Public Radio International’s Love Letter to Fracking

Given its funders’ financial connection to the topic, the show’s content had a predictable spin. ​‘Supporters argue that the new technology not only brings new jobs, but also provides cleaner energy than coal,’ Brand began. As for anti-fracking arguments, who knows? The only counterpoint to fracking’s boosters—-‘natural gas will do everything we want it to do,’ as one soundbite put it—is the observation that ​‘some experts’ think that cheap gas means ​‘there’s less incentive to develop clean, renewable energy.’ Meanwhile, even those of us trying to circumvent the contradictory nature of developed-world capitalism may have trouble escaping it, as David Harvey reminds us in an interview with the Irish Left Review excerpted at Red​Pep​per​.org.    Lest we begin to drown in despair at our ​“first world problems,” it’s useful to have some perspective. International activists are organizing thousands of human shields to stand in the way of an American attack on Syria to try to send a message to the U.S. administration (and the public) that war involves more than just statistics—it risks actual human lives. Hopefully it works—if they can get the message past our day-to-day preoccupation with whether the kale at the farmers market is really organic.