My students
gathered up their things. They had
their assignment—to write a profile of someone notable in their community—and
everything they needed to complete the paper: sample profiles, books, notes on
generating interview questions. At
the door, I stopped them with a reminder:
“Please,” I said. “Don’t
just interview your friends.”
A new study
released last month by the Center for Energy and Environmental Research, a
study co-funded by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the natural gas
industry to measure methane pollution from fracking, commits this fatal flaw:
They interviewed their friends.
Specifically,
the study measured wells chosen by the gas industry at times selected by the
gas industry.
Perhaps this
bias is unsurprising given the study’s co-authors: one works as a consultant
for the oil and gas industry while the other is a former petroleum
engineer. Sponsors of the study
include Chevron, Anadarko Petroleum, and XTO Energy (a subsidiary of
ExxonMobil)—a full 90% of the study’s funding coming from gas companies.
Perhaps it also
comes as no surprise that this industry-funded study found pollution at
significantly lower levels than all previous research on the subject, including
a much-larger Cornell University study conducted less than two years ago.
In addition to
looking only at wells selected by the gas industry, what Seth B. Shonkoff,
Executive Director of Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy,
calls a “non-random choice of sites,” presenting a “best-case scenario,” the
EDF study took measurements at a mere 190 wells total.
This is a
grossly inadequate sampling, given that the United States is now home to more
than half a million active natural gas wells—and more and more every day;
25,000 new wells were drilled last year alone.
And here’s the
fine print of the study: Its tests on pollution levels were conducted at a
single stage in a multi-stage process—and not at the stage where leaks are most
likely to occur, according to previous research. The EDF and industry-funded
study took methane measurements only at the drilling pad. Yet pollution also escapes during
compression, processing, storage, transmissions, and distribution.
Despite the
narrow focus of the study, inadequate sample size, industry-determined sample
selection, and bias of the researchers who work or have worked in the industry,
this subjective study is being reported in many media outlets as definitive, as
a final word on fracking pollution. The headline of The New York Times? “Gas
Leaks in Fracking Disputed.”
Why is pseudo-science
being taken seriously?
Because we’re
desperate. We want to believe
fracking is safe. We want
alternative energy now. But we
also want—need—the truth about it.
The gas
industry, according to Phil Radford of EcoWatch blog, “desperately wants to get
us hooked to its latest product before we have time to adequately study
it.” They’re hoping we will ignore
the discrepancies in the study, the inadequacies of the study.
But a time when
humans have been deemed responsible for climate change—there is more than a 95%
certainty of human culpability, according to The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change —we
need to fully investigate fracking before launching even more pollutants into
the atmosphere.
We deserve
unbiased studies, thorough research, and solid reporting. We deserve more than industry puppets
interviewing their friends.
Ohio especially
has a stake in finding out the truth about fracking and pollutants. Last year alone, Ohio became the
resting ground for 588 million gallons of waste from fracking—that’s what’s in
our earth. Shouldn’t we be told
truthfully what’s in our air?
It’s a story
that the gas industry is feeding us. We deserve the whole story before signing
over our air, our water, our land, and our lives.