Fracking, or “fracing” as industry types prefer to spell it, is a petrochemical extraction technique employed to increase the recovery rates from oil or natural gas wells.  This is achieved by pumping a fluid into the desired location to open up fissures and increase the permeability of the rock so as to allow nature’s bounty to flow more freely.  This fluid is the source of many environmentalist’s concerns – and the focus of the Texas Senate’s recent legislative action.  While it is primarily composed of water, other chemicals are added to tailor the fracking fluid to the particular job at hand.  Sand or other particulate solids are often included to provide some structure for the newly expanded fissures.  The job-specific chemicals are the major target of suspicion – examples include various acids intended to increase rock permeability, naturally occurring radioactive isotopes for tracking the progress of the fracturing.  These chemicals have raised concerns about the possibility of contamination of groundwater in areas surrounding the fracking site, in addition to overall concerned that higher permeability rates could perhaps lead to methane adulteration in those same water sources.  A community inPennsylvania, as portrayed in the 2010 documentary “Gasland”, has linked natural gas production and fracking to incidents of “flammable water.”  A bit closer to home, landowners inNorth Texashave brought suits against oil and natural gas producers, accusing their operations of leading to contamination of water sources on their property. Fracking’s use of water has also been accused of depleting water sources.  GivenAustin’s location on the potentially profitable Austin Chalk formation as well as our ongoing drought, ought we to be concerned about these allegations?

Perhaps not surprisingly, these claims have been examined before. Newswise reported on June 29^th that Dr. Mukul Sharma of the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell school of Engineering said that no documented cases of groundwater contamination have resulted directly from fracking, despite the drilling of over a million wells. While the professor agrees that the industry should disclose the chemicals used in fracking, he contends that they are not especially alarming or dangerous, having been in use for a century.  As to the issue of flammable water, he notes that natural gas has been seeping into water supplies long before fracking came into use.  He also dismisses the fears of water over-use by comparing the total municipal use in the Bartlett Shale gas-producing region of north Texas to the amount used per well – 323 billion gallons compared to 2.7 million.  The Newswise article does not report if Dr. Sharma included the number of wells in his figure, but a quick calculation indicates that in order for the fracking water usage to equal the municipal, there would have to be 119,629.63 fracked wellbores in the area.

Is fracking as dangerous as it’s cracked up to be?  Some caution, of course, is advisable, as with any industrial undertaking.  The disclosure legislation is recognition of that fact.  But is it sufficient?  InAustinwe must take especial care with our water.  More research is required before any definite stance should be taken.  Indeed, the Environmental Protection Agency is currently wrapping up an investigation into fracking, which includes looking into the operations in the Bartlett Shale.  When this study is completed, we may be in a better position to pass judgement on fracking.  Until then, the Senate’s action seems reasonable – an outright banning of fracking before the facts are in would be rash, but completely ignoring the problem is as well.

Albert Ellis is not renowned for the striking originality of his insights so much as their deep resonance with common sense, with what so many of us already realize, and with what has been espoused by great thinkers since ancient times. He rejected the bizarre theories of Freudian psychoanalysis in favor of the idea that we can fix our current problems simply by exchanging what he calls “irrational” thoughts for “rational” ones. At the center of the therapy he invented, Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy, is the idea expressed by the Stoic philosopher Epictetus: “It’s never the things that happen to us which upset us. It’s our view of these things.” To someone who thinks our “views” or feelings are as outside of our control as the external events that “cause” them, that observation is hardly encouraging. But Ellis believed that we can work to change the way we think,  and consequently, how we act, to achieve happiness.

Ellis hypothesized that people are born with two competing tendencies: self-actualizing and self-defeating. (These correspond to “rational” beliefs, which reflect reality and help the believer live a satisfying life, and the “irrational” beliefs that misconstrue reality and keep us down.) Another name for irrational thinking is “absolutist” thinking, or what psychoanalyst Karen Horney called “tyranny of the shoulds.” The idea is that people take their perfectly reasonable hopes, desires, and wants and irrationally elevate them to needs. Ellis reminds us that just because we might wish, for example, for the approval of others, it doesn’t follow that they “should” or “must” approve of us or that their approval is essential for our survival. Such thought patterns destroy our happiness. Rather than accepting reality as it appears and continuing to strive for our overall well-being, we develop irrational expectations that trap us in a cycle of unnecessary emotional distress. Being unduly upset by a situation often leads us to be even more upset by the fact that we’re upset: people often experience additional anxiety over their anxiety, depression at being depressed, etc. But we must make peace with ourselves and our situation before we can change or be happy with either. Ellis developed three basic rational principles – acceptance of ourselves, acceptance of others, and acceptances of circumstances – to counteract our unhealthy obsession with what “should” have been. This is not to imply that people cannot or should not improve themselves; on the contrary, Ellis encouraged it. But he also recognized that  non-acceptance of reality only interferes with our ability to change it. Excessive anxiety over personal achievement could lead someone to procrastinate on important tasks, for example.

