Is hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to blame for this cluster of earthquakes?

This is one of those stories that seems like something out of a science fiction novel but in fact it’s real life. Over a recent 24-hour period in and around Irving, Texas between Dallas and Fort Worth there were a bundle of earthquakes. And by bundle, I mean 11. The quakes ranged in magnitude from 1.7 to 3.6, according to EcoWatch.

The quakes were felt in metro Dallas where hundreds called 911 in fear. With more than 20 quakes since last September, it’s no coincidence that the area sits on top of a natural gas rich and heavily fracked shale deposit. Many researchers think hydraulic fracturing is to blame.

“The upsurge in quakes started in Texas around the time the oil and gas boom took hold several years ago,” reported StateImpact Texas. “The number of recorded earthquakes (most larger than 3.0) has increased tenfold since a drilling boom began several years ago. The Lone Star State is now one of the shakiest in the country, coming in sixth in the continuous U.S. for having larger quakes last year.”

In fact, the number of earthquakes in an area that rarely saw them before has increased by tenfold since the fracking boom began.

“It’s premature to speculate on the cause of this current series of seismic events,” said Brian Stump, Albritton Chair of Geological Sciences at Dallas’ Southern Methodist University (SMU), in a statement reported in the Dallas Morning News yesterday. “We’re just getting started. We want to support the local community in understanding these earthquakes, and the team appreciates the cooperation of the city of Irving, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and IRIS [the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System] in helping us get the best information possible.”

According to StateImpact Texas, the earthquakes aren’t caused by the drilling used in hydraulic fracturing, they result from the disposal wells located thousands of feet under the ground. These wells store drilling fluid, a chemical-laced water encased in concrete.

“The model I use is called the air hockey table model,” Cliff Frohlich, a research scientist at the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin said to StateImpact Texas. “You have an air hockey table, suppose you tilt it, if there’s no air on, the puck will just sit there. Gravity wants it to move but it doesn’t because there friction [with the table surface].” But if you turn the air on for the air hockey table, the puck slips.

“Faults are the same,” he says. If you pump water in a fault, the fault can slip, causing an earthquake.

“Scientists in my community know that injection can sometimes cause earthquakes,” Frohlich says.

What’s crazy is that more people aren’t nervous that manmade earthquakes seem to plague heavily fracked areas leaving residents wondering what the heck is going on.

Related on EcoSalon:

Tis the Irony: Susan G. Komen Partners with Major Fracking Company

Fracking in Pennsylvania: A Visual

Major Victory in New York: Hydraulic Fracturing Banned

Image: Simon Fraser University

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Climate change deniers have found their way into textbooks in the Lone Star State.

A sixth grade textbook leaves school children in Texas to debate the question “Is Global Warming a Result of Human Activity?” The only problem is 97 percent of scientists already agree that humans are to blame. So the question becomes highly misleading for the sixth graders that will soon be dealing with the issue head on.

This new textbook has been flagged by the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) for misleading students. The book compares viewpoints from the Heartland Institute, an advocacy group backed by the Koch Brothers and Big Tobacco among others (and well known climate change deniers), to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a Nobel prize winning scientific body. In fact, Heartland Institute famously did an advertisement comparing those that contend global climate change is human-made to psychopaths.

Heartland Institute makes its way into science textbooks:

Scientists who study the issue say it is impossible to tell if the recent small warming trend is natural, a continuation of the planet’s recovery from the more recent “Little Ice Age,” or unnatural, the result of human greenhouse gas emissions. Thousands of peer-­‐reviewed articles point to natural sources of climate variability that could explain some or even all of the warming in the second half of the twentieth century. S. Fred Singer and Dennis Avery documented natural climate cycles of approximately 1,500 years going back hundreds of thousands of years.

—Joseph Bast and James M. Taylor, “Global Warming: Not a Crisis,” The Heartland Institute”

Where are these thousands of peer reviewed articles? I’ve never seen them. A fifth grade textbook had similar concerns. Like this frightening blurb:

Scientists believe the Earth is absorbing more of the sun’s harmful rays….Some scientists say it is natural for the Earth’s temperature to be higher for a few years. They predict we’ll have some cooler years and things will even out.

The Earth’s temperature will even out? It’s natural for the Earth’s temperature to be higher for a few years? In none of the research that I’ve seen has there ever been any mention of the Earth’s temperature evening out. And then there are the embarrassing inaccuracies.

