Steingraber-Hoodwinked

Fracking and the Un-Hoodwinking of America
By Sandra Steingraber, PhD

My task today is to speak to you about the collective state of mind in the United States in regards to fracking. The word I think of first is an old English verb: "hoodwink." To hoodwink means to trick, cheat, or deceive, but the original meaning of the word, in William Shakespeare's time, was to blind someone by placing a hood over their eyes ....

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With these emerging data, the real costs of fracking are coming into focus, and the un-hoodwinking of America is underway.

But I would like to close with an apology, rather than a note of triumph. The environmental community in the United States, of which I am a member, took a conciliatory stance on fracking many years ago with the excuse that natural gas was somehow less bad than coal for health and the climate. It's not. But by our silence, U.S. environmental groups enabled this harmful form of fossil fuel extraction to gather political power and speed. Fracking is my country's worst export. You may not hear this from anyone else, but I am truly sorry, as an American, that fracking is now sowing misery across the Atlantic. It's brutal, primitive technology that brings temporary riches to a few and permanent ruin to many. I pledge myself to your good efforts to halt fracking in the European Union and across the Mediterranean basin.

New Yorkers Against Fracking
http://nyagainstfracking.org

Concerned Health Professionals of New York
http://concernedhealthny.org

Americans Against Fracking
http://concernedhealthny.org

A comprehensive citation database on the health effects of fracking has been compiled by Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy: http://psehealthyenergy.org



"You can have fracking or you can have a healthy city, but you can't have both."

—Adam Briggle, Denton, Texas