Friday, June 22, 2012

From the Desk of John Stossel

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From the Desk of John Stossel

June 12, 2012


Dear

I'm sorry for scaring you to death.

I admit that in my early days as a TV news reporter,   thought that was part of my job. I did stories about defective products and con artists lurking around every comer.

But by the time I did my first one-hour TV special, Are We Scaring Ourselves to Death? in the mid-90s, I had begun to question whether we in the media should treat everything as a crisis. That's when  the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) became a very valuable source of information for me.

ACSH puts health risks in perspective- combating hype and paranoia.

For that one-hour special, they helped me construct a huge chart that ranked risks and showed that mundane things like car accidents and (perhaps worst of all) smoking are risks that dwarf the tiny, hypothetical, maybe not even real scares that the media love to keep you alarmed about, such as pesticide residues on vegetables or radiation from power lines.

They helped change my thinking and helped infonn my audience.

By reaching out to reporters, editors and policymakers across the country, they continue to push back against the quacks, the scaremongers and, perhaps most important, against the all-too-easy assumptions  we all tend to make - as reporters or consumers of · health news - assumptions like "natural things are safer than mamnade things" or "chemicals are bad for you" or "alternative medicine treats the whole body instead of just iso
Those sorts of assumptions pervade the stories about environmental doom or mystical cure-alls, but they're  almost never backed up by serious, peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Still, they become the foundations for newer stories (about whatever chemical the eco-activists or New Age healers have targeted this week) . . . and then they become the basis for lawsuits ... jury decisions ... and new draconian regulations. These things, I became increasingly convinced, are the real threats to our health, our lives and our
libe1iy.

Reporters love the scare stories - such as the ones implying that night lights give children leukemia or cell phones cause cancer. We live for unexpected, alarming news. That's  how unscientific stories get spread.

ACSH combats those unscientific, hyped-up stories, and reporters like me are lucky to have them around.

I hope they'll be here for another thirty years and more.

 Sincerely,
 John Stossel















AMERICAN COUNCIL
ON SCIENCE AND HEALTH

1995 BROADWAY, SUITE 202, NEW YORK, NY 10023-5882
TOLL FREE: (866) 905-2694   TELEPHONE: (212) 352-7044 FAX: (212) 362-4979









Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
President



 

Dear

It's so frustrating.

Science is giving us answers to our urgent energy needs ... but fanatical ideologues keep the science from being implemented.

I'm talking about "fracking"- or hydraulic fracturing- the technique of using water, sand and chemicals to extract natural gas from shale formations deep underground.

America is floating on a sea of clean-burning natural gas, enough to last more than a hundred years, enough to put thousands of our citizens to work for decades, and certainly enough to decrease our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.

But so-called "environmental" activist groups have increased their attacks on the energy source and the technology behind fracking.

We're at the mercy of a hardcore group of environmental extremists who won't  let us extract these resources! And they have alarmist regulators firmly embedded in the Obarna Administration on their side.

These extremists try to hide their anti-business, anti-technology agenda behind the guise of "public health." Their goal is to stampede regulators, legislators and the media into buying into their alarmist propaganda.

And right now, it's working. These extremists are winning.

It's time to fight back. Not with heated rhetoric, but with facts and science. That's our job andI  am asking for your help.

My name is Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, and I serve as President of the American
Council on Science and  Health (ACSH).

I founded ACSH in 1978 along with a group of like-minded scientists who were concerned that many important public policies- especially those related to health and the environment- were not based on sound science.



At ACSH, we are committed to ensuring that puplic policy is based on scientific facts
-not exaggerations, emotions or ideologies. We are also committed to defending the
American people from needless panic caused by pseudo-science.

Remember the Alar scare back in 1989? Environmental activists created mass hysteria about a chemical used on apples. CBS's "60 Minutes" reported that Alar was a "cancer threat for children." American apple growers suffered grievous financial losses because of that little bit of misinformation.

We now know that Alar posed no danger to the public. And leading scientists from the American Council on Science and  Health  were the ones who repudiated and uncovered the phony science behind the scare.

Thanks to the ACSH-led efforts, which fought hysteria with facts, the American people learned the truth. Eventually, even the media came around. The Washington Post described the Alar panic as "one of several food scares that turned out to be baseless."

Many wild claims by extremists have been completely unfounded. And ACSH has led the way in proving dozens of such cases over the years, reassuring the public and defending companies and products that have been unjustly targeted by enviro-extremists.

But now, many of these activists have been appointed to oversee public policy!

As a result, our challenge to keep ideologically-driven pseudo-science out of public policy is greater than ever!

The environmentalist "Green" movement, which dominates so much oftoday's public policy, doesn't  want natural gas and other carbon-based fuels to be cheaper.

In fact, they want just the opposite. They want traditional fuel to be even more expensive than it is today.

In its place, the Greens are committed to so-called renewable energies - wind and solar power.

But what they won't admit is that the technology required to efficiently harness wind and solar energy does not exist. It is- at best- decades away. And right now, wind and solar energies cost as much as 10 times the cost of coal, gas and oil resources.

· And we still haven't licked the problem of windless or cloudy days!