Fossil fuel emissions have also caused a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica.

Whoops..that’s just wrong. In fact, fossil fuel combustion does not cause holes in the ozone layer, rather, they are caused by CFCs.

This from one of the largest public school systems in the country. Yikes.

Related on EcoSalon

Naomi Klein: Greenies Hurt the Environment More Than Climate Deniers

Top 10 Global Warming Myths Debunked

On the Front Lines With Global Climate change

Image: Ed Schipul

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Apparently everything really is bigger in Texas, even the hypocrites: The head of the biggest natural gas producer in the U.S. is suing to keep hydraulic fracturing (fracking) out of his own backyard.

When we imagine anti-hydraulic fracturing activists, a well-suited executive from the fossil fuel industry almost never enters the picture. That’s why many are reeling after the Wall Street Journal broke the news that Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, had joined his neighbors in a lawsuit designed to halt nearby hydraulic fracturing operations.

Before we get all excited and start pointing fingers, it’s important to examine the details. Tillerson’s move isn’t motivated by fears of what hydraulic fracturing will do to the air, water, and soil, as some reports have implied. It’s aimed instead at blocking construction of a water tower that’s necessary for fracking operations to continue (hydraulic fracturing requires a huge amount of water). Viewed in this light, Tillerson’s move is more of a strange showing of solidarity between residents of what I can only imagine is a very well-manicured neighborhood in Bartonville, Texas.

As the Wall Street Journal reports: “[Tillerson] and his neighbors had filed suit to block the tower, saying it is illegal and would create ‘a noise nuisance and traffic hazards,’ in part because it would provide water for use in hydraulic fracturing.”

“Tillerson’s attorney told the Journal he had no concerns about fracking-related traffic and rather was simply opposed to a water tower hovering over the 83-acre horse ranch he and wife Renda, a former competitive barrel jumper, share,” explains The Dallas Morning News.

So, a rich guy is more concerned about preserving his view than protecting his water supply–so what? Well for one thing it’s a direct contradiction of rhetoric the fossil fuel industry has forced down the throat of communities from Pennsylvania to California: hydraulic fracturing is harmless, non-disruptive and healthy for everyone.

Unless you’re a wealthy oil baron with lots of clout in your small Texas town. Then it becomes unsightly, a nuisance, and a threat to property values. Whether or not Tillerson says it out loud or not, at the very least hydraulic fracturing disturbs the peace–of the environment, wildlife, and anyone else who happens to be living nearby. No one should be forced to acquiesce these things to the fossil fuel industry just because there’s profit to be made. Whether you’re a stay-at-home-mom or the CEO of ExxonMobil.

Related on Ecosalon

Knocking The Wind Out of T. Boone Pickens

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China’s Synthetic Natural Gas: Is It Really Clean Energy?

Images: Wikimedia Commons, rifuture

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 New legislation could prevent doctors from talking to their patients about abortion.

Oh Texas. Earlier this week we applauded you for efforts to use tax money to help solve rape cases. But it turns out our yee-haws came too quickly.

Governor Rick Perry has vowed not to use federal money to expand Medicaid in Texas, and he’s kicking the Medicaid Women’s Health Program (WHP) while its down. Lawmakers in Texas have long been working to get Planned Parenthood health clinics booted from the WHP for being “abortion affiliates.” Which just isn’t a legal thing to do, explains Anna Merlan in the Dallas Observer.

Over in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal government is trying to remind its friends in the Lonestar State that they, the feds, provide 90% of the $40 million in funding for the WHP. Additionally, federal Medicaid rules explicitly say that states can’t block qualified providers (and Planned Parenthood is certainly qualified to provide women with healthcare) from participating.

Seems pretty clear to most, but, if the state loses the fight, they have a plan B (unlike women without access to reproductive healthcare!): create its own self-funded WHP that would ban doctors from even mentioning the word abortion to patients — let alone actually performing the legal procedure. The very mention of abortion would be illegal because to “mention,” apparently, is to “promote.”

Merlan points out the hypocrisy in her piece: “These are the same lawmakers who mandated a woman be forced to view and hear a sonogram described to her before an abortion can take place. Their logic then was that women deserve ‘informed consent.’ Except, we guess, when the state decides that women don’t need to be informed.”

