
CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes - CapitalistCartr
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-15/oil-tycoon-harold-hamm-wanted-scientists-dismissed-dean-s-e-mail-says
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jsaxton86
One of the biggest problems with politics is that politicians need to raise a
lot of money to get (re)elected. That money comes with strings attached, which
makes it difficult for our politicians to make good decisions.

I had never considered that the same problem exists in academia, but
apparently it does. Hamm has donated tens of millions to the University of
Oklahoma, and it's pretty obvious he's trying to use his money to influence
the direction of the University. I'm surprised it isn't working.

~~~
nmrm2
_> I'm surprised it isn't working._

Remember this next time someone suggests getting rid of tenure or cutting
federal research funding. Especially for areas of research that are
politically or economically hot (climate/environment, privacy, etc.)

~~~
IndianAstronaut
This is actually the main reason for tenure. It is to protect intellectual
freedom. Granted, nowadays due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole
system is likely to die a slow death.

~~~
BrainInAJar
> due to excessive abuses by lazy faculty, the whole system is likely to die a
> slow death.

That's true of a lot of systems; Tenure, unionization, welfare. It becomes
easy to stir people in to a frenzy to eliminate the freeloader problem while
the question of whether the institution is too important to care about
freeloaders remains ignored. In all the cases, perhaps freeloaders are just
part of the price for a valuable system, and we should accept it.

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Aqueous
""Mr. Hamm absolutely did not ask to be on the search committee or to have
anyone from Continental put onto the committee, nor did he ask that anyone
from the Oklahoma Geological Survey be dismissed," [Vice President of Public
Affairs of University of Oklahoma Catherine Bishop] wrote.

Email, just paragraphs earlier in the article, from Hamm, _verbatim_ : "I
would be very interested and willing to sit on your search committee."

But I guess it's not asking if there's no question mark?

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mikeash
If you get caught doing something like this, you might as well just blatantly
lie. You won't make it worse, and at least some people will believe your lie.
Why not try it? (Aside from morals, but it seems we can hardly rely on that.)

~~~
Loughla
Actually, that's not a bad approach. Most people ingest small pieces of news
through headlines or whatever the talking heads spout out every ten minutes.

So, lying about it gets you at least a portion of people on your side, because
they'll never dig in even a cursory manner, and just believe what they're
told.

I assume older folks are susceptible through those yelling news talk shows. I
wonder what the impact of click-bait headlines and what-not are for the
younger set.

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tzs
If something related to fracking ever appears on my ballot, I'll vote against
the frackers not because I necessarily think there is anything wrong with
fracking, but rather because they have worked hard to make it harder for us to
find out if there _is_ anything wrong with fracking.

In addition to trying to hamper research into the possible connection between
fracking and earthquakes, they have worked hard to prevent scientists from
finding out what exactly they are putting in the ground (each company has its
own proprietary formula for the fluids they use). This means when
investigating the possibility of fracking fluids getting into drinking water,
the scientists cannot look at what is in the water and match it to what the
frackers put in the ground. Sadly, we've put so much stuff into the ground for
such a long time, that it is actually possible that it is _not_ fracking that
is a source of the contamination where drinking water has been found to be
contaminated near fracking sites.

I have a similar policy on ballot issues related to guns. Congress, as a
result of NRA lobbying, has made it so there is almost no government funding
available for research into gun violence, which is one of the biggest reasons
that we have no idea if gun control is helpful, harmful, or neutral.

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mc32
Corruption like this is where the mob mentality of social media should come
down on people with the temerity to try such shenanigans. People are great at
dumping a ton of bricks on their neighbor who muttered a faux pas du jour, get
them fired over uncorroborated claims, but important things, substantiated
things like this, and all that righteousness of masses evaporates and only but
a few care to express disapproval.

This kind of corrupt behavior needs to become unpalatable and intolerable, not
just a cause du jour.

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chasing
Why must nature be so anti-corporate? Guy just wants to drill a few wells.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Nature is a socialist.

~~~
ams6110
Nature is really the ultimate capitalist. Survival of the fittest. No safety
nets, no sympathy for the losers... they just go extinct.

~~~
sangnoir
It's not that black and white. Ant colonies are ultimate socialist societies -
communist even. _From each ant according to its ability, to each according to
its need_

~~~
undersuit
Too much anthropomorphism. Ant colonies aren't a socialist society, they are
an organism. One ant is no more capable than one human cell.

~~~
intrasight
Too much "ant-thropomorphism"

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Cshelton
Sitting here in Dallas, Texas...we just had a 3.3 mag shake our tower just
today. All of the Earthquakes are coming from mostly one main area of the DFW
metroplex...which is an area that has a lot of fracking activity. This is
getting stupid..property is being destroyed. Foundations are being cracked and
these companies just get off with it while homeowners have to spend thousands
to have repairs done.

A city directly north of the DFW metro, Denton, has actually banned fracking
all together. Except the Texas state government already has a bill that will
not allow cities to ban fracking. Talk about corruption and politics...the
same money that's in Oklahoma is behind the politics here in Texas as well.

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uptownJimmy
What's the point of capitalism if you can't buy the research staff at a
flagship state university? Because free markets!

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gadders
Coal mines cause earthquakes as well [1]. Not sure if anyone has ever used
that as a reason to stop doing it.

[1]
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine-...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine-
quake.html)

~~~
skore
A casual google search tells me that there are about 1k coal mines in the US.
The number of oil/gas wells that use fracking seems to range somewhere between
50k and 1.1m.

~~~
pas
Alas, I'm not aware of better numbers.

> There are approximately 550 Class I wells in the United States. (Municipal
> Waste)

> The approximately 144,000 Class II wells in operation in the United States
> inject over 2 billion gallons of brine every day. Most oil and gas injection
> wells are in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Enhanced recovery
> wells are the most numerous type of Class II wells, representing as much as
> 80 percent of the approximately 151,000 Class II wells. (Oil & Gas related)

> There are about 165 mining sites with approximately 18,500 Class III wells
> in operation across the nation. (Mining via leaching)

[http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/](http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/)

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omgitstom
What is the point of research / science if we dismiss it at the cost of
generating money?

I find myself asking this question all the time. I feel that capitalism
shouldn't be the end goal, with a profit motive. It got us to where we are
today, but I do not think it is going to take us where we need to go now or in
the future.

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iamcurious
_[Capitalism] got us to where we are today._

What got us here today was a kludge of many different things. Often
proclaiming to be one thing while being something different. Markets arise
everywhere where there is demand and supply. So there was always some
capitalism even if it was outlawed or frowned upon. At the same time, families
are everywhere and the ones I know follow planned socialistic economies.

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green-in-gold
Biggest surprise to me is that it's Bloomberg reporting this. A signal that
the mainstream corporate media is starting to care about climate change?

