When Given the Facts, People Say No Fracking Way!

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On July 1, Earthjustice Managing Attorney Deborah Goldberg joined Kate Hudson of Riverkeeper in going head to head with fracking proponents, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera and former Department of Energy Assistant Secretary Susan Tierney, in a nationally broadcasted event presented by Intelligence Squared in partnership with the Aspen Ideas Festival. The debate, No Fracking Way: The Natural Gas Boom is Doing More Harm Than Good, asked participants whether they were for, against, or undecided as to whether the fracking boom is hurting more than its helping. Before the debate only 38% of the audience members were for the motion, “No fracking way!” the same proportion as those against. But after Kate and Deborah laid out the facts, 53% of the audience said no fracking way!

The results show that if you arm people with the information on both sides, they’ll vote against the gas industry’s mad rush to frack – contrary to the assertions of Exxon’s CEO last week, who blamed public concern over fracking on “illiteracy.” Deborah Goldberg ended the debate with a quote from her opponent Susan Tierney, which showed that there was actually not much debate between them at all: “Fifty years from now, are we really going to be wondering if we really screwed up because we went on this big gas boom?  You really wouldn’t want to be messing that up.”  We agree.  We don’t want the gas industry to perform an uncontrolled experiment in New York, or anywhere.

Watch the debate here.