SURVEY: MAJORITY OF SCIENTISTS OPPOSE EXPANDED USE OF FRACKING
January
30, 2015 | 4:34 PM
AP Photo/Brennan
Linsley
A fracking
site in Colorado. The majority of scientists surveyed by the Pew Research
Center oppose the expanded use of fracking.
A new survey out this week from the Pew Research Center finds
scientists have a more negative view of fracking than the general public.
Among
scientists, 31 percent favor the increased use of fracking, while a
majority– 66 percent– are opposed. The general public is slightly more
positive, 39 percent of adults favor it, while about half (51 percent) are
opposed.
The
phone survey included 2,002 adults nationwide, as well as 3,748 U.S.-based
members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.
The
scientists’ views about fracking vary across different disciplines. More than
half of the engineers surveyed support more fracking (53 percent), while just
25 percent to scientists in the biological and medical fields favor it. Earth
scientists fall in the middle– 42 percent favor it.
Courtesy:
Pew Research Center
The survey
reveals other divides between scientists and the public on energy issues. About
half the public attributes climate change to human activity, compared to 87
percent of scientists.
Less than
half the public supports building more nuclear power plants (45 percent) while
65 percent of scientists favor doing so.
The public
is more likely to support increased offshore drilling (52 percent), while scientists
are less enthusiastic– only 32 percent favor expanding it.
We believe that hydraulic fracturing has a certain place in the oil and gas field. We have been using fracking for many-many years and it is not a new technology. But many of its side effects (other than producing oil and gas) have not been well thought or fully accounted: the staggering (and completely unacceptable) death toll due to truck traffic accidents, the noise issues, othe nuisance issues, the potential health issues associated with frac sand (almost all of it being crystalline silica sand, a proven lung carcinogen), diesel exhausts, gas emissions, the usability of the land after fracking has stopped, and so on.
If all these impacts are fully and properly accounted for, we believe that this method will be reduced or adjusted for.