Many of the Medicaid patients who use the WHP don’t have a choice in where they get their care. If the provider they see won’t discuss abortion, it’s likely that a patient’s right to choose ends with that un-had conversation. Doctors are being censored. The very people legislating women’s bodies are disgusted by the anatomically correct name for our genitals. Women are being forced to get invasive, unnecessary sonograms. Women aren’t being told what their choices are. Women don’t have access to the care they need. This cannot be acceptable.

Photo: antonella.beccaria

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Thrift shopping for vintage treasures is easy when you know where to find them. Here are seven of our favorite thrift shops in Austin, Texas.

The hippest city in the Lone Star State offers some of the best vintage shopping in Texas. The thrifting scene in Austin could be described as “New York quality with Texas prices.” You can be sure to score a good pair of cowboy boots here and, thanks to Isabel Marant, line dancing shirts are now all the rage and can surely be found at one of these shops.

Vintage shopping is part skill, part luck and part perseverance, but you can stack the odds in your favor by hitting up stores known to always stock good stuff. Here are seven of our favorite thrift stores in Austin, Texas. For those of you located elsewhere, many of these also have online shops.

Flashback Vintage
Opened in a small house on South Lamar in 1982, Flashback has grown to be one of Austin’s best vintage shops. It’s homey and sweet and stocks a good selection of period pieces from the 40s to the 80s as well as contemporary finds. There’s clothing for both women and men. The front room, where you enter, is the boutique area and is where you find the more expensive stuff. Staff members have a passion for all things vintage, and are knowledge about eras, labels, fabrics, and construction. The men’s area is on the right as you enter and has shirts, including pearl snaps, suits, hats, ties and buckles. Flashback has dressed “musicians, theater groups, hippies, flower children, hipsters, punks, soccer moms, celebrities and everyone in between.” Surely you will find something here that strikes your fancy.

Flashback Vintage, 1805 S 1st Street, 78704/So-Fi

Feathers Boutique
Feathers Boutique offers a well-edited selection of vintage items that reflect current trends. Upon entering, you are greeted by a display of non-vintage Jeffrey Campbell shoes, but turn left or right and you’ll find a variety of dresses, belts, tops, coats, and vintage shoes. Everything is thoroughly labeled with price as well as the time period from which it came  – most things are from the 70s – 90s. On the website there is a fun feature where vintage fans elsewhere can shop the outfit blog.

Feathers Boutique, 1700 S Congress Avenue, 78704/SoCo

Splendor
Featuring a great selection of handpicked vintage pieces inspired by the latest trends, Splendor is one of Austin’s finest vintage shops. Each piece is laundered before it hits the racks, so you will not find that musky smell otherwise so typical of vintage stores. Prices are still reasonably fair compared to other vintage shop and, in addition to clothing, Splendor also offers styling services, helping you put together that perfect vintage outfit. They also run an eBay store, where anyone can shop from the comfort of the couch.

Splendor, 100 W. North Loop, Suite H, North Loop

Cream Vintage
One of the most well-known vintage shops in Austin, Cream has a nice selection of clothing and accessories for both men and women and has better prices than many other shops. There’s an interesting selection of upcycled jewelry, but what this place is really known for is cowboy boots, which line the walls and are organized by color and gender. Cream has a friendly, knowledgeable staff happy to help answer questions or find something you’re looking for. There is also an in-house tailor that can alter your finds to fit you perfectly.

Cream Vintage, 2532 Guadalupe Street, The Drag

Roadhouse Rags
Roadhouse Rags is owned by Kelli Archer and Clay Connell and specializes in men’s western shirts, cowboy boots, vintage purses and jewelry, vintage sleepwear, and women’s eveningwear. Many come here for the cowboy boots, which are plentiful, in all thinkable colors, styles and sizes. Located a bit off the beaten path, Roadhouse Rags goes concert venue on the weekends and is a great place to come hear local Austin bands. Check out the website, which is a MySpace page, for upcoming shows. There is a backyard and it’s always BYOB, so bring your beer and save your money to buy clothes for instead.

Roadhouse Rags, 1600 Fortview Road, South Austin

Blue Velvet
For more than 18 years, the mother-and-daughter team behind Blue Velvet has outfitted fashionable Austinites in great vintage duds. A six-time winner of Austin Chronicle’s Reader’s Poll for Best Vintage Store, the shop has a wide selection of men’s and women’s vintage clothing and accessories, including petticoats, sunglasses, jewelry, and shoes, as well as tons of unique handmade items from local artists. This is where you may find both that obscure Halloween costume and that gorgeous vintage bridesmaid dress. The website features teaser-photos of what’s in store.

