The Oily Bird Warns About the Perils (?) of Fracking

Ari L. NoonanEditor's Essays

My postman was breathless, red-faced and dripping with blue-collar perspiration when he hammered on the door this morning and handed me this urgent 105-word message from our dear friends at Food & Water Watch (act@fwwatch.org):

“There's nothing more powerful than communities coming together to demand change. It's happening all across the country, from California to Colorado to New York, and now, we're bringing the global community together to fight fracking again this fall for the third annual Global Frackdown.  

“Are you in? Sign up to host an event to join the Global Frackdown on Saturday, Oct. 11!

“Just weeks after the Sept. 21 People's Climate March in New York — communities all around the world will stand together to protest fracking, the dangerous method of extracting fossil fuels from deep underground, threatening our water, climate and the safety of our communities.

“When we launched the first Global Frackdown three years ago, the conversation around fracking was different. The questions being asked were more about how fracking could be regulated than whether it should happen at all. But you changed that. With the help of our allies across the globe, we've been able to change that conversation. Fracking is no longer inevitable. Communities are fighting back and saying No to fracking.

I was thinking of Elvis and his “Return to Sender” hit while handing my excited postman an engraved note, kindly declining the invitation to be present at the end of the natural world.

Elaborating, I explained that I would be preoccupied. Since yesterday, I have been standing hip-deep in fossil fuels in my basement, furiously building leak-proof paper walls to ward off climate change or a fracking gold rush, whichever comes first.

Never mind that most of the world’s reputable scientists think global climate warming change is the funniest line since the reborn Charlie Chaplin (aka Eric Holder) said we need a national conversation about black USC football players who tell fibs about how they injured themselves.

Meanwhile, President Obama has promised to hand over his Nobel Peace Prize to the first student who finds anything – anything at all – perilous about fracking. Leftist adults have been trying for years without uncovering any evidence to support their fatuous Halloween stories about this safe form of oil drilling.

This morning’s scoreboard shows one death in Ferguson from criminal activity, and none in Baldwin Hills from fracking.