FRACKING

Fracking is terrible for wildlife, people, and the environment. It poisons the water, contaminates the air, and spews massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Fracking intensifies oil and gas projects and opens new areas to extraction, creating nasty problems for wild ecosystems and human communities alike.

It’s time to fight back and ban this growing threat.

What Is Fracking? A Climate Killer

Fracking (aka hydrofracking or hydrofracturing) is short for “hydraulic fracturing.” It’s an extreme method of oil and gas production that involves blasting huge volumes of water, sand, and toxic chemicals — all at very high pressure — into the earth to fracture rock formations and release fossil fuels. This dangerous extraction technique adds to the many harms that oil and gas production do to human health, fragile landscapes, and wildlife habitat.

There’s no question: Fracking intensifies climate change. Any extraction involving fracking requires an enormous amount of energy and releases large amounts of methane, a dangerously potent greenhouse gas. Fracked shale gas wells may have methane leakage rates as high as 9%, which makes fracking worse for climate change than coal.

Fracking also threatens the climate by expanding the areas where drillers can extract fossil fuels. Preventing catastrophic climate change requires leaving about 80% of proven fossil fuel reserves in the ground. Fracking moves us in the opposite direction, opening up vast new deposits of fossil fuels.

If the fracking boom continues, oil and gas companies will light the fuse on a carbon bomb that will shatter efforts to avert climate chaos.

Harming Human Health, Polluting Air and Water, Killing Wildlife

Dozens of the chemicals used in fracking are carcinogenic. Evidence is mounting that all kinds of fracking chemicals, as well as methane released by fracking, are making their way into aquifers and drinking water throughout the United States. Fracking can release dangerous petroleum hydrocarbons — including benzene, toluene, and xylene — that pollute both water and air. And emissions from fracking operations increase ground-level ozone pollution, raising people's risk of asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Fracking also puts wildlife in danger. Fish die when fracking fluid contaminates streams and rivers. Birds are poisoned by chemicals in wastewater ponds. And the industrial development accompanying fracking pushes imperiled animals out of their homes.

Learn more about how fracking pollutes in our FAQ.

The Solution: Ban Fracking Now

To protect the environment from this inherently dangerous technique, we need to ban it. The Center for Biological Diversity has been instrumental in achieving a ban on fracking in California, which joined New York, Maryland, and other states in prohibiting this senseless extraction method.

The Center also works with partners and other groups to support fracking bans and moratoriums at the local, state, and national levels.