Pundits and politicians act like boosting fracking is key to winning votes in Pennsylvania, but polls suggest otherwise.

A 2020 CBS/YouGov survey found that a slight majority of Pennsylvanians actually oppose fracking, with 52 percent of voters opposed and 48 percent in favor. Another 2020 poll, this one by Franklin & Marshall College, reported that 48 percent of registered Pennsylvania voters supported a ban on fracking, while only 39 percent opposed such a ban. And in a 2021 poll by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a sustainability-focused think tank, less than a third of Pennsylvanians said they supported continued fracking in the state.

Popular support for fracking has declined in Pennsylvania as understanding of its adverse effects has grown. A review of more than 2,500 scientific, medical, government and media reports — many of which focused on Pennsylvania — found that fracking is linked to numerous health problems, including cancer, asthma and congenital anomalies. The evidence is staggering, but here are some particularly egregious examples: An August 2023 report by the University of Pittsburgh determined that children living within a mile of a natural gas fracking well were seven times more likely to contract lymphoma, a rare form of childhood cancer. Another study found that children within a mile of a fracking well were also more likely to develop juvenile leukemia.

  • @Fondots
    8•2 months ago

    Politicians lie and use all kinds of weasely doublespeak bullshit all the damn time, it’s pretty much their signature move, everyone knows it, it’s been the punchline of countless jokes, no one likes it, but anyone with half a brain understands that it’s part of how the game is played and how you get the morons that make up a lot of this country excited to show up and vote for you.

    So why are Kamala and so many other democrats so bad at just doing that when it counts?

    How many undecided idiots does she think have fracking as their big tentpole issue, who are saying “gee, you know, I kind of agree with everything else she’s saying, but I don’t know if she agrees with me that fracking is the greatest thing since sliced bread, so I guess I’ll stay home on election day or maybe vote for the guy who’s skin looks like it was stained orange by fracking chemicals”

    Compared to how many people in her base who are strongly against fracking, and feel that by supporting it she is just plain not listening to them and who may choose to stay home on election day because they feel so alienated and hopeless about the state of politics in our country.

    How hard is it to just say nothing about these kinds of issues? Or if it’s something you absolutely have to comment on, why not just dance around it and say some vague bullshit about making fracking safe?

    Play the fucking game, and play it to win.

    I know she’s in the pockets of megacorporations that support fracking, her record speaks for itself for anyone with half a brain who cares to look into it, most people aren’t going to look into it though.

    I don’t support fracking, but I also know if Trump wins then it’s game over, and oil and gas companies might just start a fracking operation from my bedroom and dump their waste in my dog’s water bowl just because they can, and since we’ll be living in a fascist dictatorship hell scape, there’d be no clear path forward to do anything about it.

    If Harris wins, fracking stays more or less as it is now, and there’s a path forward, even if it’s a narrow one, to get a better candidate next time around.

    But like I said, a lot of people are idiots who refuse to see that bigger picture, they’ll see Harris doing shit like this and just lose interest and not show up on election day or throw their vote away to some third party because they think they’re making a stand.