Selling Hydraulic Fracking: The Myth Of Energy Independence Used To Hoodwink The American People | Global Research

Selling Hydraulic Fracking: The Myth Of Energy Independence Used To Hoodwink The American People | Global Research

 The myth of unbounded energy independence exposed

 

 

”Cheap energy [from oil and gas
fracking] is making sure that America now has a manufacturing
renaissance,” Rahm Emanuel, Chicago Mayor and President Obama’s former
chief of staff told CNBC. Emanuel added. “The biggest revolution equal
to the Internet is the energy independence in the United States.”

In the last year the corporate
media has been full of triumphant articles declaring that America is on
the way to becoming energy independent thanks to oil and gas fracking.
The hyperbole goes further declaring that fracking will lead to America
overtaking Saudia Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer and so
become an oil and gas superpower. This will spur an economic renaissance
that will create large numbers of jobs while driving down electricity
prices for consumers and industry. It gets even better. The crisis in
Ukraine means that America can step in to save Europe from energy
dependence on big bad Russia by exporting ”clean” natural gas to Europe.

The objective behind these extravagant claims is to help sell the
poisonous oil and gas fracking industry to an increasingly sceptical
population that is pushing back against fracking in many areas.

In a recent address to people in Europe Dr. Sandra Steingraber,
Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Ithaca College and science advisor
to  Americans Against Fracking, observed that America’s population have
been hoodwinked into believing the fracking industry’s extravagant
claims.

This hoodwinking has been achieved by an unholy alliance between the
oil and gas industry and their puppets in Congress and a pliant mass
media, which is an uncritical cheer leader for the industry.

Energy independence claims are also behind the push to sell U.S.
fracking oil and gas abroad which would give a huge boost to the profits
of the rapacious oil and gas companies.

Now let’s pull back the curtain and look at the reality behind the extravagant claims  made for hydraulic fracking.