Of Fracking and Bullfighting

Is this Colombian animals' biggest problem? A Colombian bullfighter at work
this February in Bogotá's Santamaria Plaza.

Recently, there's been lots of critism to two activites in Colombia: fracking and bullfighting.

Fracking

Both are questionable for different reasons. Fracking, which releases hydrocarbons by fracturing underground rock formations, can pollute water resources and cause minor earthquakes, according to critics.

And bullfighting seems like a holdover from the Dark Ages, which should have died out along with
witch burning and gladiator battles. Bullfighting is also cruel. And, making entertainmet out of killing an animal can only bring out the worst in spectators.

Nothing else to protest? Marching against
bullfighting in downtown Bogotá.

In recent months, fracking's opponents have lobbied, filed lawsuits and written opinion pieces calling for the procedure to be banned in Colombia.

And bullfighting's opponents have for years battled - futilely - in the streets, courtrooms and Congress to have the practice prohibited.

But fracking and bullfighting are only tips of the iceberg of the larger phenomena of the fossil fuel industry and animal mistreatment. Yes, fracking causes environmental damage, but so do the conventional oil and coal industries: they trigger deforestation, drive climate change, pollute the seas and poison the air when burnt. The oil shipping industry, like all shipping, damages marine life with noise, by transporting exotic animals and by collisions with marine mammals. In short, the fossil fuel industry's impacts are innumerable, and fracking is just a tiny part of that.

Is it fracking, or just oil? A  seabird dirtied by
spilled oil doesn't care where that oil came from.

And if bullfighting is cruel, practices such as cockfighting and factory farming are much crueler and affect many more animals.

But fracking, like GMOs, gets attacked because it seems new, strange and sinister.

And bullfighting represents many things despised by its leftist opponents: the wealthy, Mayor Peñalosa and the traditional landowning class.

And while both fracking and bullfighting are very questionable activities, the danger is that by obsessing with these two narrow issues, activists ignore the wider problems. And, if they actually win these two battles, they may feel that the larger battle is won and they can cease fighting.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Doubling Down on Climate Change

The World Bank will stop financing oil and natural gas prospecting and drilling projects after 2019, but Colombia's oil industry vows that won't slow its exploitation of the dirtiest sorts of hydrocarbons.

So, even tho Colombia will be hard hit by climate change: it will lose biodiversity, coffee-growing regions will suffer, its glaciers will melt and the city of Cartagena may be left as an island - its oil sector sees no reason to reduce its contribution to that crisis.

That means investing some US $42 billion over the next two decades, say oil industry officials to drill

Colombia's non-conventional hydrocarbons
are in some of its most biodiverse regions.

some 7,000 new wells and perhaps double Colombia's new hydrocarbon production by increasing controversial methods such as fracking, which some experts warn threatens Colombia's water supply.

'Colombia doesn't have the luxury of leaving these resources in the ground,' the El Espectador newspaper writes, in what sounds like a quote from an oil executive.

Unfortunately, the cost of pumping out these resources, in lost biodiversity and natural areas, and particularly in destruction from climate change, may far outweigh its oil income. But nobody appears to be considering that side of the balance sheet.

Colombia can't stop climate change on its own - and it may in fact be way too late to stop it at all. But once it really gets going, Colombia will have nobody to blame but itself.

And many of the non-conventional resource blocks overlap indigenous territories.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Protesting Bullfighting...As Always

Scenes from today's anti-bullfighting march, to which a group of anti-frackers united themselves.

Mayor Petro, a bullfighting opponent, had wanted to include a referendum on bullfighting in the upcoming Oct. 25 municipal elections, but a judge nixed the idea. The mayor appealed, so perhaps the protesters are still hoping against hope that the referendum goes forward.

As always, I'd like to ask the bullfighting protesters why they focus solely on this, which affects only a few dozen animals, but ignore the much more widespread cockfighting, not to mention factory farming, which mistreats innumerable animals (and probably people's health) every single day.

Mayor Petro, who's term is almost over, has not allowed bullfighting here since 2012. The Santa Maria is now closed for renovation.

The Colombian government has enthusiastically embraced fracking, altho it may not be economically viable here.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours