Frackademia: noun – An academic aligned with frackers

Read a hilarious post about a serious subject: Frackademia

Frackademia: noun – An academic aligned with frackers to provide credibility to fracking.

verb – To act or work as such a person to provide credibility to frackers: “we’ve aligned with Univ. of Buffalo. We’ve done a variety of other activities where we’ve gotten the academics to sponsor programs and bring in people for public sessions to educate them on a variety of different topics.”

Frackademia in the news today:

Bloomberg: Frackers Fund University Research That Proves Their Case
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. – Jul 22, 2012 11:00 PM CT

Public Accountability: Contaminated Inquiry: How a University of Texas Fracking Study Led by a Gas Industry Insider Spun the Facts and Misled the Public
July 23, 2012

StateImpact: Fracking Company Paid Texas Professor Behind Water Contamination Study

Since 2007, Groat has received over $1.5 million in cash and stock awards from the company, and he currently holds over $1.6 million in company stock, according to the PAI report.

Fracktoids: The best scientific research money can buy.

When I attended the Media & Stakeholder Relations Hydraulic Fracturing Relations Initiative 2011 conference aka PSYOPS conference, the two days were filled with suggestions for “inoculating” academics and reporters and how to influence both.

This is from my notes on Dennis Holbrook’s presentation:

10:34  “We consider NY a pretty significant battle ground so… we aren’t there yet. We have a Governor , I think, that believes this thing should probably move forward.”

11:05: “Seek out academics, academic studies & champion with universities, because—that again—provides tremendous credibility to the overall process. Ah, we tend to be viewed, as I said earlier, very skeptically but we’ve aligned with Univ. of Buffalo. We’ve done a variety of other activities where we’ve gotten the academics to sponsor programs and bring in people for public sessions to educate them on a variety of different topics.”  ends 11.32

11:59 quote from editorial: “Life is about managing risks with sensible protections. Hydrofracking includes certain inherent risks but so does any exploration for oil and gas which virtually all New Yorkers use. New Yorkers who insist on never taking any risks, should not get into a car—though they could get hit by one while walking—or just stay in bed all day risking bed sores.”  Buffalo News.

This is a big turnaround for this paper. We spent a good year or longer meeting with editorial boards, providing essays to the paper and doing whatever we could to educate the reporters on a different perspective on what they’ve been led to believe up until now.

These are the kind of areas where you can have tremendous influence. This has a tremendous impact on the politicians on other folks that we ultimately have to bring around to the understanding that we can do this safely.

Are you ready to STOP THE FRACK ATTACK?