Petroleum Perils

Petroleum Perils Royal Dutch Shell rig aground in the Arctic

The perils of extracting petroleum and fossil fuels are well documented. Clearly, drilling in the arctic or offshore is difficult, expensive and dangerous. A spill is hard to contain and virtually impossible to clean up. Spills from 20 years ago like the Exxon Valdez in Alaska to recent ones caused by British Petroleum in the Caspian Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are testament to their devastating and long lasting effects. Greenpeace has “… identified oil drilling in Arctic waters as one of the biggest climate threats being ignored by the world’s governments.”

Every year, according to Greenpeace, about 30 million barrels of oil products leak from wells and pipelines in Russia. An estimated four million barrels of that, roughly the size of BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill, flows straight into the Arctic Ocean through tributaries. !

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A Cleaner Community

We can’t build a strong clean community on a weak foundation!
Over the past several years, oil companies have taken advantage of smaller, less resilient communities desperate for work. When large corporations purchase land intending to mine for oil or natural gas, the result is both a breakdown of community as well as a reliance on the oil company to maintain their own economy.

Rural communities are promised jobs that provide livable wages and an overall higher standard of living. However, this comes at the expense of the community member’s physical health. Uranium, thorium, radium and a whole host of other toxic and radioactive substances are often found at drilling sites and remain in the soil for an indefinite amount of time. (Environmental Protection Agency)

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Fracking Water Contamination Confirmed

There are many problems with fracking for natural gas. One of the main ones is the destruction of clean water resources. Although gas companies and paid supporters sometime deny it, fracking water contamination has indeed been confirmed.

When holes are drilled for fracking, they are supposed to go well below water sources. However …

Energy companies are fracking for oil and gas at far shallower depths than widely believed, sometimes through underground sources of drinking water, according to research released … by Stanford University scientists.

Common sense would dictate that oil companies not be allowed to drill into drinkable water. But the “Halliburton Loophole”, which is part of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, allows this since it exempts them from part of the Safe Drinking Water act!?

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