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Morality in the gas patch?

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If your neighbor were a chimpanzee, you might not be gassed.

If you ask anyone, what is morality based on? These are the two factors that always come out: One is reciprocity … and a sense of fairness, and the other one is empathy and compassion.” (Frans de Waal)

About Sharon Wilson

Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    16 minutes 52 seconds. Worth every second.

    Agree that we might be better off with a chimpanzee as a neighbor. Seems that shale gas operators know all about empathy. Maybe that’s why the “neighborhood leaders” (via attorneys with O&G expertise) were successful beginning around 2007 and 2008 in Tarrant County communities and elsewhere, for example, in developing so-called, “better leases.”

    As long as people truly believe they are receiving their fair share of something (perceived to be very desirable) then they are far less likely to complain. At least according to the chimps.

    So. If one of the chimpanzees in the experiment were to become ill from eating the grape would the other chimpanzee continue to want a grape? Would this be the end of the desire from the unaffected chimp? Or would he continue to desire a grape until he too, fell ill? (Don’t really want to see that experiment with chimps.)

    And don’t need to see the chimps get ill, anyway. We already have that very real-life situation developing daily in the Barnett Shale and the other shale areas, don’t we? Unfortunately, the chimps can see through that glass at what is happening. Just wonder why the very community leaders who organized the “fair-share/ better leases” can’t go back to people and organize them against all of it, now. In 2012. Nobody wants their “fair share” of a public health issue. Those must be some powerful email lists.