Transcripts of Ellis’ therapy sessions show that he taught patients to reinforce thoughts they knew to be rational in order to turn “lightly and occasionally” held beliefs into “strongly and persistently” held ones. For instance, a female patient who experienced distress over the possibility that she could throw up on public transportation sometimes realized it did not matter if strangers were disgusted by her, but her more predominant belief was that such an event would be terrible. Although the irrational belief held more sway over her, Ellis insisted she could convince herself of the reality that the opinions of strangers did not matter. She could be convinced by this truth in the same way that she had become convinced of the non-flatness of the Earth and other facts.

Of course, maximizing appropriate feelings and minimizing inappropriate ones in day-to-day life was not Ellis’ only recommendation for the rational pursuit of happiness. He also advocated that individuals seek out the activities and interests that tend to give them enjoyment and a sense of fulfillment. This journey is a deeply personal one that everyone must make for him or herself, as of course not everyone takes pleasure from the same things. Finding one’s personal recipe for happiness, in Ellis’ view, involves experimentation and risk-taking. It is an inherently active pursuit. While passive hobbies like watching TV can certainly afford temporary pleasures for some, Ellis emphasized that a fulfilling life involves investment in creative, absorbing, meaningful activity of some sort.

The basic idea of a human milk bank is not very different from that of the blood bank.  Donors contribute excess milk, which is then screened, pasteurized, and stored.  This milk can then be dispensed by prescription to those who need it. The particular focus of Mother’s Milk is providing for preterm and hospitalized babies.  The particular characteristics of human breast milk make it preferable for feeding infants, who run a highly increased risk of developing serious gastrointestinal infections such as necrotizing enterocolitis when fed formula.  Premature babies often have no other source of breast milk, as their mothers may have other factors which either prevent them from producing their own or make any they do dangerous for feeding.

The Austin-based bank is not the first of its kind.  Indeed, the Mother’s Milk website states that the cofounders, neonatologists Dr. Sonny Rivera and Dr. George Sharp, started the project after noticing the beneficial effects of human breast milk on hospitalized infants under their supervision and after the realization that the nearest human milk bank was located in Denver, Colorado.

Surrogate milk production is an institution nearly as old as civilization itself.  The Human Milk Banking Association of North America, or HMBANA, says on its website, hmbana.org, that the ancient Babylonian Code of Hammurabi discusses wet nursing as far back as 2250 BCE.  Milk banking as practiced by Mother’s Milk and the HMBANA, however, is a slightly newer invention – the first bank opening its doors in Vienna, Austria in 1909.   Since then the practice has spread worldwide.  The HMBANA began in 1985 with the intent of creating and maintaining standards for milk banks in North America.  Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin itself opened in 1999 due to the efforts of Doctors Rivera and Sharp.

Mother’s Milk donors are held to rigorous standards to protect their little beneficiaries.  The bank follows the guidelines developed by the HMBANA, which include requiring donors to provide lifestyle and medical histories, undergo a blood screening, and abstain from alcohol for a period before donation.  The donated milk is tested for nutritional content, pooled, and pasteurized to destroy any bacteria or viruses which may be present, and tested for disease factors again before being dispensed.  Donors are not compensated for their contributions, other than by their own warm feelings of civic duty.

If you’re interested in helping out but have the bad luck to not be currently lactating, Mother’s Milk also engages volunteers to assist in the operations of the center, such as processing and storing donations.  And, of course, they accept monetary donations as well.  Mother’s Milk Bank Austin can be found online at milkbank.org, along with details on how to make donations of time, money, or milk.

Any number of theories have been proposed to try and make sense of this puzzling phenomenon. Some scientists suggest it has to do with helping others who share at least some of our genes increase their reproductive fitness and thereby augment our own; others speculate that it might have to do with generating reciprocity, either directly or indirectly.  However, a growing body of research  suggests that, while there may very well be other reasons for selfless behavior, at least part of why we do it is that it feels good and is good for us.

