McDonnell, Tim. "Here's What Fracking Can Do to Your Health." Mother Jones. N.p., 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.
The article “Here’s What Fracking Can Do to Your Health” by Tim Mcdonnell, explains the problems fracking can cause the environment and humans. Fracking or hydraulic fracturing is the process of drilling into the earth to extract natural gasses. Although this seems to be an easy alternative of oil, many dangerous chemicals like hydrochloric acid and ethylene glycol are being pumped into the earth, while methane and benzene are being released into the air on these sites. Even after the waste water is contained, there have been many reports of spills. A colorado study counted 77 fracking wastewater spills that impacted groundwater supplies. Of those groundwater supplies 90% of them were contaminated with benzene. Not only can groundwater be contaminated but so can drinking water. This happens when the cement casing cracks or leaks, which happens to 2%-50% of fracking wells. according to studies (that the author did not list). Overall this author is trying to spread awareness about the negative aspects of fracking.
In this article Mcdonnell informs the reader about the dangers of fracking to our everyday society. Because of broken fracking wells methane can get into people's drinking water, even though methane is non toxic if too much is consumed at high concentrations it will cause death by asphyxiation (when not enough oxygen gets into your lungs). Broken wells also result in flammable faucets nearby fracking sites. Another negative effect on fracking is the air pollution near the wells. This has a negative impact on people because some airborne air pollutants like the ones found in one Colorado study are endocrine disrupter and mess up fetal and early childhood development. Also some airborne pollutants cause respiratory and cardiovascular disease.
I thought this article was well written and Mcdonnell did a good job explaining the possible reasons fracking can be harmful to someone’s health. But to make this article better I think that Mcdonnell could have listed the studies that found certain information he talked about instead of just saying, many studies found that (information). Also I think that Mcdonnell could have told the reader more specifics on the process of fracking. But besides those issues I think that this article was easy to follow and I learned alot about this nationwide problem. Hopefully articles like these will be able to raise awareness about the dangers of fracking so production can be stopped before more wells are created.
Tommy Purdy
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
Core Biology-C Odd
23 September, 2016
McDonnell, Tim. "Here's What Fracking Can Do to Your Health." Mother Jones. N.p., 16 Apr. 2014. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.
"Here's What Fracking Can do to your Health"
My classmate, Caitlin Mooney, wrote a very well review on the article, “Here's What Fracking Can Do to your Health.” One thing she did very well was a very brief summary. People often make their summary way too long and don’t give enough of their personal opinion which is tedious to read. This summary however, talks about the main facts and gets right to the point. She talks about how, “chemicals like hydrochloric acid and ethylene glycol are being pumped into the earth, while methane and benzene are being released into the air on these sites,” and how, “there have been many reports of spills.” These two facts get to the point facts and keep the review interesting. Another thing that Caitlin does well is that she gets to the main point of the article which is that fracking is directly affecting our health. Caitlin mentions that, “fracking wells methane can get into people's drinking water.” By saying this, Caitlin raises the awareness what the article is trying to explain which is that fracking oil gets into drinking water. This part is very well done because without it the reader would have no idea what the main point to the article is other than a couple of fracking facts. Also, Caitlin does a very good job at keeping an objective point of view. Caitlin doesn’t say anything opinionated until the conclusion which is very well done because it is better to give the facts and let the reader decide on how he/she feels about the article. By Caitlin doing this, she makes her review feel less of a propaganda message and more of a proper, unbiased, review.
Even though Caitlin’s review was mostly good, there were some parts that could have used some work. One thing that could have been better was the conclusion. The conclusion felt very rushed and there wasn’t much information. It wasn’t good because she says, “I think that Mcdonnell could have told the reader more specifics on the process of fracking.” She does not cite any examples of the author not showing the “specifics” which makes the conclusion feel empty and rushed. To improve on this, she could next time cite a certain quote from the article that backs her point up. Another thing Caitlin could have worked on is the explanation part of her review. The explanation only brings up about two points even though there were a lot more in the article. All she mentions is, “broken fracking wells methane can get into people's drinking water… Broken wells also result in flammable faucets nearby fracking sites. Another negative effect on fracking is the air pollution near the wells.” These points are very short and there are not many of them which is an issue. Also, they have short explanations that do not go that in depth. One of the points doesn’t even have an explanation. To fix this, Caitlin can add more points and provide longer explanations to make it more interesting.
Overall, the review was good and I learned a lot from it. I learned a lot more on the negative impacts of fracking that I did not know too much about before. I found this very interesting because I have always thought that humans affect on nature is interesting. I chose this review because fracking is something I should know more about. I should know more about it because it is a very debated topic these days and I should know the background information to it. After reading this, I will now look on fracking as being much worse than I originally believed it to be.