Why Not be David?

KMO and the lovely Olga K pay a visit to the home of Sandra Steingraber to talk about fracking and the need to resist reckless despoilment of the environment. They start off with the linguistic battle over the meaning of the word “fracking.” Energy companies want the word to mean just the moment when high volumes of water are pumped into the ground to fracture methane-containing shale, while activists use the term to include all of the activities around this style of gas drilling which poison water, assault the local economy with a boom and bust cycle, and do lasting damage to quality of life in the fracked region. Sandra likens the fight against fracking to the movement to abolish slavery. Americans who called for the wholesale abolition of slavery in the 18th Century were considered the lunatic fringe. The more popular and realistic position was that the institution of slavery should be reformed to make it more humane. Sandra asserts our moral responsibility to do the right thing even when it isn’t realistic or seemingly feasible. Just as the only morally defensible position position in the 18th Century was the complete abolition of slavery, the morally correct position in the 21st Century is the rejection and replacement of the fossil fuel economy. She is not interested in hearing about the “realistic” options. In a David vs. Goliath fight, why not be David?

You can read The Fracking of Rachel Carson: Silent Spring’s lost legacy, told in fifty parts by Sandra Steingraber in Orion Magazine with accompanying audio slideshow.

Music by Sarah Underhill for Singing Clear.