America needs energy. Abundant, affordable energy is the foundation for our standard ofliving. It's what makes us competitive. It's what keeps us out of the kind of systemic poverty seen in Third World nations.

And right now, fossil fuels play an indispensable role in providing the energy we need to light and heat our homes, run our businesses and basically keep our civilization intact.

Just a few short yea,rs ago, energy experts worried that the United States was in danger of running out of gas. No more!



The government estimates that we have 2,552 trillion cubic feet of potential natural gas resources. That's a 110-year supply of natural gas at current rates of consumption.

And over the past several years, vast caches of this energy source, trapped in deeply buried rock, have been made accessible by advances in fracking.

Fracking was first used in Oklahoma in the 1940s, and in the years since has been employed in more than a million oil and gas wells across the nation. The process involves pumping millions of gallons of chemically-treated  water into deep shale formations at pressures of9,000 pounds per square inch or more. This fluid cracks the shale or widens existing cracks, freeing hydrocarbons  to flow toward the well.

Advanced fracking techniques have led to an eight-fold increase in shale gas production over the past decade. Reports say that shale gas will account for nearly half of the nation's  natural gas production by 2035.

Keep in mind that burning natural gas is cleaner than burning oil or gasoline, and it emits half as much carbon dioxide, less than one-third the nitrogen oxides, and 1 percent as much sulfur oxide as coal combustion. And vehicles powered by liquefied natural gas, propane or compressed natural gas run cleaner than cars with either gasoline or diesel in the tank.

So when science hands us something like "fracking" - which has the potential to transform America from an energy dependent nation to an energy exporter - America should jump for joy. We could be the Saudi Arabia of natural gas!

Instead, we are under siege from uncompromising  ideologues who value their radical environmentalist  agenda more than the well-being of our country. Their fear campaign against fracking has led to stringent regulatory barriers that amount to a de facto ban on this
promising technology in many parts of the country.

A report written by environmental hard liners Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California, Edward J. Markey ofMassachusetts, and Diana  DeGette of Colorado faulted gas and oil companies for, at times, "injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify."

This report also alleged that 14 of the nation's most active hydraulic fracturing companies have used 866 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products- not including water. More than 650 ofthese products, the report claimed, contain chemicals that are either known or potential human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act or listed as hazardous air pollutants.

Following the release ofthe House report, the notoriously alarmist New York Times
reporter Ian  Urbina devoted himself to finding ways to upset readers about fracking.

Among other claims, he asserted that chemicals used during natural gas extraction may ultimately end up in our drinking water. Urbina even cited a previous report by the equally alarmist Environmental  Working Group, claiming that benzene levels in fracking ingredients were as much as 93 times higher than those found in diesel fuel.



Urbina was also responsible for an entire anti-fracking series in The Times titled, "Drilling Down," which examined the risks of natural gas drilling. In one ofhis pieces, "A Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More," Urbina accused energy companies of keeping instances of contaminated water wells hidden, especially from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

These claims are unsubstantiated!

In fact, numerous academic, federal and state investigators have conducted extensive research on groundwater contamination issues and have found that drinking water contamination from fracking has not been documented and its future occurrence is highly improbable.

The truth is fracking involves deep drilling- far below the aquifer- and the wells are encased in steel pipes before fracking fluids are ever released, making groundwater pollution extremely unlikely.

Geologists point out that a fracture caused by the drilling process would have to extend through the several thousand feet of rock that separate deep shale gas deposits from fresh water aquifers.

Much of the current fracking controversy was spurred by the highly misleading 2010 film "Gasland,"  a documentary that criticizes the natural gas drilling process.

In the film's  signature moment, Colorado landowner Mike Markham ignites his tap water. The film leaves the viewer with the false impression that the flaming tap water is a result of natural gas drilling.

However, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which tested Markham's water in 2008, there were "no indications of oil and gas related impacts to water well." Instead, the investigation found that the methane was "biogenic" in nature, meaning it was naturally occurring and that his water well was drilled into a natural gas pocket.

Environmental extremists also claim that fracking leads to the contamination of drinking water with chemicals such as benzene. But my ACSH colleague Dr. Gilbert Ross has shown that "carcinogenic  effects associated with benzene come from studies ofhigh-exposure occupational workers."

This has little or nothing to do with the traces of benzene present in "hydro··fracking" liquids, let alone the hypothetical amounts that might conceivably migrate from shale gas deposits to drinking water.

Even President Barack Obama's hyper-environmentalist EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, admitted at a U.S. House Oversight Committee hearing that the environmental risk of hydraulic fracturing is practically nonexistent, saying:

"I'm not aware of any proven  case where  the fracking process itself has affected  water, although there  are investigations ongoing."



Hollywood is already working on "Gas/and II," a sequel sure to provoke a resurgence of unfavorable media coverage.

Their scare stories of environmental degradation from fracking are hypothetical. Water contamination  from fracking is highly unlikely. Perhaps the anti-fracking activists should consider the damage that results from avoiding fracking -more pollution from, and reliance upon, foreign oil.

