Kin Bentley In Line: April 2011

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Fracking frightening

Is this how the Karoo will end up looking? A photograph of fracking in Jonah, Wyoming, USA.

In my previous post I ran a Shell advert that I had doctored, which showed what their "commitments" to the Karoo would lead to should fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, be allowed to go ahead in this pristine South African heartland.

Little did I know just how accurate that drawing was. The picture above is being circulated in cyberspace in response to the outcry over Shell's proposals. It led me to dig a little deeper. I discovered the picture is from a website called Damascus Citizens - http://www.damascuscitizens.org/photos.html will take you to the pictures of fracking.

My doctored version of part of the Shell ad which appeared recently in South African newspapers.

Fracking at Dish, Texas.

Fracking at Eunice, New Mexico.

As I said in the heading, fracking frightening.

I found this map of the United States on another website, TheZoo - http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/josh-fox/ - which shows how vast an area of the US has been colonised by this heinous operation in recent years, as the country looks for alternative energy sources. The website draws attention to a recent documentary, Gasland, which showed on US television. It quotes an NPR (National Public Radio) interview by Ira Flatlow with the documentary-maker, Josh Fox:

[...]

FLATOW: And the chemical they inject underground, the formula for that is secret…

Mr. FOX: Yeah, highly proprietary. Well, not everything is secret. Their – the fracking fluid is something – there are many different chemicals in the process that they use over time. At first, they thicken the fluid with gelants and then they turn it around and turn it into a liquid. And it’s very, very – there’s no friction at all. So they’re injecting all these different chemicals down on the wellbore – about 596 that we know about – a lot of which are proprietary. We don’t know the chemical compositions.

The industry is not releasing what those chemical compositions are. They’re saying it’s like the special formula for Coca-Cola. But this is, you know, being injected underground and left there by the millions of gallons. And we know that most of the stuff is toxic: carcinogens, neurotoxins, other – endocrine disruptors, things that are – can – that can really be very harmful in small, small quantities.

FLATOW: The FRAC Act, which is lying in committee in Congress, would force them to release all the information about what’s actually in that…

Mr. FOX: Yeah. It would force the disclosure of the chemicals and reregulate the industry under the Safe Drinking Water Act. They were exempted from Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005 by the 2005 energy bill which was a baby of Dick Cheney and their energy taskforce. And, you know, in fact, hydraulic fracturing is exempted from most of our most basic environmental laws…

FLATOW: It shows it right there in the legislature?

Mr. FOX: In the 2005 energy bills, it says right there. Yes. This is the Halliburton loophole. It is the exemption for hydraulic fracturing to the Safe Drinking Water Act. But they’re also exempt from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, which controls storm water runoff and the Superfund Act. So they don’t have – they’re not liable to clean up their mess. And also, the Community Right to Know Provisions. I mean, the list goes on and on.

[..]

The site also includes an interview on YouTube with Fox, which makes for equalling frightening viewing.

The big question is: why is the South African government agreeing to this? Like its plans for a massive oil refinery (using third-grade oil) at Coega near Port Elizabeth, it looks like they are intent on foisting the dirtiest fossil-fuel disasters on us at a time when we are crying out for clean alternatives like solar, wind, wave and tidal energy.

As I said in my previous post, will this become our Frackgate, with all the attendant backhanders and bribes?

This was originally just a blog where I mainly posted my drawings, but sometimes the activist in me is forced to emerge.

Just peruse some of my earlier drawings of the Karoo and think about what this will mean to that lovely part of our beloved country.

About this blog

This blog has morphed from one thing to the next, and will continue to do so.

The latest offerings are of a political nature, though the main role of the blog is to put online scanned versions of my sketches, which make up the bulk of the first part.

* Earlier, I returned to a project I suspended on September 12, 2011, namely posting clilppings from my writings in the Herald newspaper in Port Elizabeth. From those you'll have gleaned that I was first prevented from writing political letters and articles critical of the ANC government.

Then my art reviews came under fire - from the hallowed halls of academia, no less.

* Before this, I posted a series of book reviews and an account of recent travels.

* There is also a short autobiographical novel, Little K and the Big World.

Below is a summary of what was posted before that. (NB. To view pictures larger, hold down "shift" and left click on the mouse. Click again to see it even larger.)

* During the 27 years I have worked as a journalist, I have kept random samples of my work. Initially, when I joined the Evening Post in Port Elizabeth in 1984, I kept a scrapbook, so those first years – when the anti-apartheid struggle really started hotting up – are fairly well covered.

By the time I joined the Eastern Province Herald in about 1988, I’d stopped collecting my stories, but I have one article I wrote that year which I think captures the mood of those dark times.

During two years in the UK – 1990 and 1991– when I worked as a correspondent for the SA Morning Newspaper group, I kept no cuttings. The same applies to the early 1990s when, back on the Herald, I covered the gradual transition to democracy. After the April 27, 1994, first non-racial elections, I moved to the sub-editing department, where I have been ever since.

When Robert Mugabe started his crackdown in 2000, I took up the pen again in a big way – and was lucky to have been given space by then editor Ric Wilson to vent my spleen in the Herald. In between, I wrote numerous book reviews and art crits, which balance out the offerings. I began this section with the more recent stuff, from 2000 onwards, and will take up this project again in 2012.

* Having all but exhausted my sketches on this blog - though I have yet to post pictures of my paintings and a few carvings - I thought I would digress into other areas of interest, and use a few of my photographs to illustrate them.

As Thabo Mbeki and the ANC set about rubbishing everything to do with our colonial past, I found myself rather cherishing what our ancestors had done here, notwithstanding my obvious detestation of the apartheid system which, had Jannie Hofmeyr lived to succeed Smuts after the Second World War, may not have happened. It is interesting to note that the National Party came to power in 1948 despite polling 100 000 fewer votes than the United Party. This was the effect of "loading" the urban constituencies.

Anyway, the East Cape has seen a fair share of interesting history down the centuries, some of which is covered here.

There is also history in stamps and envelopes. A few years back I went to a Port Elizabeth antique shop in the hopes I could acquire some old SA stamps from my youth. At first things looked bleak. The dealer only had posh albums of expensive stamps. But wait, he said, I do have a couple of black bin bags cluttering up the place somewhere, full of useless old stamps and envelopes. He gave them to me for about R100, if I recall correctly.

From these I have made several postage stamp-based artworks, photos of which I'll be posting, eventually. I also discovered a treasure trove of envelopes which had been posted to the City Treasurer of the PE Municipality as well as to the Divisional Council and another whole batch sent by dealers around South Africa to the Ford Motor Company in PE. These all date from the early 1960s, so we're talking 50 odd years ago. Each envelope tells a story.

* Initially I started this blog to illustrate how I learnt the art of drawing, after many years of toil, and how, once learnt, this skill has accompanied me throughout my life.

At each step, since about the mid-1970s, I have, where possible, made drawings that are often a more telling record than any photographs.

You will find a plethora of styles and techniques, but the bottom line – forgive the pun – is an attempt to get at the visual truth. As we go along, I explain each work and how I came to do it – that is, where I remember precisely when they were made.

* Remember, as this is a blog, the story starts from the first post and works its way upwards, as it were.

Click on the images to see them in a larger format. If you want an image to fill your computer screen, press F11. Press the same key to escape.

My thanks, again, go to my son, Douglas, who was just 16 when he helped me put together the header for this blog. Most of the more creative ideas - and all the technical expertise - in this regard were his.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Fracking frightening

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