On March 27 I attended a public meeting in which N.C. DENR discussed their provisional report concerning hydraulic fracturing or “fracking†in the state of North Carolina. A summary of this report was followed by citizens voicing their concerns and/or support for this potential industrial presence.
First, I want to say thank you to all those who spoke out against this blatant disregard for science, for the environment, for the people of this planet. Several things were clear to this observer after listening to both young and old, male and female, North Carolinian or otherwise: We just don’t know, and we don’t want it here. The report, although provisional, raised many concerns about the situations developing in other states (namely Pennsylvania, my home state) as well as the costs and risks associated with this practice (wastewater management, well contamination, fish and wildlife safety, air and soil quality, etc.). So what does this have to do with education?
I have been a student of science all of my life. My mind is sharply logical, and I have a desire to acquire knowledge and use this knowledge in a very practical way. Alfred North Whitehead comments, “Your learning is useless to you till you have lost your text-books, burnt your lecture notes, and forgotten the minutiae which you learnt by heart for the examination. … The function of a university is to enable you to shed detail in favor of principles.†I would be disrespecting my formal education if I were to recommend that fracturing an underground shale base by introducing sand, water and highly volatile inorganic chemicals into the rock-base to obtain natural gas were a responsible idea. Why?
Water is life. Life is water. One cannot exist without the other. Our human existence relies on our unconscious ability to integrate this precious substance into our person. It is our life’s blood in so many more ways than are immediately apparent (think of the development of global commerce and the navigation of vast bodies of water to bridge horizons). Ecosystems rely on water – water forges ecosystems. This precious resource is used and irreversibly contaminated as a result of fracking.
I will end with A.N. Whitehead: “… there can be no prospect of industrial peace so long as masters and men in the mass conceive themselves as engaged in a soulless operation of extracting money from the public.†While “fracking†may not be soulless it is the ecologically disinterested operation of extracting resources from the land. DENR – we demand your weighing of logic and science in making a responsible decision.
James Myers
Chapel Hill