Altruism is often portrayed as a higher moral faculty, removed from the base drives of sensual satisfaction. A study conducted by Jorge Moll and Jordan Grafman of the National Institutes of Health in 2006 might challenge this preconception.  According to their research, performing selfless acts can activate regions of the brain which typically respond to food or sex.  Luckily for those who wish to uphold altruism as a greater good than a sandwich or a tryst, Moll and Grafman also observed that selflessness could stimulate parts of the brain associated with social bonding, meaning it could have a function over and above simply tickling our fancies. But selflessness still does that pretty well, too.

Researchers are discovering that altruistic behavior can have positive effects on both physical and mental health, for the helpers as well as for the recipients. For example, individuals involved in volunteer activities tend to live longer than those who are not.  Beyond that, these altruistic persons also tend to be in better health during their increased life spans, having fewer in the way of physical limitations than their non-volunteering cohorts. Correlation does not equal causation, of course – it may be that healthier people are more likely to volunteer. But studies done at Duke University Medical Center involving former heart patients working with current ones recorded an increase in physical health amongst the volunteers after they began. Even HIV patients have shown improvement – a University of Miami study revealed that HIV survivors volunteering both with other patients and uninfected teens showed elevated immune response levels. This is hardly surprising when we consider that even watching people help others can apparently boost the immune system. It’s called the “Mother Teresa Effect”: a study showed that people who watched a video about Mother Teresa helping others produced more salivary immunoglobulin A, an important immune defense, than participants watching regular programming.

Mental health also tends to be better among volunteers than others in the population.  A study conducted by Dulin and Hill indicates that volunteer work is a predictor for dispositions towards positive or negative mental states – those who do more volunteering are more likely to be prone to positive ones, those who do less to negative. Stephen Post also identifies a “helper’s high” caused by the activation of the reward centers of the brain following a selfless act, which releases endorphins.

If you are feeling something of the hedonist and need a little legal high, or simply think you could use a few more years of longevity in a community and world made better by helping hands, see our article on local volunteer opportunities.

In Foer’s case, the truth set him free. Though he spent many years as an on-again off-again, backsliding “vegetarian,” he knew when his son was born that more was at stake than his own dietary choices. Eating Animals is the result of his question, should he feed his son meat?

The book takes a provocative, beautifully articulated look at the issue of eating animals from all angles. Along with copious information about factory farming, it contains his experiences touring the few relatively humane farms left, and separates the question of whether it is right to eat animals at all from the question of whether we can in good conscience support what the meat industry has become. Foer presents the former as a deeply personal decision, but the latter is black and white: nothing positive can be truthfully said about the factory farming system. Not only does it treat billions of animals with mind-blowing cruelty, but it is terrible for our health and our planet. In Foer’s words, “The earth will eventually shake off factory farming like a dog shakes off fleas; the only question is whether we will get shaken off along with it.” For this reason, whether one is more sympathetic to the vegetarian or the “selective omnivore” solution, the book is a must-read. It concerns all who wish to be informed about social issues that directly affect them, not just violence-averse animal lovers.

Throughout the book, two related themes crop up repeatedly: storytelling and forgetting. To describe what facilitated his lapse into meat eating after he graduated from high school, Foer says, “I told a forgiving story about myself to myself.”  His reason for a brief return to vegetarianism halfway through college was that “The kind of willful forgetting that I was sure meat eating required felt too paradoxical to the intellectual life I was trying to shape.” Foer brings up storytelling partly to show how food is central to our identities: we tell stories over meals and about meals, and what we eat can continue meaningful traditions and foster social unity. His discussions of the culturally important Jewish foods he grew up eating, as well as Thanksgiving dinner in America, reveal his understanding that the compulsion to eat meat can run deeper than personal taste. But now, when we live in an age in which few could be truly comfortable with the process that puts meat on our plates, swallowing it requires both a “willful forgetting” – a dishonest or too-forgiving story to ourselves – and making animals, in the words of Walter Benjamin, into “receptacles of forgetting.” We have to push from our thoughts the beings themselves, their miserable lives and brutal deaths, and any claim they might have to our consideration on the grounds of their similarities to us. We must trivialize our “animal nature” and emphasize the differences between humans and other sentient creatures, as if the right to not be abused derives from having bigger brains and opposable thumbs. In doing so, Foer argues, we “deny important parts of our humanity. What we forget about animals we begin to forget about ourselves.” Eating Animals is not always the most palatable story, but sometimes facing truth offers more satisfaction than forgetting it.