“Fighting word fracking”

The term “fracking”, commonly understood in Germany as unconventional gas drilling by means of chemicals, has discredited almost any form of onshore welling in the country regardless of its actual environmental impact, Frank Pergande writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The 2011 US documentary “Gasland,” which depicts the negative consequences of the technology on the drinking water supply, caused opposition to fracking with “sweeping critique for Germany’s natural gas and oil production” that had been conducted without criticism for decades, Pergande writes. “’Fracking’ became a fighting term,” he explains, adding that the ensuing debate led to a “greater awareness for the contradictions of the technology”.