Health Impacts of Shale – “Not A Single Case”

15 Comments on "Health Impacts of Shale – “Not A Single Case”"

Dredd on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 7:43 pm 



Oil-Qaeda has ways to prevent cases (UAE Gave $1 Million to NYC Police Foundation; Money Aided ‘Investigations’). Attention Citizens United!

Plantagenet on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 8:21 pm 



Surely somebody somewhere must have been injured by oil shale.

Maybe somebody slipped and tripped over a bit of it?

rockman on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 8:58 pm 



I know of a number of hands who were killed or severely injured during frac’ng ops. And I’m sure a number of folks somewhere has swallowed ground water that has been contaminated with illegally/improperly disposed frac fluid. Proving any health issue caused by it would be difficult given the other sources of pollution out there.

SilentRunning on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 9:02 pm 



I wager good money that “Dr. Them” is on the Fracker’s payroll.

Also, it’s exceedingly misleading to claim that zero reported cases were documented from any organization queried. You’d have to know which organizations were queried, how many were queried, how many of them handle reports of human health damage, etc.

For example: I can claim that not a single fracking company that I queried denied that their operations damage the environment, and human health.

SilentRunning on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 9:08 pm 



In fact, every single natural gas company executive I queried admitted that they would rape their own grandmother if it increased their profit margin by 1%.

SilentRunning on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 9:16 pm 



About “Dr. Them”:

Dr. Theodore F. Them graduated from the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine in 1987. He works in Sayre, PA and specializes in Occupational Medicine.

Apparently, he graduated from the “American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine” and Pizza Parlor. Get a large pepperoni and 2 liters of Pepsi free with each medical degree ordered.

SilentRunning on Mon, 13th Apr 2015 9:34 pm 



Read up on the front group putting forth this drivel: “American Council on Science and Health”

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Council_on_Science_and_Health

Guess what? They’ve put forth that cigarettes really aren’t that bad for you!!

In other words: They are “scientists” willing to whore themselves to whatever corporations will throw money their way.

Perk Earl on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 1:58 am 



Needed somewhere to paste this great post from Ron’s site. Worth a read;

BC says:

April 13, 2015 at 5:54 pm

Yes, the oil energy cost of oil extraction per capita and in the same currency units is at a supply lower than 50+ years ago and at a lower quality.

Therefore, seen in this way, US Peak Oil II is occurring at a dramatically lower level of currency-adjusted and per capita supply and quality, which not surprisingly is the primary reason why the US deindustrialized and financialized the economy beginning in the 1970s, the result of which was no increase in real, after-tax wages for the vast majority of Americans and unprecedented debt to wages and GDP that can never be serviced to term.

Now world oil production per capita has peaked and slightly declined, which is where the US was in the mid- to late 1970s, again, at the onset of deindustrialization, financialization, and peak in real wages.

With debt to world GDP at a record high, unlike in the early 1980s, real industrial production and real GDP per capita have likely peaked (as anticipated by LTG’s World3 BAU scenario) with growth of real GDP per capita and trade decelerating to well below 1% since 2007-08.

Conservation, recycling, reduction in auto miles traveled, debt jubilee, and redistribution at a sustainable steady-state level are imperatives hereafter. But the rentier and technocratic elites remain locked into the perpetual growth- and debt-based zeitgeist, enjoying the outsized reflationary rentier gains from asset bubbles encouraged and supported by fractional reserve banking, ZIRP, NIRP, and QEverywhere, and by favorable tax treatment of unearned income vs. punitive, regressive taxation of labor, including self-employment.

There is no viable constituency advocating for alternatives to BAU. In fact, most policies are exacerbating conditions, including QE pumping up larger asset bubbles and gov’t subsidizing costly medical insurance and services when “health care” spending is at 18-19% of GDP, $10,000 per capita, and $26,000 per household.

Davy on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 7:48 am 



Perk, great post! I would add to that post any departure from BAU based policies will have consequences and unintended consequences that will be like floating an uncharted river full of dangers. BAU will likely not survive. There is no degrowth for BAU with BAU type lifestyles continuing except in a descent scenario with economic abandonment, dysfunctional systems, and irrational policy responses. IOW a dose of chaos and randomness of descent to a system that is complex and interconnected.

