“Go slow,” following the “social licence,” has become the latest buzzword of tricky attempts to introduce hydraulic fracturing to Yukon and other parts of Canada.
The idea appears irrelevant as the build-out of frack gas extraction has automatically led everywhere not to spot development, as in conventional oil and gas drilling, but to spatial and seamless degradation of roll-out over large regions.
However, it gets the foot in the door. All presenters invited by the fracking committee’s chair, Patti McLeod, to speak this week have expressed their belief in the feasibility of regulations for fracking, except for zoologist Dr. Donald Reid.
Bias is continuing against scientists and experiences, shut out by McLeod, that show intensifying frack harms are consistent with the shattering of unconventional shale geology. Demolished lands and infrastructures and always contaminated water are determined by physics as well as biology and are not at all controlled by always improving, but in the frack case fictionalizing and corrupting, regulations.
The repetitive economic disaster is always hitting hard at the endgame of short-lived fracking scenarios. Then there is great loss to jobs, wealth and health, as for example in the Barnett Shale, Texas. Unfortunately the presenters chosen by McLeod have a consistent record of bluffing economic benefits without reality check.
However, without qualms, proven and certain harms are consistently distorted and diminished to risks that may not materialize, by these friendly merchants of doubt.
None appear to have skills or knowledge in the fields of petroleum geology and engineering as a basis for asserting feasibility, except for John Hogg, vice president of MGM Energy Corp. who is spinning and subsidy seeking for MGM’s frack damages in the N.W.T.
In her 2012 report, Dr. Eilish Cleary uses a language saturated with subtle pro-frack bias. On a trip to Ireland Cleary faced firm criticism by a Fermanagh County audience that didn’t buy her “go slow” message. One of her recommendations is for a multi-disciplinary advisory committee throughout the lifetime of the fracking industry in New Brunswick.
Toxicologist Dr. Lalita Bharadwaj has stated, in support of Cleary’s positions, the safety of the industry in New Brunswick will come down to how government regulates it - predetermining, preventing, prejudging any serious examination of feasibility.
Yukon’s Dr. Brendan Hanley, like Cleary, as a chief medical officer of health, has fallen short regarding the finality of health impacts and likewise taken a political position essentially recommending to the frack committee to go ahead, slowly and regulated of course.
Dr. Mark Jaccard’s 2006 book “Sustainable Fossil Fuels” could very well summarize his presence at the March 2011 three-day energy conference in Whitehorse. In the meantime, he has changed some of his opinions. It’s unclear, if not unlikely, that this includes an understanding of the encroaching frack problem for Yukon.
Peter Becker
Whitehorse