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Blog Post#13 (Class 19) – Cheng Dong
April 1, 2015 | Leave a Comment
Class 19: Fracking – Tradeoff of Wealth and Health
The issue of fracking is another typical example of a tradeoff between developing resources for wealth and preserving the environments for health. On one hand fracking offers great wealth and economic development for the parties of interest in the area, while also creating uncertain health risks in terms of health in the area. For politicians, such divide in the effects of fracking means that they have to weight carefully before deciding on a side to support. For Gov. Cuomo, we can only say that he took a conservative and safe way out of the controversies.
Maybe not to others, but for me, the benefits of fracking are much more realistic and conspicuous than the risks associated with the action. In today’s world, the great demand for energy has created such a great market for fuels, and fracking is a new way to provide the supply. Using the high pressure water drills, companies can reach deeper into the ground to exhume resources once too difficult to reach. Other than contributing to the energy need of a nation, fracking can make a once poor area instantly wealthy by providing it with a new source of natural resources. Compared to these conspicuous benefits of implementing fracking, the risks involved is much more unclear in the BBC article. While stating that chemicals used during fracking could cause underground water contaminations, the paper also cites how the professionals believe contamination practices are only result of bad practice instead of inherent issue with the technology. On the other hand, when mentioning the possibility of causing earthquakes, the paper also sites from a professor that it is an inherent effect of fracking and is likely to have very minimal strength. This contradicting method of describing the negative effects of fracking makes it seem that the article is intentionally alleviating their importance. While there is a clear criticism that fracking decreases incentive to develop renewable energy, one can’t help but feel that it fail to grasp the central issue that fossil fuels are also needed to provide energy to the research for renewable energy, at least until renewable energies can be used to replace it. While the paper is meant to introduce us to the concept of fracking along with its advantages and disadvantages, the conflicting words drawn to describe the disadvantages make it more like a promotional paper for fracking.
The decision to ban fracking in the State of New York seems more to resemble a political consideration of Gov. Cuomo than a consideration of the tradeoff between the values of health and wealth. The issue with Gov. Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking is that he is doing it as a political decision rather than a consideration of the tradeoff between the benefits and risks. Like the article suggests, Gov. Cuomo started to oppose fracking after a political opponent who opposes fracking received an advantage in the last election over the issue. While the governor claims to be taking advice from the state health commission that fracking poses great and unknown risks to the environment, his actions is still against his claimed priority of economic growth. Risks are still just risks; they are not inherent negative effects no matter how great they are. All investments and developments comes with a certain degree of risk, which can be diminished using proper controls as fracking professionals have claimed in the BBC article. There is no reason that the governor wouldn’t know that, so I can only assume that the governor is taking the conservative position to prevent a potential political loss before going for a political win. The governor should remember that elected officials have to go against the will of the majority of the population from time to time, as people don’t always understand what is good for them. This is the time when the more knowledgeable leaders have to step in and guide the people to the right directions. To me, Gov. Cuomo seems to have failed in this instance to be a force of correction and was carried away in the wave of opinions by the majority.
The greatest issue with these articles is that when they state the disadvantages of implementing fracking, they lack solid examples. The BBC article contradicts its claim of disadvantages with statements from professionals that claims the disadvantages to be insignificant or a result of human error instead of the procedure itself. On the other hand, the New York Times article simplified the disadvantage to a mere four-word statement of “significant public health risks”, while failing to display any details. There has been fracking occurring in many states already, so if there really are disadvantages we should be able to draw them from observing the fracking operations that already exist. Are there examples of the disadvantages of fracking in the area of operation of already existing fracking sites? Are these risks lessened from one site to the other with differences in controls? Are these risks significant enough for people to give up the resources reachable by the mean of fracking? Without any solid examples from existing fracking operations, these articles are very unlikely to convince people that fracking contains inherent risks that overweighs its benefits.
There is no doubt that there are risks involved in the practice of fracking, just like every other forms of developing natural resources. While facing such a situation, we should ask for ways to contain the risks and develop the resources safely, not shun away from the practice completely. It’s illogical to give up definite profits for potential risks that can be contained to an acceptable level or even eliminated. In the case of Gov. Cuomo, I can only say that he failed to serve the purpose of elected officials as a beacon for people to direct them in the right path of the mind.
