“Nature doesn’t give us a clean environment.” - corporate propaganda

Corporate Propaganda – Fox News Sells Fracking as "Incredibly Good for Our Environment"

“Nature doesn’t give us a clean environment.”

Activist Post,

16 September, 2013

Recently on Fox News, Alex Epstein, the founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, and author of the book, Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet, argues in favor of hydraulic gas fracturing, or fracking, as it has become known. This is the technique of extracting natural gas and oil from layers of underground shale rock by pressure-injecting an undisclosed mixture of water and chemicals deep into the ground.

This particular segment serves as an outstanding example of what corporate propaganda looks like and how the media triggers our cultural programming to stimulate fear/desire conditioning, in order to persuade us into conforming to a selected position on an issue.

The clip begins with the graphic of a printing press rolling out unlimited dollar bills across the screen and the Fox host framing the conversation, asking their central question about fracking…

…its being called a modern day gold rush… reducing the need for foreign oil. With so many opportunities to frack in the Unites States, could this technology be a new path to American wealth?

A New Path to American Wealth?

The guest, Epstein, is introduced and hails fracking as a technological revolution as important to society as the invention of the computer, explaining how we are sitting on a Texas-sized amount of shale rock that should be extracted for the benefit of all.

The host goes on to explain ‘one of the big stories this week,’ a report issued by somebody about the economic benefits of fracking and how in high fracking areas they are already seeing a ‘trickling down’ of this vast wealth to the average person. Wages are supposedly up, U.S. tax revenues are up, disposable income is up, and the question is asked by the host…

… is this really going to affect my own wallet, is fracking really going to help me save more money and live a better life?

There are close-ups of dollar bills hovering in the background.

The central concern over fracking, for those who oppose it, is not that the economy will suffer if we don’t frack, but rather the damage it does to the environment; making people sick, contaminating water and causing droughts, drying up aquifers and causing earthquakes. This question was raised by the host, and addressed by Epstein:

…fracking is actually incredibly good for our environment, and there’s two reasons. One is that this rock right here [holds up a piece of black oil shale rock], this exists 5000 feet away from ground water, so the last thing that’s going to contaminate your ground water is a fracking operation. But #2, look at the places in the world with the best environments. They’re the places that use the most energy, because nature doesn’t give us a clean environment. We have to clean it up, that takes a lot of energy to purify the water, to grow crops, to make the word a better place, and that’s why I titled my book, Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet.

The host closes by stating that the EPA claims that there is no evidence that fracking ‘contaminates gravel,’ whatever that means, and so the question seems resolved to these two, and the closing postulation of the issue is offered:

…gonna be interesting to see if we get lower energy bills across this country as a result of fracking if it takes hold.

Clip from Media Matters: