SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Bloomberg reports:
Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state's nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean's e-mail recounting the conversation.
Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey's scientists. "I'm very approachable, and don't think I'm intimidating," Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. "I don't try to push anybody around."
Yet an e-mail obtained from the university by Bloomberg News via a public records request says Hamm used a blunt approach during a 90-minute meeting last year with the dean whose department includes the geological survey.
"Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed," wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the university's Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university. Hamm also expressed an interest in joining a search committee charged with finding a new director for the geological survey, according to Grillot's e-mail. And, the dean wrote, Hamm indicated that he would be "visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma."
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Monday May 18 2015, @09:47PM
So what is the complaint here? Are these cossetted intellectuals now demanding that billionaires only contribute to universities on the basis that they will have zero opinion on the uses of their largess? Or only that only some (badthinkers) people will be silenced?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday May 18 2015, @10:29PM
(trying to speak your language, maybe it will get through)
You should be angry on the possibility that a quake will destroy the beloved gas wells and there will be nobody to signal the risk to the stakeholders - a 400-fold increase in quakes signals this as a non-trivial possibility.
Therefore, a good chuck of capital may be wiped out, without contributing on the market to some better deserving enterprises to further advance the progress of humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @10:30PM
Man, anyone ever tell you you're kinda icky?
(Score: 5, Informative) by rts008 on Monday May 18 2015, @10:54PM
You will have to stay confused. This is not about whether you are angry or not, and if you can't figure out if you are angry or not, why should we decide for you, or even care?
Take a breath now. I would hate to see you suffocate just because someone did not tell you recently to breathe. ;-)
It is about an extortion attempt by a specific oil interest against university scientists and their research. "Quit telling the truth and making me look like a greedy bastard, or I won't give you any more money for research we have benefited from, and give it to someone else." is what he is saying, as is his right to choose where he spends his money, or even IF he spends his money for research.
If you get angry about it, or don't, I could not care less. I do care about how I feel about this, but that is a different subject.
I 'have a dog in this fight' as they say here in central Oklahoma, and I see and feel the effects of the wastewater injections and fracking induced quakes, and I have watched them slowly tear this old house apart the past 5-6 years. Friends and acquaintances lighting their tap water, and flammable water seeping up from the ground and pooling, are increasingly common events the past several years. All this stuff is new, and a bit scary for a lot of us here, and not right.
So I can see why this scumbag wants to shut the scientists up.
Good luck to him finding a accredited state university that will play by his rules here in OK(surprisingly), as OSU(Oklahoma State University) has been doing the same type studies, finding similar results, and publishing them for a couple of years now.(even with Boone Pickens as the OSU sugar daddy)
So my advice to you, is for you to go figure out if you are angry about it, and why, then come back for discussion...or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2015, @11:53PM
I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!