As Harris Rejects Fracking Ban, Will Anyone Listen to What Pennsylvanians Want?
As Harris Rejects Fracking Ban, Will Anyone Listen to What Pennsylvanians Want?
Pundits and politicians act like boosting fracking is key to winning votes in Pennsylvania, but polls suggest otherwise.
A 2020 CBS/YouGov survey found that a slight majority of Pennsylvanians actually oppose fracking, with 52 percent of voters opposed and 48 percent in favor. Another 2020 poll, this one by Franklin & Marshall College, reported that 48 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters supported a ban on fracking, while only 39 percent opposed such a ban. And in a 2021 poll by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a sustainability-focused think tank, less than a third of Pennsylvanians said they supported continued fracking in the state.
Popular support for fracking has declined in Pennsylvania as understanding of its adverse effects has grown. A review of more than 2,500 scientific, medical, government and media reports — many of which focused on Pennsylvania — found that fracking is linked to numerous health problems, including cancer, asthma and congenital anomalies. The evidence is staggering, but here are some particularly egregious examples: An August 2023 report by the University of Pittsburgh determined that children living within a mile of a natural gas fracking well were seven times more likely to contract lymphoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. Another study found that children within a mile of a fracking well were also more likely to develop juvenile leukemia.
It ain't about what voters want, it's about what donors want...
Hopefully that changes after the election, but I'd be very surprised
Considering Kamala made the tie breaking vote to expand fracking, I'd be really surprised
31I'm still voting Harris because I don't have much of a fucking choice when the alternative is Donald Trump becoming a god damned dictator.
But the reality is she might be even more center-right than fucking Biden was.
14Who are you going to vote for next time when they run someone more to the right than Kamala and the Republicans run someone more insane than Trump?
And how many times will you continue to do it?
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Fracking is just a bad idea all around, with all the water shortages around the country we don't need to be polluting the water we have. It could maybe be done safely to a certain extent, but there will never be enough oversight to ensure that.
29Instead of a ban, could we eliminate subsidies and free negative externalities for fossil fuels, and further subsidize green energy projects? More carrot, a little stick, and no ban hammer?
Could that be effective?
17And force the companies to fund the land remediation 100% of the time.
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I hate that the Harris campaign seems to feel the need to appeal to the "center" to win the election, but maybe they have internal polling that suggests that's the right way to go.
All I can do is hope she "flip-flops" back to her original, more progressive views if she gets elected.
12It's not about the center. It's the money.
8Looks like a neoliberal copy of what happened in the UK elections recently where labour did the same tactics without promising big changes where it actually matters so they won not because people wanted them but because people didn't want the opposition to win. Now they're struggling with public reception because they forgot their main voter base.
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Politicians lie and use all kinds of weasely doublespeak bullshit all the damn time, it's pretty much their signature move, everyone knows it, it's been the punchline of countless jokes, no one likes it, but anyone with half a brain understands that it's part of how the game is played and how you get the morons that make up a lot of this country excited to show up and vote for you.
So why are Kamala and so many other democrats so bad at just doing that when it counts?
How many undecided idiots does she think have fracking as their big tentpole issue, who are saying "gee, you know, I kind of agree with everything else she's saying, but I don't know if she agrees with me that fracking is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I guess I'll stay home on election day or maybe vote for the guy who's skin looks like it was stained orange by fracking chemicals"
Compared to how many people in her base who are strongly against fracking, and feel that by supporting it she is just plain not listening to them and who may choose to stay home on election day because they feel so alienated and hopeless about the state of politics in our country.
How hard is it to just say nothing about these kinds of issues? Or if it's something you absolutely have to comment on, why not just dance around it and say some vague bullshit about making fracking safe?
Play the fucking game, and play it to win.
I know she's in the pockets of megacorporations that support fracking, her record speaks for itself for anyone with half a brain who cares to look into it, most people aren't going to look into it though.
I don't support fracking, but I also know if Trump wins then it's game over, and oil and gas companies might just start a fracking operation from my bedroom and dump their waste in my dog's water bowl just because they can, and since we'll be living in a fascist dictatorship hell scape, there'd be no clear path forward to do anything about it.
If Harris wins, fracking stays more or less as it is now, and there's a path forward, even if it's a narrow one, to get a better candidate next time around.
But like I said, a lot of people are idiots who refuse to see that bigger picture, they'll see Harris doing shit like this and just lose interest and not show up on election day or throw their vote away to some third party because they think they're making a stand.
8Don't worry... John Fetterman will surely listen to his constituents this time! /s
4People will never get listened to under the joke of representational democracy, they’ve decided to represent businesses and billionaires over you.
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