My number one site for all green news is www.grist.org. I will reference them a lot during this blogging experiment. Today Barry Estabrook had an article on the impacts of natural gas drilling on agriculture. Movies like Gasland and Split Estate brought attention to the devastating effects of natural gas extraction...flammable tap water and toxic air both resulting in high rates of cancer and respiratory ailments. If it's not in your backyard, it's easy to not think about it but Barry reminds us, that food is our common link..."Fracking" is a process by which a cocktail of water and chemicals are injected into the ground at extreme pressure to release the gas from the bed rock. Not only is it highly water intensive and uses a mixture of proprietary carcinogens that companies don't have to disclose, but the process basically rips the earth below us to get at the gas. Yes, it destroys the ground water for people living nearby but it also infects neighboring crops which rely on those same water sources. Crops whose produce end up on your dinner table! If you want a little more...here is a post I wrote about natural gas for the Center of Native Ecosystems in November 2009. At the time, I had not made the connection to my food but I do now.
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