Essay about The Problems with Fracking

Do you want to see flames come out your hose and get rashes and respiratory problems?

If so you may be a fan of fracking. Although fracking has benefits to our country and to our economy, it is not in any way worth the risks. For hundreds of years civilians have been destroying our world, and this would only make it worse. Fracking should be eliminated worldwide due to the concerns on the safety problems, environmental problems, and problems to us humans.

Fracking has and will continue to lead us into serious safety problems. Although many people are in favor of fracking due to the tons of money it comes from, or the energy independence the United States would reach if they continue fracking, it is not safe in many ways. The first thing is that fracking areas are exempt from many laws. Many drilling companies can get access to these sites and start drilling a lot easier than you think. You would expect them to go have lots of paper and permits and approvals from local and state officials but it is a lot easier than that. In this article "Bad Air in Texas from Fracking Boom.", the author asked a guy who was an investigator on an air pollution case down in Texas. In his article he talks about the loopholes in the permits so companies can get past the emission laws. He said “Yes, you can. Yes, and that's being done. I think the term they use is stacking permits. You sort of stack one on top of the other, not taking into account cumulative emissions of all those facilities together.” (Morris) This shows that it is very easy to get a permit to do fracking and you can bypass many laws. It also shows how companies lie and are somewhat devious to try to get out of the law.

Secondly, people have experienced quite usual things that occur due to fracking. In the video “Fracking: Positive or Negative Impact?” a young kid talks about his life living in an area where fracking happens. He talks about how he and his family have experienced lots of skin irritations and respiratory problems due to the fracking. He also says something else that is quite disturbing. When talking about the pipes on top of the ground he says “ You can hear like a gurgling noise from the gas leaking out, and you can hear it down around in this area, and actually when the water was high after it rained last week, you could actually look down in and see it where it was bubbling up.” (Headley) This should never be a problem for anyone. First off you should never have a leak with a substance like that, and you should never have a leak of something that's so big you it sounds like it's gurgling. Yet this is what happens when these companies decide that money is more important than the safety of civilians. This also shows that not only is fracking bad, but could be even worse if human error were to happen. It shows that this job and fracking is way too dangerous for our environment, but companies continue to do it anyway for the money purposes. This is the first reason why fracking should be discontinued, safety concerns.

The second thing fracking has a negative effect on is our environment. People of this Earth take our world for granted way too hard. Everything people have today is from the world. The world has given us its plentiful resources for thousands of years. Without those resources, humans would be nothing, humans wouldn’t exist. People need to stop taking what they have for granted before it is too late and they lose it. Fracking is and will continue to do serious harm to our environment if they do not do something about it. In this once article,"Study: Bad fracking techniques let methane flow into drinking water.", was in the Washington Post and talked about how bad technique has let methane into the drinking water. He says a fact that may shock a lot of you and give you a bigger look on the impact fracking is doing. He says “So far this year, the state of Pennsylvania -- home to the prolific Marcellus shale -- has issued drilling permits for more than two thousand wells. If just one percent of those had a cement or casing failure, that would mean the contamination of 20 drinking water sources in the state every nine and a half months.” (Mufson) This shows that ya the human rate of error is small in this industry, but the smallest mistake can have big consequences. Also, fracking could cause us to lose serious supply of our water. In another article, "Fracking Is Harmful to the Environment." it says, “A 2009 publication, sponsored by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation and several for-profit multinational companies, predicted that by 2030 global freshwater demand would exceed available supplies by 40 percent.” (Zott) This shows if society continues to sell all this water to these companies to do fracking, this world will have a serious water problem in future years.

Finally, the last, but certainly not the least harmful part, is what fracking does to us as humans. Fracking has a lot of negative effects on us humans. In another article, "FRACKING IS BAD FOR WATER SUPPLY." it gave a very disturbing fact. It said “ Physicians for Social Responsibility's "2015 Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking'' shows that, in close to 300 studies of fracking, 84 percent of harm.” (Carver) This should change anyone's opinion on fracking. This shows how 84% of people have had harm or could have potential harm done to them. This shows how greatly there is a chance for a negative result to us humans, and this is why fracking should be stopped. Also, fracking can hurt our skin and respiratory system. In the video mentioned earlier, “Fracking: Positive or Negative Impact?”, they were talking about the complaints they have received in the community where lots of fracking has taken place. In the article they said “We've seen some respiratory complaints, quite a bit of dermatological-- skin, rashes” (Rippel) This shows how not even being involved in the job or process of fracking you can still feel its effects.

Fracking can create a lot of risks in our safety, our environment, and to our health as humans. As humans of this earth they should do all they can to protect our safety, environment, and our health. Fracking goes against all of these things and is used just so multimillion dollar companies can make even more money, which is why they do not care about the significant risks it creates. People must do everything they can to stop the process of fracking, before society feels the greater effects of this in the years to come.