Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'Hydraulic fracturing'

Sanctimony Vs. Science

If one were to pinpoint the epicenter of sanctimonious behavior the past two weeks, he or she look no further than Paris. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, or COP21) has been a magnet for shareholder activists, nuns, clergy and other religious intent on furthering agendas ostensibly geared toward mitigating manmade global warming, but in reality promote hardship and energy poverty across the economic spectrum. Continue Reading...

Matt Ridley vs. Environmentalist Cassandras

Highly recommended reading today comes from Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal. His essay, “The Green Scare Problem,” rebuts environmentalist Cassandras from Rachel Carson to the present day, exposing the rampant hyperbole ecological warriors employ to sell their global warming and anti-genetically modified organism policies to an unsuspecting public. Continue Reading...

Sisters of St. Francis’ Unholy Agenda

Religious shareholder activism continues its war on affordable, domestically produced energy in a campaign that can only be described as unholy. The first casualties of this war are the nation’s 10.5 million job seekers, the millions more who have quit looking for work, and the poor. Continue Reading...

A Christian Defense of Fracking

Fracking is a slang term for hydraulic fracturing, a procedure of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting fluid into cracks to force them further open. The larger fissures allow more oil and gas to flow out of the formation and into the wellbore, from where it can be extracted. Continue Reading...

Are Free Markets and Fracking Producing Cleaner Energy?

A new report by the Environmental Protection Agency finds that one of our cheapest sources of energy may be cleaner than we had previously thought: The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much of a potent heat-trapping gas leaks during natural gas production, in a shift with major implications for a debate that has divided environmentalists: Does the recent boom in fracking help or hurt the fight against climate change? Continue Reading...

As You Sow’s Grim Reaping

Religious groups seeking to serve myriad liberal agendas during the 2013 shareholder proxy resolution season look no further than As You Sow, a group dedicated to “large-scale systemic change by establishing sustainable and equitable corporate practices.” Continue Reading...

Vice, Virtue, and Shareholder Activism

King Louis XIV censored Moliere’s 1664 play Tartuffe after determining audience members might too easily confuse the titular priest’s hypocritical nature with every priest in real life. According to the king, some priests’ “true devotion leads on the path to heaven,” while others’ “vain ostentation of some good works does not prevent from committing some bad ones.” Continue Reading...

Film Review: Don’t Believe in ‘Promised Land’

Environmental issues have increasingly become polarized. No sooner has a new technology been announced than some outspoken individual climbs athwart it to cry, “Stop!” in the name of Mother Earth. To some extent, this is desirable – wise stewardship of our shared environment and the resources it provides not only benefits the planet but its inhabitants large and small. Continue Reading...