capabilities and findings to the corporations.
We saw this in the fight over the use of DDT, the perils of smoking, the use of coal and the poisoned exhaust coming from our cars as examples of the scientific community and their findings being bought and sold by corporations and governments who wanted to sell their products. Science was more than willing to tell us they had no proof the aforementioned examples would harm us. Now, of course we know sewers being sold a bill of goods by scientists who were willing to sell their results to the highest bidder. The scientific findings are if found not to be of the liking of those who conducted the research is often swept under the rug or the research is directed to an outcome that is expected by those supplying the research money. Unfortunately, this goes on in environmental groups as well. Usually though, environmental groups don’t have the access to the big bucks so scientific findings often don’t go their way.
So science and it’s practitioners have no one to blame but themselves when there is distrust and skepticism expressed to their findings.
July 13th, 2011 at 5:11 pm
First of all, we know climate change is happening. What we don’t know is if bear any ultimate significance and how much humans are contributing to it. It could be negligible. It could be a portion enough to bear significance. I feel that all claims are founded in the relatively unknown.
July 13th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
What the anti-frac lobby most often fails to point out is there was flammable water in many places long before there was oil & gas exploration, in fact, natural gas in the fresh water is often how companies knew they would find natural gas in a particular area.
The first commercial natural gas in the United States was produced (inadvertently at first) from a “fresh water well” in Pennsylvania .
The first settlers in North Eastern Wyoming (easily in excess of 100 years before gas drilling activity in Wyoming) soon discovered that they could use rubber bladders attached to crude separators (purchased from Sears Roebuck) to capture the gas produced from their shallow water wells and use said gas for any number of conveniences from cooking to heating cabins & calving barns.
Similarly , Wise County Texas residents (emboldened by the anti-frac / anti-domestic oil & gas greenie-freaks) recently filed suit against area gas well operators for allegedly causing gasification of their fresh water wells producing from 300- 1200 ft. even though gas production from shallow fresh water zones in Wise County has been documented from the time early settlers first dug water wells over 100 years ago and the area producers were fracing shale zones in excess of 8,000 ft.
July 13th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
I think the main issue here is that anti-frackers want the industry to prove the technology is safe BEFORE implementing wide scale . Even this article acknowledges that testing is still ongoing in several cases, and from what I’ve read, the EPA’s investigations into fracking have been…less than thorough.
This is not so much an anti-science shift among anti-frackers (or at least not among the mainstream ones). This is people saying “you screwed us with asbestos, with DDT, with smoking, with pollution emissions, etc, why should we trust you now?”. And is it so crazy to err on the side of caution and call for restraint until more thorough study of the issue is completed? That’s not anti-science, that’s pro-experience.
This is also NOT analogous to what anti-AGW folks are doing. The anti-frackers and pro-green folks are both saying “this might be dangerous, you should stop/change what you’re doing”. The pro-frackers and anti-AGW folks are saying “you haven’t proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is a risk, (and it makes money) so we aren’t stopping”.
July 13th, 2011 at 10:04 pm
I think Jamie L. Vernon is writing like a fracking spin doctor, not a scientist. For example:
1) Quoting an EPA administrator’s waffling as if it was a significant statement. “I’m not aware . . . although there are investigations ongoing.” – Sounds like the EPA knows damned well that there have been a number of situations where the lack of “proof” of ground water contamination is likely due to lack of baseline studies before fracking began. (Note that a proof is something produced by mathematicians, scientists deal with evidence of varying strengths, not “proof’”.)
2) Ignoring the precautionary principle. Contaminating aquifers with toxic chemicals is not something to blow off, the potential harm is very large. There is some evidence that fracking could be contaminating aquifers and causing methane releases, otherwise why would the EPA be investigating?
3) Claiming that he has facts, or at least the EPA has facts, when science is based on evidence not ‘facts’, and the EPA head makes it very clear that they are investigating and don’t have enough evidence to do anything but waffle. Vernon says “That’s just not based on the facts, according to the Head of the EPA” when he is not producing much for evidence at all.
