A New Year's Resolution

I just have to vent my incredulity at what we continue to allow the oil and gas extraction industry to get away with. The evidence continues to amass and reports of industry officials attempting to hinder and obfuscate scientific findings become more blatant as they become increasingly alarming. Have we become so resigned to industry rhetoric that we accept the now constant small to medium strength earthquakes in a region that once had very few as the new norm, an acceptable price of doing business? Coming from California I know that you can grow complaisant with occasional smaller earthquakes but then I also well remember my first hand experience with the Loma Prieta quake.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-fracking-causing-oklahomas-earthquakes/ 

http://ecowatch.com/2015/11/16/oklahoma-most-earthquakes-fracking/

https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/tag/earthquake/

http://www.ibtimes.com/oklahoma-earthquakes-2015-tremors-rise-oklahoma-officials-struggle-stem-fracking-2138124

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/08/us/earthquakes-in-oklahoma-raise-fears-of-a-big-one.html?_r=2

Do we just throw up our hands and say "Boys will be boys" when we find that as early as 1977 Exxon's (and likely all major oil company's) own researchers predicted severe global warming from continuation of the company's activities, and rather than committing to discovering solutions the company began a massive campaign of disinformation and denial?

http://insideclimatenews.org/content/Exxon-The-Road-Not-Taken

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-exxon-knew-about-climate-change

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/05/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-for-climate-change-denial

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/06/america-has-been-lied-to-about-climate-change/

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/23122015/2015-exxon-mobil-climate-change-science-research-exxonknew-investigation-petition

In another 40 years will we be asking the same questions of fracking companies that allow highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into our streams, rivers, irrigation and livestock water, and perhaps eventually drinking water supplies?

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/fracking-wastewater-cancer-causing-new-study-confirms-1

http://ecowatch.com/2015/03/10/fracking-wastewater-chemicals-cancer/

http://www.mintpressnews.com/livestock-falling-ill-in-fracking-regions/211720/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fracking-fluid-health-study_568db472e4b0cad15e636b70

http://ecowatch.com/2014/09/08/fracking-wastewater-study/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3915249/

http://www.pennlive.com/news/2016/01/dep_announces_new_regulations.html

Are we too numbed for outrage that lack of oversight and maintenance of an aged but immense underground gas storage well with a history of problems has led to the biggest such leak in history, a now over 2 month long eruption of enough methane, a potent greenhouse gas, to become California's single largest point source emmission of greenhouse gas?

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/05/aliso-canyon-leak-california-climate-change

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0104-gas-leak-20160104-story.html

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-company-behind-las-methane-disaster-knew-its-well-was-leaking-24-years-ago

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-we-cant-stop-the-enormous-methane-leak-flooding-la

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34298-how-corporate-greed-caused-the-massive-california-methane-leak
 

http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/04/porter-ranch-methane-leak/

Has cheap gas and the perceived power of these large corporations really deadened our desire, made us impotent to fight for our planet? If so, we should stand shoulder to shoulder with oil and gas company executives in the not too distant future, explaining to our children and grandchildren our complicity in the dire state of the world we've bequeathed them. I, for one, will take a stand, make a resolution that I will not allow myself to be put in that unimaginably uncomfortable situation.