Blue Velvet, 217 W. North Loop Blvd., North Loop

Savers
It looks like a Marshalls or TJ Maxx, but this store is actually filled with second-hand clothing instead of overstock. There are two locations in Austin, both organized and clean. It’s fairly easy to find bargains, as every aisle is filled with current looks and authentic vintage finds. Savers was founded in 1954 on principles such as giving back and providing opportunities – core values the company still embraces today. Unsold clothing is recycled or donated to developing countries.

Savers, 4001 S Lamar Blvd. & 5222 Burnet Road, Suite 600

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Every day is better with a new track.

Proportions by Conner Youngblood

Every day we bring you one track for a little musical inspiration. Have a track you want to submit? Email us at contact@ecosalon.com.

Image: Connor Youngblood

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Tacos in Austin for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Damn straight.

While there’s no denying the appeal of the Doritos Taco™ at 2 am on a Thursday, it’s a decision that requires the cover of night, a lack of viable choices, and oftentimes the ingestion of mind-altering substances to justify the purchase – especially in Austin. Here, taco connoisseurship and a love of all things local, organic, and independent are aggressively cultivated. Tacos are an art form, with permutations ranging from the traditional al Pastor found at parking lot trailers on the east side, gourmet Korean and Vietnamese fusions on the west side, to the organic, vegan, locally sourced fare that unites two of Austin’s most vocal demographics: hippies and yuppies.
In honor of this Texas food staple, I went and ate a bunch of tacos, trying to find both the best as well as those made with locally sourced and/or organic ingredients. The assessments:
Breakfast

Tacodeli’s Breakfast Tacos

The breakfast taco is a Texas classic and Tacodeli’s versions, using organic and local ingredients sourced year round from Texas and community farms, consistently earns accolades and “Best Of” lists. The organic bean, cheese, and egg tacos at Wheatsville, Austin’s co-op alternative to its more famous grocery export, will easily keep you full through lunch, and comes with an excellent Pico de Gallo. Veggie chorizo tacos topped with alfalfa sprouts are the way to go at Mr. Natural, a longtime Austin landmark, but their house salsa was unfortunately watery and had no kick.

Lunch +Dinner

Chango’s al Pueblo

Chango’s boasts natural, Texas-raised, and humanely certified meats in their repertoire. Yes, vegans, I know, but the beef tacos del pueblo are still delicious. Slightly charred on the outside and pink on the inside, they come wrapped in a handmade tortilla, with a heaping amount of cilantro and salsa on top. The vegetarian mushroom version is also tasty, but much less filling, so get two. El Chile’s soporific puffy tacos will likely make you pass out before the evening starts, but they’re a proven alternative to Xanax.

After-Hours

Be More Pacific’s Taco Libre

Even at 2 am in Austin, there’s really no excuse for eating terrible food, especially if you’re broing it up around 6th Street. Asian inspired taco trucks are the big trend, and make for excellent hangover preventatives. Be More Pacific’s Taco Libre, which combines chicken adobo and elote, are something that I actively pine for when away from Austin. The Peached Tortilla’s Banh Mi taco is an ode to Texas’s thriving Vietnamese community, with impressive results. For those who do insist on fast food alternatives, Taco Cabana – a Texas-based chain – boasts tacos assembled with house made tortillas, a prodigiously huge salsa bar, margaritas, and open 24 hours. No judgment if you happen to steal your roommate’s car to get there at 3 am.

Images: Dave_B, Anh-Thu Nguyen

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There’s more to SXSW than just finding the next Zuckerberg.

For almost two decades since its founding in 1987, SXSW was known as the place to discover breaking new music acts and independent, off-beat films. SXSW Interactive, the festival’s lesser known venue -mainly due to the emerging nature of its medium – didn’t attract nearly as much public notice as its more established twin.

Fast forward a few years, as SXSWi has become a launching ground for some of the most formidable names in technology, including Twitter and Foursquare, and it has come to almost eclipse its original indie-music and film roots. In so doing, SXSWi has become something of an annual debutante ball for start-ups. Now, every spring in a time-honored Texas tradition, start-ups with a lot of VC funding “come out” to tech society (with handfuls of hoodies and logo tees in lieu of tiaras and white gowns).

