Nobody even knows what you're protesting, fellas. Image: Flickr
This is surprising: I know we Americans have garnered ourselves a reputation for being ignorant of many things occurring in the wide world around us, but I thought an issue as fiery and divisive as fracking would have wormed its way well into the mainstream by now. I was wrong. According to a new Yale study, most Americans still don't even know what fracking is.
Fracking is slang for hydraulic fracturing, or the process of blasting a chemical cocktail deep into the earth's crust to get at the natural gas or oil trapped below. What's in that cocktail? We can guess, but gas companies tend to keep the blend secret, utilizing the infamous "Halliburton loophole" that allows frackers to stay mum while every other industry that drills or dumps has to disclose their chemical mixtures.
For this reason, property rights advocates, environmentalists, and clean water appreciators find the practice outrageous, especially because those cocktails have been show to contaminate groundwater stores that people drink from. But because fracking allows companies cheaper and better access to gas and oil stores long thought inaccessible, industry finds the practice most excellent. And so, a bitter conflict has unfolded—angry protests have erupted, an award-winning documentary was made, and loads of op-eds were written in the nation's most august publications.
But apparently, in 21st century America, nobody pays attention to public demonstrations unless the protesters are wearing tri-cornered hats, nobody watches documentaries but film school snobs, and nobody reads those august publications anymore, period. Which is why we get this, according to the Yale study: "Fifty-four percent of Americans have heard nothing at all or only 'a little' about fracking."
Which, wow. And, "Only 9% have heard 'a lot.'" Toss in the 13% that "don't know" what they've heard about fracking in any way, shape, or form, and you've got yourself a portrait of a populace that's wildly uneducated about one of the biggest energy developments in years. Really, these numbers suggest that 67% of Americans don't really know what fracking is.
That's probably how the gas industry wants it to stay. Because the Yale survey also found that once people do find out about fracking, they don't tend to like it.
A majority of those who know about fracking are opposed to the practice. As the study reports, "More than twice as many Americans think fracking is 'very bad' (18%) than think it is 'very good' (8%).
Those that support fracking tend, unsurprisingly, to be older, male, and conservative. Opponents tended to be liberal, and to live in areas already impacted by fracking. That the debate falls along well-trodden ideological lines isn't surprising—that so few people are even aware the debate's going on is, though.