Fracking11 Sep 2022 11:49
After Admitting He Has No Evidence about Dimock, Tony Ingraffea Hides and Runs
By Phelim McAleer
Professor Tony Ingraffea has never been shy about speaking to the press about fracking. He has been in both Gasland documentaries, given hundreds of press interviews, and spoke at rallies with anti-fracking celebrities Mark Ruffalo, Sean Lennon, and Yoko Ono.
But over the past few days, his advocacy has come back to haunt him and left him literally hiding and running away when it comes to answering difficult questions.
It has been a rough few days for Professor Ingraffea, the anti-fracking movement’s favorite scientist. Finally, he was under oath and had to tell the truth. When he didn't, he had to face his lies being exposed. He was giving evidence in the Dimock Water Trial where the Hubert and Ely families from Pennsylvania are accusing Cabot Oil and Gas of polluting their water during fracking.
Under skillful cross-examination, Professor Ingraffea was forced to admit that he's an anti-fracking and anti-fossil fuel "advocate." He denied being an activist, but his face fell when lawyers for Cabot asked to show the jury photographs of him speaking in front of anti-fracking signs and participating in an Artists Against Fracking press conference alongside Ruffalo, Lennon, and Ono.
Even the lawyer for the families, Leslie Lewis, blurted out in open court that she "wasn't thrilled" that the photos existed.
But the hits to Professor Ingraffea's credibility kept coming. He admitted that his theory contradicted the plaintiffs’ own timeline. Under Ingraffea's theory, the "contamination" could only have started in late 2008/early 2009 because that was when the gas drilling started; however, the plaintiffs have stated repeatedly that their water allegedly deteriorated in the summer of 2008 before the drilling Ingraffea has been blaming for the past 8 years.
Then Ingraffea shockingly admitted that after eight years of claims and multi-million dollar lawsuits, he had no proof that Cabot had contaminated any water in Dimock.
So yesterday, after he finished giving evidence, he was outside the courthouse. I decided to ask Professor Ingraffea some difficult questions. Suddenly the professor, possibly for the first time since he became a prominent anti-fracking activist advocate, didn’t want to talk to the press. In fact, he wanted to hide--behind a woman's coat.
I wanted to know if, after admitting under oath that he had no evidence to back up his claims that Dimock's water was contaminated, he would now take the opportunity to apologize to the people of Dimock. He didn't. He ran away.
It's sad that people such as Professor Ingraffea can make so many damaging claims, scaring people, telling them their water is poisoned, and all these years later admit in a court that he never had any evidence to back up his scaremongering.
Please watch the video at the bottom of this post to see if you think his cowardly response is adequate. Please share and let us know
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