What's up with this ad? Just benefits no costs to environment?

Although an exact number may be available all I can say is that it is played on "cable television" a lot!  I'm confident I've seen it at a least 10 times a month for at least the past several months.

What's wrong with it is that it uses our "brains" against us.  The ad has practically no substance or evidence included.  If the "farmer" and "circumstances" are real and let's assume they are it is at best a non-factual testimonial that this guy has not had any problems with raising cattle and having natural gas wells co-exist on his farm.

Their About says this -

Published on May 29, 2013

Keith has owned his farm for 30 years. With six active natural gas wells on his land, he can now grow the size of his farm, modernize his equipment and even send his grandchildren to college - all while protecting the health of the land and groundwater.

http://www.thinkaboutit.org

• Category

  News & Politics

• License

  Standard YouTube License

This kind of statement and the video narrative are what Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner, describes as "availability and affect heuristics".

The combined use causes most of us to become "positive" about the co-existence of gas wells and farming just by hearing the narrative. We only hear and see positive things.  We are not presented with any possible risks or negative consequences.  Certainly it is being posited that somehow groundwater is being protected by the co-existence!

In Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Chapters 12 and 13 go into these heuristics illustrating how they are an artifact how we sometimes think too quickly and need to carefully reflect on what we are being told.

You have to wonder why it is being "run" over and "over" again when we have strong political discussions going on about benefits versus costs of fracking, pipelines, local governmental control and environmental impact while many politicians are being "fracked" with political contributions.

Ad placed by: ANGA - America's Natural Gas Alliance

The "Think About It" tagline is also being run on NPR these days ... 12/13/2013 ... about public utilities using gas in Georgia ... not coal I assume? 1/29/2014 ... still doing it on NPR ... although there is a campaign going on to stop it now!

Texas family plagued with ailments gets $3M in 1st-of-its-kind fracking judgment

April 27, 2014

#Fracking #1% #Elites #Politics WI 1848 Forward:What's up with this ad? Just benefits no costs to #environment ? #47%