4) Pretending it is puzzling that many people including scientists call for a quick phase out of burning fossil fuels in light of the seriousness of global warming. Vernon writes: ” Why is the misinformation lingering out there? Without doubt, it’s because many people are motivated for various reasons to oppose any form of fossil fuel use.”
5) As others have already pointed out, critiquing a comedy routine rather than any study peer reviewed or otherwise. e.g. Vernon could have challenged this analysis http://www.postcarbon.org/report/390308-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from
July 14th, 2011 at 8:19 am
I love that you are willing to stake the drinking water and health of millions on the hope that large corporations aren’t lying to you about the safety of fracking.
You said yourself in a previous post:
“Personally, even though the evidence is sparse and inconclusive, I still believe the risks of contamination are too high for us to continue drilling for natural gas without significant oversight and regulation. A recent blowout in Bradford County, Pennsylvania has contaminated the immediate surrounding areas and three private wells with chemical-laced water. I feel strongly that fracking is unsafe as it is currently being carried out. ”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2011/06/25/epa-study-probably-wont-prove-that-fracking-is-unsafe-though-it-may-be/
Perhaps the lobbyists have transferred sufficient funds to your bank account that you have no jumped the fence on this issue.
You now say:
“When I say evidence, I mean real, tried and true, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, not a story about your cousin who claimed his toilet water caught fire because it was contaminated with methane gas. There could be other explanations for that.”
The issue at hand isn’t whether or not some people’s water catches fire some of the time. The issue is whether or not the onset of the flaming water phenomenon is correlated with the start of fracking in the vicinity of the contaminated aquifers. This scenario, repeated time and time again, constitutes strong evidence for a cause and effect process related to hydraulic fracturing.
The tobacco industry claimed for a very long time that there was no scientific evidence to link smoking to cancer. After all, some people who get lung cancer will happen to smoke by pure chance, right?
The issue that some people may have had contaminated water BEFORE the start of widespread fracking is largely irrelevant, just like that the issue that some people got lung cancer before the spread of cigarettes is irrelevant.
July 14th, 2011 at 10:07 am
I don’t think Dr. Vernon is arguing FOR fracking, as some people have commented. He is just saying that if you are going to oppose something, don’t use something we know to be false as it undermines credibility. There are plenty of reasons to oppose fracking, but we do ourselves and everyone else a disservice by spreading false information. You can’t expect anyone to trust you if you use false evidence. If you oppose large scale fracking operations, as I do and as Dr. Vernon has said he does, then do it with claims that are true, not hyped up false statements.
July 14th, 2011 at 10:32 am
The EPA will be releasing a study soon. Other SCIENTIFIC journals have indicated the detrimental environmental affects, including PENN STATE UNIVERSITY– The water contamination as a result of fracking. Now, we can’t say with 100% certainty, but I’m having hard time finding cases of groundwater contamination prior to drilling. It must be pure speculation…. A miraculous phenomenon occurring. People have clean water, they lease their land, it gets fracked and then they’re water catches on fire from methane gas… Which comes from miles below the surface where we’re drilling….
HerpDerp, Eric and others really said it all.
You talk about peer-reviewed science and used a statement by an EPA official as evidence. Wow.
July 14th, 2011 at 10:32 am
“If we are to take the moral high ground on this issue, we have to wait for the evidence. ”
There’s no evidence? Really?
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/02/1100682108.full.pdf+html?sid=bde16321-e169-437d-a59c-798e7f65c479
July 14th, 2011 at 11:18 am
SomeSci: Now this is the sort of thing that should be used. Why use patently false information like the video of the guy lighting his water when we actually do have good evidence? Sure, the burning water makes a nice visual, but it hurts the argument when it has been shown to have nothing to do with fracking. We should be pushing the accurate information, not false hype. If we are going to use a video of flaming water, let’s try to find one that can be linked to fracking, not one that isn’t.
July 14th, 2011 at 11:41 am
I must agree with jdmimic here. If you are trying to make a case for any policy altrnative the worst thing you can do is base your argument on information that you know to be false. Once the truth about the information is revealed (and it always is) your credibility is destroyed. That means that even if you subsequently arrive with irrefutable evidence it will either be ignored or taken with a grain of salt.
