If you don’t know what fracking is, perhaps you should have paid more attention in the school yard. Fracking is what oil and gas companies do to get more reserves out of the ground. The official term is hydraulic fracturing.
Fracking is done by releasing pressurized fluid into the ground. Often a friction reducer or lubricant is used.
Fracking has social consequences. Groundwater can become contaminated, air quality can be compromised and frackin’ chemicals can come to the surface and spoil the environment.
One truly scary consequence of frackin’ is that it can trigger earthquakes. The largest one appears to be a magnitude 4.0 earthquake on the Richter scale. But something as lucrative as fracking (the frackin’ oil companies are now projecting that with unfettered fracking, North America will be oil self sufficient by 2050), can also spawn many earthquake denying studies and lawyers.
So if the oil companies want to frack below you, just say, “Frack off.” It’s not money for nothing. You are risking your groundwater, air, and surface. And places that the oil companies want to frack in don’t necessarily have any earthquake defences or codes.
Send a big “Frack you” to big oil and gas, by continuing to switch over to greener environmental options. Fracking just means oil and gas will last a little longer. The party will still eventually be over.
We can only afford to say, “What the frack?” in non oil and gas communities. Effected areas would be wise to legislate.
In the meantime, help make frack a bad word.
