"More than 70 years ago, a chemical attack was launched against Washington State and Nevada ... As their cancers developed, the victims of atomic testing and nuclear weapons development got a name: downwinders ... Now, a new generation of downwinders is getting sick as an emerging
industry pushes the next wonder technology -- in this case, high-volume
hydraulic fracturing. Whether they live in Texas, Colorado, or
Pennsylvania, their symptoms are the same: rashes, nosebleeds, severe
headaches, difficulty breathing, joint pain, intestinal illnesses,
memory loss, and more ... With the release of that gas come thousands of gallons of
contaminated water. This “flowback” fluid contains the original fracking
chemicals, plus heavy metals and radioactive material that also lay
safely buried in the shale. The industry that uses this technology calls its product “natural
gas,” but there’s nothing natural about up-ending half a billion years
of safe storage of methane and everything that surrounds it. It is, in
fact, an act of ecological violence around which alien infrastructures
-- compressor stations that compact the gas for pipeline transport,
ponds of contaminated flowback, flare stacks that burn off gas
impurities, diesel trucks in quantity, thousands of miles of pipelines,
and more -- have metastasized across rural America, pumping carcinogens
and toxins into water, air, and soil ... We seem to have decided that we need energy so badly that we have in
almost a passive sense identified individuals and areas to sacrifice."
Zum Artikel von Ellen Cantarow, erschienen auf TomDispatch (2. Mai 2013) »
Zum Artikel von Ellen Cantarow, erschienen auf TomDispatch (2. Mai 2013) »
