Recently there has been much talk about how natural gas could make our country energy independent and stock has soared of companies that have discovered large shale deposits, such as Marcellus Shale in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. It is ironic that shale is found deep beneath one the most religious institutions, such as Chautauqua that has featured such notables as William Jennings Bryan, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, George Gershwin, Lucille Ball and Horace Greeley as well as all the presidents from Ulysses S. Grant to Bill Clinton. Why is that ironic? Because these religious preachers adamantly declare that our universe was made by God in seven days, was made perfect and couldn’t have evolved over millions of years.
The Chautauqua Institution is a not-for-profit, 750-acre community on Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York State, where approximately 7,500 persons are in residence on any day during a nine-week season, and a total of over 170,000 attend scheduled public events.
Chautauqua is dedicated to the exploration of the best in human values and the enrichment of lifethrough a program that explores the important religious, social and political issues of our times; stimulates provocative, thoughtful involvement of individuals and families in creative response to such issues; and promotes excellence and creativity in the appreciation, performance and teaching of the arts. The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle (CLSC) boasts it isthe oldest continuous book club in America with over a half-million readers.
Chautauqua proportedly educates and has a Scientific Book Club. Examples of its selection include Carl Safina’s The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World. Safina has studied the ocean as a scientist, stood for it as an advocate, and conveyed his travels among sea creatures and fishing people in lyrical nonfiction writing. He is the author of the award-winning books Song for the Blue Ocean, Eye of the Albatross and Voyage of the Turtle. Another selection is by poet Billy Collins Horoscopes for the Dead. Nowhere in its programs or educational program, do I see, a debate about shale and its affect upon the beautiful grounds of Chautaqua. http://www.ciweb.org/our-mission/Yet not but a few miles from the famous Chautauqua Institute is SUNY Fredonia Shale Research Institute. This non-religious scientific organization explains:
“The Marcellus Shale is a Devonian black shale deposit approximately 388 million years old that a hydrocarbon source as a consequence of an abnormally hot climate that gripped the Earth during Devonian time and plate tectonics. As one knows from biology class, a warm climate tends to favor the preservation of organic remains. The warm climate hypothesized to have existed during the time the Marcellus was accumulating produced a layered ocean, preventing oxygen from reaching the cooler water found at the bottom. This depleted oxygen at the bottom of the ocean resulting in preservation of, as a consequence of the abundant organic remains of plankton sinking through the water. Over millions of years, and as a consequence of deep burial of the Marcellus sediment, the organic material was transformed into oil and natural gas.”http://www.fredonia.edu/shaleinstitute/marcellus.asp
Such findings don’t include mention of a Creator or explain why a Creator would have chosen such a strange, hundred of million-year process to house beneath us great amounts of gas. And today those who worship a God have no sensible explanation why it has been only in the last thousands of years that humankind were smart enough to even know about what took place hundreds of million years ago. So those in our region of faith or no faith must now determine if it is safe to access that which developed far beneath our feet millions of years ago via a process called frackng.
This past June, a Forum: Just How Safe Is ‘Fracking’ of Natural Gas? Yale Environment 360asked industry officials, scientists, and conservationists to answer the following two-part question: “Can hydraulic fracturing of gas and oil reserves in shale formations be done on a large scale without significant negative impacts on water supplies, air quality, and local communities? Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, and co-author of a recent study of methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing. He said, “The best evidence indicates widespread contamination of drinking water wells within 1 kilometer of gas wells, and the rate of venting and leakage of methane to the atmosphere is sufficient to give shale gas a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fossil fuel.”
However, Richard Ranger, senior policy advisor at the American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry association, argued otherwise: “Can hydraulic fracturing be employed widely without causing significant harm? The evidence shows it already has. Hydraulic fracturing is a 60-year-old technology that has been used safely in more than 1 million wells.”
These pro and con arguments about what we do now with what was formed 300+ million of years ago are not debated in our religious places of worship. How can religious people ignore such practical matters that affect their lives? The water they drink is at risk due to fracking. Those of faith and doubt should come together to be well informed of how this earth was formed. Great institutions of faith, such as Chautaqua and thousands of other religious bodies in our region shouldn’t separate faith from what is happening beneath their feet. Fracking must not be taken on faith.
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