Podcast for Social Research, Episode 33: Ecology, Community, Prosperity: a Conversation with Eliza Griswold

What is the price of fracking? In the 33rd episode of the Podcast for Social Research, Eliza Griswold, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, joins BISR's Ajay Singh Chaudhary for a wide-ranging conversation about fracking (what it is and what it does), energy politics, rural economies, corporate and regulatory collusion, resistance, and the economics of ecological sustainability. Is increased natural-gas extraction economically necessary—or even desirable? What role do governmental agencies play? In rural communities, why do landowners sign fracking leases, and who ultimately benefits? Can an energy-based economy be both productive and ecologically sustainable—or is some alternative necessary to mitigate the very worst effects of climate change?