Fracking Protesters Are Putin Puppets
The much anticipated intelligence report which concluded that Russia tried to influence the recent presidential election had another startling, yet widely ignored, conclusion: The Russian government promotes anti-fracking propaganda in the United States.
Russia accomplishes this through its "news" network, RT, which promotes the Kremlin's interests around the world. The report, issued by the Director of National Intelligence, states bluntly:
RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health. This is likely reflective of the Russian Government's concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom's profitability.
The science on fracking is pretty clear. Compared to burning coal or oil, natural gas is preferable for the planet. (Ideally, U.S. energy policy should focus on expanding nuclear power instead of fossil fuels.) Concerns over methane or other chemical leaks can be ameliorated with better engineering practices. Similarly, any worries over earthquakes could be addressed by injecting wastewater into the ground in places where there are no preexisting faults.
Additionally, fracking is clearly in America's national interest. There is broad political consensus that the United States would be better off relying on ourselves and our closest allies (like Canada) for energy, rather than on Middle Eastern countries who can be only charitably described as "frenemies."
In other words, compared to the status quo, fracking is good for the planet and bad for our enemies. Russia's economy, which is largely dependent on exporting fossil fuels, could face collapse if oil and gas prices fall too far. That is why RT is fearmongering about fracking; it wants to decrease the global supply of fossil fuels (which keeps prices artificially high) as part of a strategy to keep Russia's economy alive.
Thus, environmentalists like Joe Romm and the protesters who block fracking and the construction of pipelines, such as Keystone XL and Dakota Access, are serving as "useful idiots" for Vladimir Putin. They falsely believe they are doing good for America and the planet when, in reality, they are only doing good for the Kremlin.
Worse, some anti-fracking protesters are not merely useful idiots but are willing puppets of the Putin regime. In 2014, the New York Times reported on suspicions that the Russian government was funding anti-fracking protests in Romania and Lithuania, countries which are reliant on Russia for fossil fuels.
In a recent interview, President Obama correctly observed that "Vladimir Putin is not on our team." Neither are anti-fracking protesters.
http://acsh.org/news/2017/01/09/fracking-protesters-are-putin-puppets-10707
Russia accomplishes this through its "news" network, RT, which promotes the Kremlin's interests around the world. The report, issued by the Director of National Intelligence, states bluntly:
RT runs anti-fracking programming, highlighting environmental issues and the impacts on public health. This is likely reflective of the Russian Government's concern about the impact of fracking and US natural gas production on the global energy market and the potential challenges to Gazprom's profitability.
The science on fracking is pretty clear. Compared to burning coal or oil, natural gas is preferable for the planet. (Ideally, U.S. energy policy should focus on expanding nuclear power instead of fossil fuels.) Concerns over methane or other chemical leaks can be ameliorated with better engineering practices. Similarly, any worries over earthquakes could be addressed by injecting wastewater into the ground in places where there are no preexisting faults.
Additionally, fracking is clearly in America's national interest. There is broad political consensus that the United States would be better off relying on ourselves and our closest allies (like Canada) for energy, rather than on Middle Eastern countries who can be only charitably described as "frenemies."
In other words, compared to the status quo, fracking is good for the planet and bad for our enemies. Russia's economy, which is largely dependent on exporting fossil fuels, could face collapse if oil and gas prices fall too far. That is why RT is fearmongering about fracking; it wants to decrease the global supply of fossil fuels (which keeps prices artificially high) as part of a strategy to keep Russia's economy alive.
Thus, environmentalists like Joe Romm and the protesters who block fracking and the construction of pipelines, such as Keystone XL and Dakota Access, are serving as "useful idiots" for Vladimir Putin. They falsely believe they are doing good for America and the planet when, in reality, they are only doing good for the Kremlin.
Worse, some anti-fracking protesters are not merely useful idiots but are willing puppets of the Putin regime. In 2014, the New York Times reported on suspicions that the Russian government was funding anti-fracking protests in Romania and Lithuania, countries which are reliant on Russia for fossil fuels.
In a recent interview, President Obama correctly observed that "Vladimir Putin is not on our team." Neither are anti-fracking protesters.
http://acsh.org/news/2017/01/09/fracking-protesters-are-putin-puppets-10707
Tags
Who is online
91 visitors
It is those opposed to domestic fossil fuel development and drilling fracking style who are shills for Russia and Putin!
I am against fracking but I sure the hell will not discuss it in a topic that starts off with insults, nor will I lower myself to that level of discussion.
The headline alone pure BS.
The truth can be painful. Throw off Putin's yoke!
Whatever.
The left doesn't mind throwing Putin and Russia in the face of their opponents despite democrat incompetence. Yet they react in horror when it's done back to them on an issue they have collaborated on with Russia.
Yep.
So liberal treehuggers are puppets of a foreign regime? It all makes sense now.
I come from a slightly different place than most fracking protestors do-- I've been a hydrogeologist for almost 40 years and know what fracking can do to our ground water supplies. How contaminants can move between various rock layers and find conduits for movement. How fractures or lineaments actually work, and what injecting toxic wastes at high pressure can do to an aquifer-- a drinking water supply.
So, my protests are based on knowledge and on the relatively hopelessness of trying to clean up oil spills and toxic chemicals. I can assure you, I've never been contacted by any Russian agent, nor do I support Putin. I support clean drinking water, and support protecting drinking water supplies.
There is a difference.
I'm not convinced that fracking is entirely safe-the folks in Pennsylvania that now have toxic water running form the taps for their in-ground wells seems to big a problem to disregard-these problems did not exist with their wells until after fracking started.
Exactly. The pressures used to inject the wastes into the ground are horrendous. Put enough pressure on a formation's fluids, the fluid is going to move. And they don't want to even know about the locations of lineaments, which serves as a conduit for contamination in a vertical direction. Nor do they bother to locate old oil wells, which tapped the same formation and were abandoned later. Many of these oil wells were abandoned by plugging them up with a tree. (I am not kidding-- until the 1960s there were no regulations requiring the wells be sealed by concrete.)
There are few safety checks, which is troubling. We have the science, right now, to be a bit more careful, but no one will use it because it 1) costs money and 2) may negate some areas as being too dangerous to drill. Some places ARE too dangerous to drill.