"The Ethicist" is a column in The New York Times Magazine which handles often tricky questions of morality. It tends not to tsk-tsk, and the issues tend to feature many shades of grey.
Fracking made an appearance in the February 19 issue; here's the discussion.
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Questioner: We own about 20 acres where we plan to build a vacation/retirement home. Fracking companies have started drilling nearby for oil and gas. As ardent environmentalists, we are opposed to this activity, but that hasn't stopped the company, and it won't protect us from any resulting environmental damage. Now the company has offered to pay us to remove the gas/oil under our property without actually drilling on our property. The money would be a nice addition to our building fund. But feeling as we do about fracking, is it ethical for us to say yes? (Name withheld by the NY Times).
The Ethicist: Fracking is the subject
of intense debate -- about its ethical implications, its
environmental implications, its financial implications and more.
I won't rehearse those arguments here because you have already
come to your own conclusion: you believe that the practice is
wrong.
That belief shouldn't stop you from being compensated for any endangered drinking water, heavy truck traffic or decline in property value that might result from the drilling. But a lease like the one you describe wouldn't simply compensate you; it would permit new drilling. Through a hole in your neighbor's yard, the company sends a pipe under your property like some very long flexi-straw. And then, as Daniel Day Lewis so memorably intoned in "There Will Be Blood," it drinks your milkshake.
Your question--in effect, whether signing the lease would make you a hypocrite--comes down to personal values. Say someone didn't like fracking but needed money to pay for a child's operation. If he signed the lease, he wouldn't necessarily be a hypocrite; he'd just be someone who viewed his kid's life as a higher ethical priority than those other concerns.
But as Andrew Light, a philosopher at George Mason University who specializes in environmental ethics and public policy, observed after reading your letter: "You identify yourself as not just an environmentalist but an ardent environmentalist. It's how you introduce yourself." I agree: by signing the lease, you would be placing a higher value on some improvements to a vacation home than on the environment you claim to ardently defend. "Is the value of the money," Light asks, "worth abandoning your self-conception?"
That's a question you must answer regardless of the type of deal you're offered. Putting a well on your neighbor's property instead of your own isn't a way to protect the environment; it's just a way to protect your lawn.
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