We live in a dying world. Fossil fuels, use of plastic, deforestation, wasted materials and so much more is killing our planet. One of the biggest crises facing our generation is climate change. It's a problem that is the product of past generations and our own, but it will soon be solely up to our generation to fix it. There are constantly new inventions and new schools of thought coming out on how we can save our dying planet. One of the biggest questions we need the answer to is how to lessen our massive energy consumption, or at least how to make it more environmentally friendly. We have solar panels, geothermal heating and wind energy as a few of the many solutions to solving our harmful energy consumption crisis. Many big corporations, however, prefer a much less sustainable option: hydraulic fracturing. This has been a “solution” to the energy crisis since the 1990s, but only recently has the issue hit the tabloids and reached the public eye. Many people don’t know what fracking is or how it works. And many don’t know just how bad it is for the environment. So take a seat and sit in on my Fracking 101 lecture.

So how does it work? Hydraulic fracturing uses the process of cracking rock formations through pumping fluids into wells at high pressure, which forces oil or gas out of the rocks. When done correctly, we obtain natural gas from the rocks below and that is what companies are using for energy. Now this process causes a huge waste of water. These companies use up to 4 million gallons of water per minute. This water not only cools the drill but helps pump the fluid back up to the service. This can contaminate the soil but also creates run off into people’s yards, roadsides and local streams, and it can contaminate water supplies. The fluid that is used in fracking is a combination of water, sand, and chemicals. Here's a list of some of the chemicals in fracking: hydrochloric acid, petroleum distillates, ammonium persulfate, calcium chloride, boric acid, citric acid, borate salts and more. We don't know many of the chemicals in fracking fluid, and this is an added danger. Exposure to high amounts of this fluid is also linked to serious health problems. These include damage to the kidney, heart and nervous system, severe headaches, menstrual problems, respiratory issues and some have even experienced death in their pets and farm animals. If you want to get really in depth, this video below has a nice summary.

When fracking fluid gets into people’s water supplies, it causes health problems. It leaks into our water through runoff, spillage while being transported in trucks, spillage from storage ponds or the very consistent leakage of the faulty casings in the pipelines that carry this toxic fluid. Not only is people’s health at risk, but fracking can also cause earthquakes. It has been found that re-injecting wastewater into fracking wells also causes earthquakes that many say are large enough to cause damage. Fracking also causes methane to be released into the atmosphere. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The only people who benefit from fracking are those big corporations who put money in their pockets. I could go on for hours on all the science and big terms that will give you a full scope of how bad fracking is. But I am simply here to give you the basic facts. Some great additional resources to look into are the following. Josh Fox’s acclaimed film "Gaslands" or a book that I love called, “The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom Is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food” by Michelle Bamberger. Fracking is not a solution to the environmental crisis. If anything, it is a cheap crutch corporations are using to slow us down from switching our society to full renewable energy sources. It is up to the young people to fight this battle. To fix past generations' mistakes so that future generations can have a bright, green future.