Expect any departure form BAU policies to lead to a fracturing of the global JIT production and distribution system we all rely on. All locals have been delocalized and are exposed to liquid fuel shortages and food insecurity. Many locations cannot survive this scenario. Those in hostile climates or mega population areas as a short list of many cannot survive intact a significant drop in food or fuel. Personally I feel 10% reduction in food and fuel is a system breaker for many locals. This is what we will be blindly entering if we choose to alter BAU.

BAU is a self-organizing global phenomenon that is beyond anyone’s control. We can kill BAU by suicide through war and steer it around the edges but it cannot be reformed. It is too complex and interconnected for reform there is only tweaking. The central banks have done their tweaking. Governments have done theirs too. What do we have to show for it? Well most here know that answer. The financial system has been repressed to benefit a few and huge amounts of dangerous debt added to the global economy. Wealth transfer policies and cannibalization of the public’s wealth for private consumption of a few has been the result.

We can force a change but that will create crisis that will get us started with needed changes in bad BAU policies, attitudes, and lifestyles. Food insecurity and liquid fuel shortages will force change. We could do that in global cooperation but that won’t happen because there is no global cooperation. These changes may lead to complete collapse because once this process is started it will not be reversible.

BAU will end by natural means eventually or through forced change or possibly both. We may get into the situation where BAU becomes untenable for BAU reasons and polices that force BAU into crisis created unknowingly by TPTB. This unintended BAU crisis could changes bad BAU attitudes, lifestyles, and policies. There are just so many possible scenarios of knows and unknowns.

We are a train wreck in progress. Some say sooner we jump off the better. That probably depends on the individual, local, regional, and national circumstances. IOW the proper way forward is beyond prediction. When do you pull the trigger on a change to a life support system? This change is really as dramatic as that. All locals are delocalized and will become dysfunctional by BAU standards with the end of globalism.

Personally I say go local now in any way you can. National and international are beyond BAU reform. There is no global cooperation for a plan B. We can see how the pre-locust activities are occurring now with national AGW policies that are all talk and no action of substance. Carbon emissions are increasing not decreasing despite all the talk. The oceans are being destroyed as a food source by over fishing as an example of a stripping of the earth of the commons by locust actions.

At the local and personal level you can begin the change and just do a wait and see with the larger picture. Or you can bank on dumb luck. Many of you that do nothing may come out ahead. This is all beyond my comprehension of where and when we are going but I can tell you we are a train wreck waiting to happen. Science and math do not lie.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 9:42 am 



Perk — I agree. Nice comment by BC on Ron’s site. I read it before stopping at this site in my usual morning internet rounds. Some very good discussion also on Ron’s site along the same lines as BC’s post. Interesting that Ron seems fairly certain that American shale production will be proven to have peaked in December 2014 — we just don’t know it yet, with delayed and falsified reporting data that has to be sorted through. Also some very interesting discussion I thought on just how unwanted all that shale oil is by American refiners due to inability to produce diesel from it — so, it just adds to the glut.

Hey, Davy — so what are you trying to say? That we’re totally screwed?!! Never mind, I know the answer to that question, and I couldn’t agree more.

Davy on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 12:26 pm 



NR, they don’t call me doomer Davy for nothing!

Northwest Resident on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 1:49 pm 



Doomer Davy! That has a really nice ring to it. I’m totally jealous — nothing rhymes with Northwest Resident or NR. I need a new moniker.

Apneaman on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 2:11 pm 



Northwest Resident
Cascadia’s First President

Davy on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 2:34 pm 



NR, I am proud of that name Marmi gave it to me. He is the king of the Cornies. It is an honor to have your adversary give you a nickname.

Northwest Resident on Tue, 14th Apr 2015 2:45 pm 



My main adversary on this forum gave me the nickname “Nordent”. I happen to think that nickname totally, irrevocably sucks. Not just because it is stupid, but because it is clearly the invention of a depraved and sluggish mind. “Cascadia’s First President”?!! What kind of “nickname” is that? (nice try though, Apnea — it IS the thought that counts). Hey — how about Knuckles Northwest??? Nah, too stupid… Doomer Davy — I’ll never beat that one!