The Anti-Fracking Crowd: Denial Spreads to Academia

In a report out today, Energy In Depth exposes the latest alarmist tactic from the anti-fracking crowd. EID reveals that a report from the Clean Air Task Force "makes sweeping and erroneous predictions about future health impacts that the researchers blame on fracking -- despite the fact that emissions have been steadily declining, and that, thanks to natural gas, air quality has been improving in the United States."

The report goes on to show how the authors of the scare-tactic report routinely ignore established studies and government data in an attempt to reach their foregone conclusions. In a scathing indictment, the article's author, Randy Hildreth, says "...the authors are far more interested in garnering headlines than looking at the science," and suggests it is the reason the report was not peer reviewed.

This comes on the heels of news earlier this summer that researchers from the University of Cincinnati backed away from a year-long study that only served to debunk, not support, the idea that fracking is linked to water contamination. Perhaps it was because they had just been forced to retract a previous report that claimed fracking was causing significant air pollution in Carroll County -- due to "errors" and "miscalculations."

Now a report is released revealing how three professors at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, for a course titled "Medical Humanities in the Digital Age," plan to assume man-made climate change is fact and will not entertain opposing views. Such views will not be heard, considered or debated.

Furthermore, the professors intend to delve into "the health effects of fracking," despite the scientific evidence that such effects are a myth. According to an article on the College Fix website, (which promotes a conservative viewpoint), "The reading assignments in the fracking section focus only on its negative impacts and fail to present the other side of the issue, namely the possible benefits of fracking."

It's unfortunate that these educators, who claim to have science on their side in the climate change debate, would willingly ignore the ongoing scientific evidence that -- as EID's Jackie Stewart so eloquently put it last spring -- continues "to 'disappoint' agenda-driven anti-fracking groups."

How One Foundation Works to Reverse the Once-Supportive Position of Environmental Groups on Natural Gas Exploration

It’s remarkable to think that just a few years ago leading environmental groups were heralding natural gas as the key to a “climate-friendly energy supply.”

In fact, that phrase is taken from a statement by Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in a 2008 speech. For at least a decade before that, green activists were hailing natural gas as being “inherently cleaner than coal or oil.”

But the rhetoric suddenly began to change a few years ago, and, according to one leading philanthropic publication, it’s traceable to an anti-fracking opposition campaign being funded by the Park Foundation, a small organization based in New York.

“Gas Heat,” an article published in Philanthropy Roundtable, concluded that “The morphing of natural gas from promising next step to ‘worse than oil and coal,’ as some activists now claim, happened almost overnight.”

The report tells the astonishing account of how the Park Foundation “uses focused academic, media and activist grants to redirect a policy debate.” (The foundation's website says that Park "supports public interest media that raises awareness of critical environmental, political and social issues to promote a better informed citizenry in the U.S.")

"Gas Heat" is a remarkable story, worth reading to understand the Park Foundation's one-sided tactics. Click here to read it on the Philanthropy Roundtable website.