CEO Wanted University Scientists Dismissed Over Link Between Fracking and Quakes
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
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.
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.)
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.
This problem isn't unique to this story. As examples, look up Confucius Institutes or the Koch brothers (yes, them again) funding of colleges and programs.
It's not unique to private funds; federal funding is controlled, ultimately, but Congress, which brings politics into the mix. Public universities are ultimately controlled by state governments. Finally, politics affects schools directly; probably not many administrators want to sacrifice their futures to protect an unpopular professor. I'd be interested in seeing how our colleges and acedemics fared during the McCarthy witch hunts.
Certain very direct actions may not work, but the ability for this funding to slowly corrupt the science produced is still very much a risk and the ability for the rich to influence the very discoveries that science makes is still something to be feared.
Generally naming rights involve doubling the endowment of a school. And of course you get some added influence, but $20 million in Oklahoma seems like it wouldn't even pay for 5 years of the football coach's [2] (coach's, not coaches!) salary.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universiti...
That's not cheap when you compare it to politics. $5-10M a year for Lockheed Martin helps it win trillion dollar projects like the F-35. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000010...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countrywide_financial_political...
A Guardian Syndrome, and a Commerce Syndrome. Both syndromes are efficient and well when independent, but it's when the categories begin to merge that you begin to get problems and conflict of interest.
I recommend people to check out the book. It's a great analysis of the nature of corruption from a very cultural, anthropological and economic perspective. It's a refreshing angle from the typical character assassinations you see in the news. It's called Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs.
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?
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.
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.
This kind of corrupt behavior needs to become unpalatable and intolerable, not just a cause du jour.
the world, collectively, could use much more political science education. the same could be said for nearly all bitcoin supporters (especially in the early days)
Socialism has brought us unbridled wars and crony capitalism. My argument is simply 1) capitalism is preferred and 2) socialism inevitably creates crony capitalism. Therefore, we should perhaps see what happens without the socialism part. The USA during the 19th century was thriving, at a time when socialist restrictions were nearly non-existent.
It's likely that humanity would survive the kind of event that lead to the extinction of the dinosaurs.
We have underground facilities and stores of food/water that would permit the species to survive an event that lead to the sun being blocked out for 5 years or so.
Sometimes, that's the best for which we can hope.
Nature is about equilibrium and balance. I'm not touting some spiritual mumbo jumbo either. Their are many examples where the fittest consume unsustainably and destroy their own environment in a sort of ironic suicide.
The ones that survive are the ones that live in harmony with nature, not necessarily the fittest. This is why we see so many balanced ecosystems in nature; because these types of systems are the only ones that don't overload and die out.
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.
[1] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070103-mine-...
> 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)
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.
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.