Truthiness is fine for Stephen Colbert but not so good for real policy decisions.
July 14th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
@ Ultrageek
Familiarize yourself with the incident in Bainbridge township in Ohio. It was, to the best of my knowledge, the only case where a faulty wellhead casing contaminated the aquifer with methane AND baseline predrilling water samples were available to compare.
Needless to say, no HF related fluids were found in any of the post contamination samples.
July 14th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
People, people, people.
The issue is all about how you define fracking. Otherwise you aren’t all talking about the same thing.
July 14th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
For those who missed the point of this article. See below:
15. jdmimic Says:
July 14th, 2011 at 10:07 am edit
I don’t think Dr. Vernon is arguing FOR fracking, as some people have commented. He is just saying that if you are going to oppose something, don’t use something we know to be false as it undermines credibility. There are plenty of reasons to oppose fracking, but we do ourselves and everyone else a disservice by spreading false information. You can’t expect anyone to trust you if you use false evidence. If you oppose large scale fracking operations, as I do and as Dr. Vernon has said he does, then do it with claims that are true, not hyped up false statements.
Thanks,
Jamie Vernon
July 14th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
jdmimic wrote: “the burning water makes a nice visual, but it hurts the argument when it has been shown to have nothing to do with fracking.”
OK, who has shown this? Please provide a link to the peer reviewed science that produced strong evidence that the flaming tap in question had nothing to do with fracking. Please don’t cite groups charged with promoting fossil fuel extraction such as the The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission whose mission is to “to foster the responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resources.” I suspect that the word ‘responsible’ is rather open to interpretation.
If you claim to be scientific, including Jamie Vernon, cite the science not the spin from government bureaucrats (who’s independence is questionable).
July 14th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
These are sourced statements taken straight from the Wikipedia page on Gasland:
“”On the other hand Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, the D. C. Baum Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, whose research for more than 30 years has involved fracture mechanics has said that drilling and hydraulic fracturing can liberate biogenic natural gas into a fresh water aquifer. Thus, just because the gas is labeled as “biogenic” it does not show how it actually got there. [12].
The COGCC concluded that a well belonging to Weld County landowner Aimee Ellsworth, also featured in the film, contained thermogenic methane that was attributable to oil and gas activity in the area. The report states that Mrs. Ellsworth and an operator in the area had reached a settlement in that case.[9]“”
They would both seem to leave the whole “fracking forced methane into the water supply” pretty open. In fact, it appears that there is at least one case where contamination was *confirmed.* That was from a COGCC report, and directly refutes Lisa Jackson’s statement! So forgive me if disagreeing with the EPA head’s statement is offensive to you, but I challenge you to prove, in light of that report, why I’m unscientific for doing it.
The other month I parked my car in a municipal lot with a lot of overhanging trees. Some tree cutters were working in the area, removing limbs. When I returned to the lot later that day, I discovered damage to my car caused by falling tree limbs, and had to submit a claim to the city, which they paid. By this guest blogger’s logic, the city could have said “Well, tree limbs fall naturally in that area all the time. After all, that’s why the tree cutters were there in the first place. Since there is no scientific evidence that the limb that damaged your car was other than a natural occurrence, you shouldn’t complain or be compensated. Doing so would be anti-science”.
While many of these wells mentioned might be in areas where naturally occurring methane contamination COULD occur, it does not preclude the possibility that fracking caused these specific instances. In fact, the strong temporal link between well incidents and contamination provides alarming, if circumstantial, evidence. Yes, we’d all like the evidence to be stronger, and hopefully further testing will settle the matter. But just like the damage to my car was compensated on circumstantial evidence, circumstantial evidence is accepted in courts of law, and saying people are being unscientific for using it in the court of public safety debates is insulting.
July 14th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
So I’m concerned my point may have gotten lost in my post, so I wanted to simplify / emphasize a few points. Dr Vernon is concerned that people are propagating misinformation centered around the footage from Gasland where people light their water on fire. He claims that this hasn’t been attributed to fracking, and his evidence centers around this statement:
//Lisa Jackson, Head Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, recently stated in response to a question from the U.S. House Oversight Committee, “I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water, although there are investigations ongoing.”//
Lisa Jackson made this statement in May, 2011.
