The Advertising for Natural Gas from Shale Drilling and Fracking

Commentary by S. Tom Bond of Lewis County, WV.

The United States seems to be moving back toward the Middle Ages when truth came from Authority – meaning the Medieval Church and the King, who was essentially anyone who, with his buddies, could field more thugs than anyone else.

“True” statements then involved no necessity to demonstrate connection to the physical world, only to the pronouncements of “Authority.” If your statement did not conjoin with the dominant theme, you were simply pounded into place. Frequently a place underground.

Today’s “news” has given up analysis for the valueless “he said, she said” format, or to simply massaging the advertisers. After all, the outward purpose of “news” is to entertain and the inward purpose is to make money. This results in consolidation of the media – money-making winner take all. Do I need to mention Rupert Murdoch?

We are used to pharmaceutical company advertising, which was forced to mention side effects, some of them pretty horrifying, only after jumping to advertising directly to potential customers. Or chemical companies, which advertise plastics without mentioning bisphenol A or other endocrine disrupters given off by many other products.

And of course, there is political advertising, which is a quintessence of self-interest masquerading as economic principle or ethical balance. One of the mysteries of psychology is how people can so easily be convinced to support platforms diametrically opposed to their own interests. Obviously it’s done by advertising to people who have their minds turned off. But how is it accomplished so easily?

Shale advertising appears everywhere. I recently turned to a Moscow newspaper hoping to get the Russian view on an event written in English. The entire paper was in Russian, except… get this, and ad to invest in shale drilling!  Here in the U. S. there are two or three booster ads on the local news broadcast each night, telling how great it is. There are some in the newspapers, others on billboards along the highway and on many of the sites you open on the internet.

The universal characteristic of advertising is that it presents the product as the advertiser wants it. Tobacco ads and drug ads are under federal constraint, but otherwise the advertiser calls the tune. If there is a different view it can be countered in this medium only by some entity paying for the counter-advertising.

The dirty aspects of shale drilling, such as aquifer and stream damage, devaluation of property, interference with other industries, long term and health effects, just disappear under the blitzkrieg of ads and lesser news-entertainment.

The authority appealed to, of course, is “business.” The vast sums ($126 billion a year average over the last six years, according to Ernst and Young) gotten from investors who only want a quick and large return, allow vast sums for shaping public opinion by advertising. As they say, “It’s great to be the King!”

The $13 billion in subsidies awarded to hydrocarbon fuels by the United States, helps, too. Why should mature, profitable industries be getting subsidies? The world-wide figure is $58.7 billion, so the US is not the only country pumping money from it’s citizens to aid the pollution from burning carbon.

What can we do? We need to keep working to raise the consciousness of those around us. The sun did not go around the earth in the Middle Ages, and aquifers are not safe today. No matter who says the opposite. It will come out eventually. But sooner is better, because more of the Earth is being harmed all the time.

We need publicity, we need political action, and we need to work together with the several hundred groups trying to regulate shale drilling in the US and the dozens of others all over the world. The truth is on the ground everywhere shale drilling is tried, and the authority is concentrated in a few companies and a few banks. Truth will come out, but until it is recognized, damages will continue.

Tagged as: advertising, drilling, fracking, marcellus shale, methane, natural gas, public relations