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The Opinion Pages

April 23, 2011, 8:00 pm

Bloggingheads: Growing Pains in Gas Country

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

8:21 p.m. | Updated
The producers of Bloggingheads.TV invited me to join Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica in a discussion of the drilling boom aimed at the vast deposits of natural gas identified in deep shale layers and other deposits around North America and, increasingly, the world. Lustgarten is a lead reporter and writer in ProPublica’s ongoing Buried Secrets project on environmental problems related to the gas boom.

We recorded the chat just one day after drillers lost control of a Pennsylvania gas well. Environmental officials did not detect significant contamination in nearby waterways, but the blowout prompted the drilling company, Chesapeake Energy, to suspend all hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, activities around the state while the incident is evaluated.

Here’s the opening video, with links to subsequent sections:

The confused debate over hydraulic fracturing (03:00)
The geopolitics of natural gas power (02:10)
Will fracking poison your tap water? (03:50)
Evaluating the claim that natural gas is dirtier than coal (05:34)
Should we trust industry to implement best fracking practices? (04:24)
Owning the environmental risks of gas, oil, and nuclear power (04:48)

Here’s more from Dot Earth on issues and opportunities related to extracting natural gas.

Postscript: I spent an hour on Thursday exploring the state of the planet on “Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour” with Kirsten Sanford, a neurophysiologist and science writer and interviewer:

I discuss humanity’s “capacity to surprise ourselves in positive ways,” which so far has gotten us out of a variety of jams; the ideological blog wars; the intended meaning of my Pace University title, “senior fellow for environmental understanding”; how a scallop’s underwater dance inspired me to dive into science; and much more.

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By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life. In Dot Earth, which recently moved from the news side of The Times to the Opinion section, Andrew C. Revkin examines efforts to balance human affairs with the planet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracks relevant developments from suburbia to Siberia. The blog is an interactive exploration of trends and ideas with readers and experts.

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