Yet two years earlier, in 2009 the COGCC released a letter to Aimee Ellsworth, who was featured in Gasland as one of the people who could light her water on fire. In the findings, it clearly states “The methane gas present in the September 22, 2009 COGCC sample was identified as being a mixture of thermogenic and biogenic gas, and the heavier hydrocarbon gases were thermogenic. The thermogenic gases are likely related to oil and gas operations.” (http://cogcc.state.co.us/Announcements/McClureMarkhamEllsworthCorrespondence.pdf)
Bang. A proven case. So, either EPA head Lisa Jackson lied, or she is testifying to the US House Oversight Committee from a position of complete ignorance. Whichever is true, having her statement as the base of your post doesn’t really do much for your argument.
This information is readily available on the internet and took all of a Wikipedia search and some clicks on the references to find. It appears that people are more than justified to continue using these sensational events in their anti-fracking discussions. Furthermore, it appears that Dr Vernon is actually the one spreading unscientific disinformation.
I’m a little concerned that Stephen Colbert, DFA, has more scientific chops than Jamie L. Vernon, Ph.D. I’m normally a big fan of this blog, but if you’re going to question the motives and intellect of your base readers, you should really do more research than a single quote. And Dr Vernon, if you want to move on from HIV research to “policy wonk”, you need to make sure your wonk-hand is strong, or you’ll get wonk-slapped by this community.
July 15th, 2011 at 3:32 am
Beyond fracking, concentrated natural gas drilling affects air quality! Especially for one person here, can’t remember who, who tried to claim that fracking in DFW was safe … well, besides the fracking, watch out for the VOCs in that air: http://downwindersatrisk.org/_blog/News_Plume/post/Ft_Worth_Gas_Sites_Release_57_TONS_a_DAY_of_VOCs/
jdmimic, you got SomeSci’s link entirely wrong. It says that fracking-driven methane IS LIKELY to be in the water; it says there’s no proof of fracking fluids in water at this point.
In other words, the Natl Academy of Sciences is saying the Gasland scene IS, IS, IS quite possibly the result of fracking. Ditto for anybody else trying to deny that.
July 15th, 2011 at 10:49 am
Does the author realize that Colbert is a satirist? It’s his business to exaggerate, misrepresent, and expose issues in order to point out the negative and absurd aspects of politics and policy. The green left should indeed base its arguments in hard science, something at which they have arguably failed in the fracking case. So go after the serious people who are misrepresenting and exaggerating science, not a funny guy on basic cable.
July 15th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
I am mildly amused at Mr. Doherty’s requirement for peer-reviewed research to debunk the occurance of flaming water in an individual household featured in a “documentary”. I’m not sure you are setting the bar high enough there Eric? Perhaps an series of peer-reviewed research projects would be in order followed by a meta-analysis and a white paper?
Still I will humour you. According to a 2001 report by the Colorado Geological Survey the methane potential of this formation has been recognized in approximately 30 publications on this subject.(The Coalbed Methane Potential in the Upper Cretaceous to Early Tertiary Laramie and Denver Formations, Denver Basin, Colorado Author: L.L. WRAY; N.V. KOENIG Publication Date: 9/27/2001). Feel free to peruse the article at your leasure.
July 15th, 2011 at 5:48 pm
Nice, Jamie L. Vernon would fit in nicely 30 years ago or so. Back then a multitude of people were claiming there was a causal connection between smoking and cancer. There was no scientific basis for their claims though.
Someone needed to start ringing the alarm bells for it to gain traction. Today there is no doubt that smoking can and does cause cancer. While I’m not saying that fracking is indeed causing these problems, we do not need to dismiss the claims of the problems with fracking outright, yes they might be unscientific at this juncture. With time, you’ll have your peer-reviewed scientific evidence taking a stance.
July 18th, 2011 at 11:30 am
[...] gas, such as the widely touted Gasland, or Stephen Colbert’s recent attack (criticized here). The NYT does a disservice to its readers when misleading criticisms like this are published to [...]