Author Archives: chloee@uoregon.edu

A Few Fracking Facts

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Fracking

Questions about fracking have been in the back of my mind since I noticed several articles on the internet warning of its dangers. After watching the short film “ The Fracking of Rachel Carson” my interest reached new heights and was prompted by new questions. What does the process actually entail of? Are there different types of fracking? What materials are used?  What are the dangers? Who is benefiting from fracking?

Fracking comes in two forms: hydraulic fracturing and horizontal hydraulic fracturing.  Hydraulic fracturing is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural well drilling. The average well is 8,000-10,000 feet deep. After a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand, and undisclosed chemicals are injected under high pressure. One to eight million gallons of water are needed for each frack. The pressure breaks or fractures shale, and creates openings in the rock allowing natural gas to flow more freely out of the well. When deep drilling stops yielding results, horizontal fracking is employed. In this method, close to 700 chemicals and millions of gallons of water are used to break up the shale.  For each frack, 80-300 tons of chemicals may be used for and for each well 40,000 gallons of chemicals are needed. All of  the water used in fracking is contaminated by the procedure and must be cleaned and disposed of. Each well requires 400 tanker trucks to transport the water in and out of the site.

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The Fascinating Ecology of Charles Darwin and Rachel Carson

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Although Charles Darwin is best noted as the father of evolution, within the Origin of Species  there is also a blossoming fascination with what would become the science of ecology. Ecology can be defined as the scientific study of the relationships that living organisms have with each other and their environment. This budding ecology can be seen throughout, but is particularly evident in Darwin’s “clover-bee- cat” illustration of how “plants and animals are bound together by a complex web of relations”(Darwin 74). Similarly, Rachel Carson shares a ecological fascination with “intersections and connections” (Carson xii) while maintaining an ever present awareness of the whole. Curiously,  in “A Fable for Tomorrow”, Carson employs a strikingly similar illustration of how one organism can alter an entire ecosystems.

To illustrate the metaphor of a “complex web of relations”, Darwin drew on a local clover and its relationship to other organisms. “ I have found the visits of bees are….highly beneficial to the fertilization of our clovers… if the whole genus of humble bees became extinct…in England…the red clover would..wholly disappear.”(Darwin 75) Darwin goes on to explain the correlation between large numbers of field mice and a decreased number of bee nests, raided by mice. “ Now the number of mice is largely dependent…on the number of cats…near villages and towns I have found the nests of humble bees more numerous which I attribute to the number of cats that destroy the mice.”(Darwin 75) With apparent glee, Darwin connects an abundance of clover to a large number of felines. “Hence it is quite credible that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers…might determine, through the intervention of mice and then of bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district!” Darwin’s delight in making these ecological connections is apparent in the speedy syntax of this passage. We can almost see an excited smile on Darwin’s face as he closes the passage with an exclamation point.

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The Rattling Fitchburg Railroad Interrupting Revelation

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The chapter “Sounds” from Walden highlights the Transcendental motif of revelation and spiritual elevation through direct experience with nature instead of through tradition, as represented by books and literature.  As the chapter progresses, Thoreau’s serenity, spiritual elevation and reverence is interrupted by the railroad which after much contemplation, becomes a metaphor for civilization, commerce, and  economic drudgery. The railroad becomes an opposing force, a reoccurring interruption that’s piercing whistle interrupts the pastoral transcendental life Thoreau is leading at Walden Pond.

Thoreau dives straight into revelation by direct experience in the opening of “Sounds”.  “I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans”(Thoreau 97). Instead of reading, Thoreau sits serenely, after a morning bath in his doorway contentedly observing the serenity of his garden, noticing the sunlight and listening to the chirping of birds. “Sometimes in a summer morning,having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in the sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a revery…in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around…” (Thoreau 97)

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Emerson: Minister of the Sublime

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Throughout “Nature”, Emerson’s ministry background is evident, but it is especially clear in the “Introduction”.  Like a minister, enlivened by his faith, he asks countless rhetorical questions of the reader, like a preacher to his congregation. “Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not a history of theirs?” This is his initial call for spirituality based on the direct observation of nature, instead of through texts or prophets. Again, playing the good minister, he clarifies his terminology, stating that “Nature” is that which is external to ourselves, “essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf.”
A reoccurring pattern throughout the text is the notion that spirituality and connecting to the divine is achieved by a communion with the sublime. In essence, forgive the rhyme, the sublime is linked to the divine.  In “Chapter 1. Nature”, Emerson jumps immediately into the sublime.

“…if a man would be alone let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give a man, in the heavenly bodies, the perceptual presence of the sublime.”

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