Last week, David Roberts at Grist wrote that the BP Gulf disaster should really be something we're already used to. Strip mining, rising seas, melting arctic ice -- all of which are also the effects of our bottomless desire for energy -- cause disasters every day; it's just that they're harder to see, he writes.
Another small but possibly horrific thing that's happening: areas with a heightened amount of drilling for natural gas, like Arkansas, are experiencing a lot of small, regular earthquakes that were previously almost unheard of. One happened in the center of the state as recently as yesterday, and they began appearing regularly about a year ago, which correlates with a rise in the amount of natural-gas drilling in the Fayette Shale.
Haydar Al-Shukri, the director of the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, says they're investigating the cause, and he doesn't want to speculate. The earthquakes have been small, measuring less than three on the Richter magnitude scale, and so far haven't caused damage or injuries. They're happening in Oklahoma, too. The federal government instituted new rules for projects that drill deep into the Earth's crust, but it's unclear whether that will affect these drilling projects. And who knows what drilling could do in the future?
The risks associated with fossil-fuel extraction will only get bigger and more pervasive. More than anything, that's what the BP disaster should be showing us.
-- Monica Potts
