United States - 2c. Pre-Bilateral - Case study

Oct 6, 2017 by ciankondo

A way that the United States extracts resources is through something called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Fracking is where liquid is injected into the ground at high pressure and the liquid beaks open subterranean rocks and releases oils and gases from the rocks.  The people above ground then collect the oil and gas.  The liquid injected into the ground for fracking isn't water, it is a toxic and and dangerous to people, and a lot of those chemicals get into the groundwater supply.  When the chemicals get into the groundwater, resident's water quality is severely damaged.  The chemicals don't always come to the surface, which means that there are still toxic and dangerous chemicals beneath the Earth that harm the Earth's environment.

Many people are aware of how dangerous fracking is and how much damage is causes and want it to stop.  But others claim that fracking doesn't damage the Earth and that fracking is an inexpensive way to get natural gases.  Even though many people know that fracking is bad and damages the Earth, the government has not stopped the activity.

The companies that are doing the fracking and selling the resources from the fracking are benefitting because they are getting money. Many people and some companies are damaged by fracking.  People are damaged because their water supply quality is damaged and some companies lose money because of the amount of natural gases and oil that is available.  People who get to buy the oil at cheaper prices benefit because they get to spend less money on something they previously had to pay more for.

The way that fracking is connected to colonization is that as more people come to the United States, or more cars are created, or more land is used for buildings, more oil and natural gases are needed to support those things.  Fracking is a way that the need for oil and natural gases is met because fracking is an inexpensive way to get natural gases and oils.  Also, if the demand gets too high for the supply, more fracking places might be set up, which is bad for the environment because that means that more chemicals are released into the Earth.  

Fracking is connected to climate change because it releases a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

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