If we’re going to talk about fracking, we can’t just talk about energy independence, or the economy, or the potential for natural gas to act as a ‘bridge fuel” to help solve the global warming crisis. We also need to talk about the effect that hydraulic fracturing is having on the communities where it’s taking place, and to ask whether that cost – to people’s health and property – is too high.

The main barrier to that conversation, of course, is that it’s one the industry definitely doesn’t want to be having, aside from insisting that fracking is safe. Michelle Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell, believe differently, and they have the research to back up their claims. The two have documented cases of contaminated water and air, of sick pets and dying livestock and of similar symptoms experienced by the animals’ owners, all with few apparent explanations. And that, the researchers, argue, is the real scandal: It’s up to the people being affected, and not the industry causing the damage, to prove that something’s wrong.

In ‘The Real Cost of Fracking: How America’s Shale Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets and Food,” Bamberger and […]