Everybody (especially in the news biz) likes a fight. One may not approve of the behavior, but it is difficult to look away. Maybe there should be an emotion named for such rapt attention (see today’s post on NYT Science Times, annoyance, and disgust).

Case in point: the continuing loud debate among environmentalists, energy industrialists, and atmospheric scientists over the green merit of natural gas, especially that recovered by hydraulic fracturing or fracking. It got intense after Cornell biologist Robert Howarth and two co-authors reported last spring in the journal Climatic Change Letters that so much natural gas (methane) leaks into the air unburnt from such drilling that the industry’s overall addition to greenhouse forcing is worse than from coal mining and use. Some colleagues of his say he used outdated data, distorted other figures, and generally got it wrong. That is, it may not be doing the planet any good but it’s better than coal and it’s a bridge toward a low-carbon economy. Howarth for his part is sticking to his guns. This is a fight for sure.

In a recent issue of the same journal, two teams, both from Cornell and one including Howarth, offer dueling papers stating their cases.

Perhaps the most partisan account of all this runs as an op-ed in the Murdoch tabloid New York Post, but it’s more than a cut above the paper’s usual. Writer Jon Entine makes no pretense of neutrality in this article that clearly tells the reader to think Howarth spewed bunk or, in the headline’s term, farcical science. It’s hard to tell if he’s a journalist or pure opinion writer (job title is senior research fellow at the George Mason U. Ctr for Health & Risk Communication). As a litigator, he’d make a good living. He’s not a contrarian or denialist on the larger issue of climate change, quite the contrary. But Entine does appear to be deeply insulted when he perceives somebody on the side of the angels (ie, of an Earth not careering into climate chaos) going past good science to make the case. One can quarrel with his label of some anti-fracking forces as “hard leftists.” Some of’em must be such – whatever a hard leftist is these days. But it’s off-base to declare that an overt, radical political agenda is a prime incentive for fracking opponents. Maybe Entine simply stuck in some red meat language to get the story past the NYPost’s editors.

Other Fracking Duel stories:

• Time Magazine – Bryan Walsh: Fracked: The Debate Over Shale Gas Deepens ; Great line: “So what does this all mean – other than the fact that the Cornell faculty club may be getting a little testy these days?” One offers that Walsh should explain why natural gas may have twice the global warming punch as coal over 20 years, but only about the same over a century. It has to do with methane’s fairly short persistence in the air, a reason interesting enough to be described. The piece does tilt a bit – and against Howarth.
• Business Week – Jim Polson: Fracking’s Greenhouse Gas Contribution Splits Scientists ; This one picks no winners.
• Scientific American – Mark Fischetti :Fracking Would Emit Large Quantities of Greenhouse Gases ; Pretty much reports the anti-Fracking argument by Howarth et all straight and without counter till the end, when doubters get a brief say.
• Canada Free Press – Dennis Avery: Shale gas: Boon for humanity or bane? ; Boon, says this piece from a stoutly conservative pub ;
• Essential Public Radio (Independent, lots of NPR, from Pittsburgh) Jared Adkins: Natural Gas From Shale Could Worsen Climate Change ; That’s a non-sequitur in the hed. Of course it’ll worsen it. The question is whether it is a worse worsener than coal. The story relies only on Howarth and his co-authors as sources.
• Sydney Morning Herald – Ben Cubby: Gas no good to bridge coal and renewables, says study ; The perspective from Australia, leads on Howarth and the fracking doubters, and acknowledges doubts of that doubt’s evidence from both academia and industry.

*UPDATE:

• IPS – Stephen Leahy: Shale Gas a Bridge to More Global Warming ; States the case against shale gas, ignores arguments by some academics that it is still better than coal ;
• New Scientist – Mike Stephenson: Frack responsibly and risks – and quakes – are small ; A pure opinion piece. The author is head of energy science at the British Geological Survey. Not on greenhouse gas forcing, but on the local risks from such drilling practices.

There are some more. In recent years media has faced heavy criticism, overblown in the tracker’s view, that it has engaged in false balance in climate change reporting, portraying contrarians as of equal debate stature as, say, the National Academy of Sciences. In this fracking fight, one is forced to conclude, the scientific debate does demand balanced coverage.

Grist for the Mill: Original Cornell Press Release in April ; Latest paper Press Release from its authors, apparently;  (A funnier press release out from Cornell is out right now, and totally off the fracking topic, on the kinds of people who think they are taller than they are. )

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Environment & Energy Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.