The Ithaca Journal fell hook, line, and sinker for bizarre claims of rationality and balance from the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition.
Henry Kramer uses words like "unemotional facts", "dispassionately presented", and even "neutral" about the Dryden SEC without seeming to understand what those words mean. A quick glance at the Dryden SEC site and the industry-run Energy in Depth site makes it pretty clear that the DSEC lines up on the side of the gas industry and borrows its pretend objectivity. DSEC is the pro-fracking group, as its members made pretty clear at the public hearing.
Unfortunately the Journal let them present themselves as if they were the middle of the conversation. I'm concerned that the Journal didn't actually read the site. The very first blog entry states their position clearly in its title: "Extracting natural gas from shale is safe and economically sensible."
It only gets emotional from there.... This blog entry, for example, stops just short of "ANTI-AMERICAN" and certainly includes a dose of emotion. The next piece warns that Pennsylvania's prosperity might leave us behind, and it's pretty much an endless slog of similar echoes about how great gas drilling is, without links to anything that might make you think twice about why they're putting such effort into this story.
The article also includes the nonsensical $175 million claim.
It's perfectly fine to make these arguments, even when they're broken. I don't understand, however, how the Dryden SEC can pretend they're somehow above the fray, and I really can't imagine how the Ithaca Journal fell for it.
Posted by simon at July 30, 2011 3:34 PM in Ithaca Journal , energy