Earthquakes and Fracking?

The debate over fracking safety reminds me of those Hollywood catastrophe movies where the hero/rogue scientist desperately tries to warn the establishment of danger.   Of course, they do not listen to him and catastrophe ensues.  
Silly? Maybe, but,we live in a  world where politics and money dictate decisions more than good sense and clear thinking.   The whole world is a testimony to that.  Just look around at the damage to economies, governments, individuals, nature.

One blog site says that debate over fracking is nothing more than a  liberal tactic designed to hurt oil production.   This is how ugly and ridiculous people get when it comes to defending their political party at the expense of good sense and the safety of a nation.
Well, there  is no one more liberal than President Obama and  he is pro-fracking.

Fracking does indeed cause earthquakes, according to Scientific American, but, they say, usually only small ones.
 Hmm....

Small ones lead to big ones eventually but even small ones indicate something has changed beneath the earth's surface.

Today's  4.0 earthquake in Central Oklahoma is near a fracking area.  The debate is on as to whether it is due to the fracking nearby or not.

From The Scientific American  :

The recent uptick in the area's temblors has been dramatic. From 1972 to 2008 only two to six earthquakes were reported per year in Oklahoma, and were often too small for people to notice. However, in 2009 nearly 50 earthquakes were recorded (pdf), and that number more than doubled in 2010 to 1,047, with 103 powerful enough to be felt.

This unusual seismicity has led some to wonder about increased activity in the area related to fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, which uses millions of gallons of fluid to break apart rock and release natural gas.

Fracking  in Ohio

So Scientific American votes against it causing larger quakes. But, the so-called logic there is not even  logical.        If it can cause small quakes, it certainly can contribute to large quake. It causes problems is the upshot.
You can read the official take on it all at Scientific American.
But fracking has indeed  been shown to be the cause of earthquakes in England, where, heretofore, earthquakes were extremely rare and where locals are seeing more problems revolving around the fracking areas.
There can be no debate that the catastrophe in Bayou Corne, Louisiana is due to fracking. It is, after all, a fracking site. The damage there goes on unabated and , by the way, Bobby Jindal has never bothered to visit the site.

There seems to be a correlation between campaign contributions from the oil industry and whether or not politicians attitudes are pro-environment or, frankly, 'to hell with the environment'.
Everyone needs to be pro-environment, pro-conservation, pro-earth.
I am not talking about Al Gore-style environmental insanity. I am talking about good stewardship of the land and the environment. This should never be up for debate.

As the number of neighborhoods that have had to be abandoned due to fracking disasters grows, America needs to step back and take a deeper look at allowing politics to control how it does things.
67  families in Wyoming have had to leave their homes.
Also:    Here, Here, Here, Here, Here