Hydraulic Fracking, Shale Energy Development, and Climate Inaction: A New Landscape of Risk in the Trump Era

With the recent election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency, fossil fuel interests are poised to advance their entire energy agenda on a number of key fronts. Not only has Trump taken steps to increase oil and gas fracking, create more energy infrastructure projects, ramp up foreign fossil fuel exports, resurrect the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, and bring back coal production to Appalachian communities, but he has also worked to dismantle most of the signature policies of the Obama administration to fight the effects of climate change. More importantly, he has surrounded himself with cabinet members and advisors who are not just indifferent to environmental problems, but openly hostile to their remediation through government regulations and policy-making. In this critical essay, we draw on sociological research to highlight some of the ongoing technological risks and socio-environmental impacts surrounding unconventional gas and oil development (UGOD) and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) operations. We briefly address how these hazards are likely to be exacerbated by the policies and cabinet appointments of the Trump administration—as well as the larger congressional Republican energy and environmental agenda—over the coming months. Finally, we conclude with some observations on the future direction of US energy policy in the Trump era and the amplified risks posed by the prospects of a new Third Carbon era driven by fracking and other methods of unconventional energy production.