Simply put, hydraulic fracturing has been safely used in oil and gas production for more than 60 years.

What can be done? Plenty! And we're doing it.

Countering anti-fracking hysteria is one of ACSH's  top priorities right now. With the help of people like you, we intend to continue to expose the shoddy science and questionable sources in the reporting oflan Urbina and others. We will expose and debunk the outright distortions in ugly propaganda efforts like "Gas/and."

We are working on a new, comprehensive  peer-reviewed report that will expose and refute the anti-fracking hysteria point by point.

Our report will use hard science and documented evidence to debunk anti-fracking claims, including alleged:

    "Toxic" chemical water contamination;
    Radioactivity (radium, other radionuclides) leached into groundwater; and
    Air pollution, said to result from toxic gas releases.

Once our initial study draft is completed, we will solicit peer-review commentary from experts in this and related fields and from among our own distinguished ACSH scientific panel.

We know from experience - from our fight against the Alar scare and countless other battles in which ACSH has helped truth prevail over hysteria- that this kind of study is absolutely essential in turning the media around.

Our ability to get media attention comes from our long history of credibility and sound science regarding public and environmental health issues.

We know of no other group looking at fracking comprehensively from a sound science perspective. Our report will address the whole spectrum of public health-related issues.

Of course, just producing the report is not enough. We must then undertake a massive media relations campaign to get our study read and reported.

And we're not just targeting the media. The vast majority of Americans want energy independence.  And more than that, they want jobs and a better  economy.

Americans must know that a narrow-minded  group of environmental extremists is standing in the way. They need to know the objections to fracking are based on a radical



environmentalist agenda - not science.

In addition to our primary report, we are producing a "consumer" version accessible to non-technical  audiences.

Our goal is to unleash the enormous grassroots potential of millions of Americans armed with the facts.

We will achieve this goal through our numerous television and radio interviews, through op-eds in leading newspapers and magazines, and of course through aggressive exposure of our study via the Internet using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.

ACSH is uniquely suited to separate the facts from the hype.

We are the only group in America whose sole mission is refuting irresponsible, un­
scientific, hysteria-based claims such as those directed at fracking.

John Stossel is just one noteworthy example of the few intelligent, articulate and right-minded  members of the media who support our work to promote sound science.

As John mentioned to you in his accompanying  letter, we at ACSH tirelessly battle
Big Government  regulation of important health issues each and every day.

Of course we do not receive one dime of taxpayer money.

It is only because of the generosity of people like you that we are able to speak out on such controversies.

Without ACSH, the fear mongers would often go unopposed, and nobody would be there to defend against the sea of lies and the needless government intervention so prominent today.

You should know that the nucleus of ACSH, the secret of our effectiveness in this and all our campaigns, is our board of nearly 400 physicians, scientists and policy advisors­ world-renowned experts in a wide variety of fields.

Our advisory board knows better than anyone that distorted and overstated scientific evidence - when used to promote public policy - threatens our nation and our personal health and well-being.

ACSH is the only organization of its type backed by a full range of scientific and medical experts who have fought to defend the benefits of solid science.

The unmatched prestige of the ACSH Scientific and Policy Advisory Board is the reason  why we at ACSH  lead the fight to debunk the junk, confront the alarmists and hysterics, and insist that  public  policy is based on sound science.

It is the most powerful weapon  the forces  of freedom  have in the war  for sane  public  policy!


Mr. Rice, will you help us fight the anti-fracking hysteria that is so destructive to our economy?

Will you help us get thousands of our fellow Americans back to work in high-paying jobs that will make our energy more abundant and affordable and reduce our dependence on foreign sources?

Your generous contribution today to the American Council on Science and Health will help combat the current anti-fracking hysteria that now dominates the media mindset and regulatory policy.

Your contribution will not just enable ACSH to write op-eds, make media appearances and maintain websites countering hype. It will also help make possible the definitive, peer­ reviewed, technical science report upon which our op-eds and layman-friendly literature and websites are built.

Please join us and make a contribution to ACSH today. I'm hoping your tax­ deductible donation can be as much as $50 or $100. Gifts of $250, $500 and even $1,000 or more are especially needed.

I promise you that we will immediately use your gift to generate more material aimed at ending the reign ofthe anti-energy hucksters, fear mongers and doomsayers.

Thank you in advance for your participation in this crucial fight.

Sincerely,

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
President
American Council on Science and Health

P.S.       Abundant, safely extracted, clean-burning  natural gas could be a Godsend for the
American economy and the environment.

But the anti-fracking extremists are sounding needless alarms and manufacturing crises based on junk science and false claims. They say they want to protect people from "evil" energy companies, but you and I know they have a different agenda ... an ideological agenda that is actually against affordable energy. It's an agenda hostile to free enterprise and the remarkable innovation only a free economy can deliver.

Your gift, and those of others like you, is the true key to defeating the fear mongers and freedom-hating zealots. Please enclose your most generous possible tax­ deductible donation of$50 or $100, $250, $500 and even $1,000 or more.

As John Stossel says, we are a small but vital organization, doing work that nobody else dares to do. Thank you!

Make Donations at: www.ASCH.org



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