Amidst the product launches, celebrity sightings, free t-shirts and libations flowing freely through the streets surrounding downtown Austin, it’s easy to forget that there’s an actual conference to go to. But with thousands of tech experts and luminaries on site to discuss timely issues having anything to do with technology today, participants stay on task. Additionally, despite the atmosphere that can definitely at times resemble a nerdy Cancun spring break, SXSWi happens to have a strong social component, with a multitude of events and sessions directly addressing the interplay between technology, innovation, and social impact.

This year, with “Better Tomorrow” as the main conference theme, panel subjects have ranged from race, gender, and class issues in the Silicon Valley, to using tech in dictatorships, to innovation and hacks in resource-limited societies, to leveraging online communities for social good projects.

Two panels, one of them led by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, tackled the reasons behind the enormous racial and gender gap in Silicon Valley. According to CB Insights, about 1% of entrepreneurs who received venture capital in the first half of 2010 were African-American, even though they make up 11% of the general U.S. population. Compare this to the 87% of founders funded who are Caucasian, and 12% who are Asian.

Why the gap? Participants discussed how socio-economic barriers, an often late start in developing tech skills, and a Silicon Valley culture where tolerating failure is a necessity, have hampered diversity in the tech industry. Hank Williams, an entrepreneur, pointed out the economic realities of many African American communities, and how that combined with Silicon Valley’s culture of failing forward can act as a barrier to entry.

“Some groups, for whatever reason there may be, have the socio-economic flexibility to fail,” while for others, “Failure means no rent money…or being able to eat next week,” says Williams.

If YouTube, Facebook, or CNN.com comments are any indication, online commenters aren’t particularly well known for their kindness. However, a session featuring Alexis Ohanian, a Reddit co-founder, and panelists from Donorschoose.org, Reddit Gifts,
and the Awesome Foundation discussed how online communities can move beyond trolling to giving. By setting a tone for its online community and providing incentives that bring out the recklessly generous side of participants (think positive peer pressure, or trolling with a heart), Reddit has been a driving force for a variety of weird and wonderful altruistic projects. Reddit community members have even participated in the largest Secret Santa in the world, sent complete strangers pizzas on request, and facilitated a campaign to “charity blackmail” Stephen Colbert that raised over half a million dollars for Donorschoose.org.

Social ventures were a popular topic of discussion at SXSW, and affiliated events like the Good Capitalist Lounge sought to prove that social impact and profit margin weren’t two disparate entities. Though there are plenty of businesses out there with an ethos that have proven wildly successful (such as Patagonia and Melissa shoes), the conversation on social ventures can still seem a bit apologetic and defensive at times.

On a marketing panel, the utility of cause-related work (employee retention, increasing brand awareness, building trust) was challenged with the claim that any company creating jobs – whether it be Wal-Mart, McDonalds, or BP was providing an overall social good, and that profit margin shouldn’t be hampered by “wanting to go to heaven.”

That assumption, that jobs trump all other considerations, and that having an ethic behind any business is not only not profitable but not an endeavor worth pursuing for the bottom line, seems to be a well-ingrained notion that requires constant, thoughtful pushback on multiple platforms, and SXSWi is only one venue (though with lots more free food and music) to explore social impact and the tools that can facilitate it.

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We’ve heard the frustrated cries of cash-strapped friends: “I want my home to be more energy-efficient but it’s so darn expensive!” and “I would buy furniture that’s made from recycled materials but right now all I can afford is that particle board dresser from IKEA!”

However, Dan Phillips is out to prove that eco-friendly homes can be both affordable and attractive.

The Huntsville, Texas man formed Phoenix Commotion and has built over a dozen homes using at least 80-85 percent of recycled or salvaged materials. Picture ceilings lined with a geometric cacophony of picture frame corners in every color, floors made from old wine corks, and address numbers made from cattle bones (we did mention he’s in Texas, right?).

And the best part is that the owners (primarily minimum wage workers who would otherwise float from apartment to apartment or mobile home to mobile home) are required to participate in the building process so they’ll feel a sense of pride in ownership.

Phillips’ wild, whimsical creations follow two simple rules: they must meet building codes and follow the laws of physics. He keeps homes small and simple and tries to maintain a level of energy efficiency, which makes them attractive to future buyers. The rest is left to his imagination and that of the new homeowner.

Images: Phoenix Commotion

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