I was once asked by a student whether I knew of any paper that demonstrated that fracking was safe.
Of course, no such paper exists, nor can it exist in theory. How might one demonstrate that there is a complete absence of risk of doing anything?
Or to put the question quite another way, and I wished I were clever enough to ask it initially, “Do you know of any paper that demonstrated that water is safe?” What about ____? I suspect that the answer would have been, “well, water is different.” It’s not.
Alternatively, the EPA releases a report finding little to no evidence of widespread water contamination due to fracking operations. There were some isolated cases, but very few in comparison to the amount of wells. Yet the same report lists possible ways systemic contamination *might* happen, which is enough evidence (read: headline fodder) for the scientific left to ban fracking across New York State.
Water is unsafe. Because fracking isn’t not unsafe. Maybe.
It’s fracking all the way down, baby.
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