Franz Liszt: Biography and Works

Franz Liszt: Biography and Works Franz Liszt and the New German School In pre-modern Europe, most artists were content to follow a proud classical tradition, offering creative embellishments of their own as a contribution to the field and following the rules of composing a proper sonata, concerto, or waltz paying special attention to chord progression, harmonics, and tonality. Because much of the music was purely instrumental, each piece identified a theme in the title (i.e. Danse Macabre, Mephisto’s Waltz, Liebestraume, Moonlight Sonata etc.) and sought to bring it to life through music. While there were noteworthy artists in the field, very few had the creative ability to usher in a new era or popularise a new form of expression, which is probably why only a handful of Europe’s finest are known offhand today such as Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart and Wagner. In the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the New German School was born and Franz Liszt was one of the most important members. It did not matter that he was not born in Germany, but bec ause the art and culture of Germany had such great influence over his work, he was claimed as one of the Great German Artists by Franz Brendel and other music commentators associated with him. Most classical aficionados have heard of Franz Liszt because of the dark dynamic quality of his work, and the artistic risks he had taken in many of his compositions—he broke conventions relating to harmonics, chord structure, tonality, and quite often did not give the work a suitable ending.[1] This is rather startling because most people settle into a routine at an advanced age—i.e. they would have ‘found their voice’ and spent much of their time refining the message—indeed, it was expected. However, many of his critics believed that Liszt’s later work was not the birth of something new. Instead, it was considered a diminishment of capabilities and a sign of some internal sickness that attacked one’s artistic sensibilities. According to Ernst Gà ¼nter, ‘the music of Liszt’s final decade (1876-1886) is the product of aesthetic weariness and distrust of the very principles of art. The disaffection of the later Liszt, which he vouched for only in isolated remarks, becomes effective in the compositions as the destruction of the aesthetic norms.’ However, one can argue that his later work was a natural progression of his earlier work and tragic events in his personal life and the rapid rate of change in the world may have had a greater influence on his later compositions than simply mere disenchantment with art itself. Instead, much of the research suggests a growing disenchantment with the world itself as he comes to face his own mortality and his interest and focus is further removed from the world around him to the afterlife instead. This paper will examine a sample of Liszt’s final works and attempt to answer the question of whether his change in style is the result of ‘aesthetic weariness’ or the next logical step in his creative path and reflective of his journey as an artist reflecting the times in which he lived. We will examine a few of his past compositions to establish a context and then discuss personal events that had taken place around the time he began to exhibit the noteworthy abandonment o f ‘norms.’ Liszt’s Persona Even today, scholars have a difficult time characterising Franz Liszt’s contribution to the musical world and what he stood for. He certainly had harsh critics and adoring fans during his stage career as expert interpreter and composer and his biography makes it difficult to put him into a box, personally or artistically. According to Liszt Scholars Michael Saffle and Rossana Dalmonte: ‘Here is where many differences of opinion concerning Liszt and his music originate. Liszt’s lifetime spanned the transitions from Napoleon’s Europe to Bismarck’s, and from the earliest railroad trains to electric lighting; his works reflect both romantic (which is to say, modern) and post romantic (which is to say, modernist) concerns. Thus, in the last analysis, it proves extremely difficult to place or describe Liszt, even through comparisons to other great figures of the past. So much is lost if we simply consign him to this or that box.’[2] During his career, he had become something akin to the nineteenth century equivalent of a rock star. Women would fight over his handkerchiefs and gloves, and the expressive passion he brought to his performances often reduced many a patron to tears. Not surprisingly, he was renowned as a ladies’ man and often found patronage (and love) from wealthy noble women. During his travels, he introduced much of the work of German composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn to the rest of Europe, and when he switched gears from performance to composition, the German influence became evident although he hails from Hungary. As a composer, his primary aim was to wed music and poetry—a fact that he shared with Agnes Street-Klindworth, a woman with whom he had an affair and corresponded with until his death in 1886.[3] As with most poets, his songs reflected his internal state. At the time, he was absorbed in presenting dramatically flawless interpretations of the masters and he incorporated some elements of theirs into his music, though many of his critics believed that he had taken the wrong ones (i.e. Brahms).[4] Intriguingly enough, many of his contemporaries acknowledged that many of his transcriptions and interpretations of other’s works are so creative that they had taken on a life of their own. However, one can speculate that his early compositions reflected his own grand ambition to utterly master the piano as he rearranged the songs of many of the greats in his field into something that only he, with his unusual hands, could play.[5] Toward the end of his life, he had become much more contemplative, devoting much of his time composing spiritual choral pieces and wandering across Europe, which may also be considered ‘unconventional’ for a man in his mid-sixties (especially as most people did not get to live that long in the first place). Gunter notes that Liszt’s work began to ‘slip’ after 1876, however, it can be argued that his style began to shift radically from the mainstream to a new form of expression entirely. As with many artists, much of the inspiration from Franz Liszt’s music had come from his life experience, his natural temperament, and his passion for his art. In Ihr Glocken von Marling a late composition, it becomes increasingly clear that he is turning toward the more religious themes that started to creep into his work during the latter part of the 1860s. That decade brought much personal loss to Liszt. He had buried his son, daughter, and mother, his marriage to Princess Carolyne was thwarted, and he had to endure smear campaigns by a psychotic stalker.[6] At the same time, he began to turn away from the material toward the spiritual and he began to resemble more closely the archetype of the wandering ascetic. In 1876, he suffered an accident that left him the use of only nine of his fingers—even so, he was still the standard by which most pianists of his time compared themselves and composed at the speed most people write letters.[7] In his final decade, his compositions had become more concerned with the themes of death and dying as his growing ill health and spiritual sentiment was coupled with his belief that he truly had no talent. For instance, Ihr Glocken von Marling approximates the sound that calls the villagers to worship. The repetition of the chords imitates the pealing of the bells in the churchyard. The fact that it is more or less written entirely in the treble clef lends an ethereal sound to the work.[8] While that claim is ludicrous, it is a rather valid concern because he did spend most of his career creating transcriptions of other compositions. He has always had an obsessive and perfectionist streak, which he channelled effectively through his art. In one of his later letters he writes: ‘For the last two weeks I’ve been absorbed in cypresses†¦I have composed two groups of cypresses, each of more than two hundred bars, plus a postludium, to the cypresses of the Villa d’Este. These sad pieces won’t have much success and can do without it. I shall call them Therenodies, as the word elegie strikes me as too tender, and almost worldly. A few more leaves have been added to the cypresses—no less boring and redundant than the previous ones! To tell the truth I sense in myself a terrible lack of talent compared with what I would like to express; the notes I write are pitiful. A strange sense of the infinite makes me impersonal and uncommunicative.’[9] Perhaps his uncommunicativeness can be interpreted as his growing inability to conform to mainstream preferences. It is true that many of his later works focus on spirituality and Hungarian nationalism. This religious sentiment grew to a raging crescendo as he was writing the Via Crucis in which he was forced to contemplate the passion and death of Jesus and his own emotions on the matter, as he was a deeply religious man. ‘The Via Crucis possesses a complex cyclical structure unified on a variety of levels through precisely controlled motives and pitch relations, many of which take on an iconographic significance. This strange and profound work should silence those who cast doubt on the sincerity of Liszt’s religious beliefs. It is the product of deep, anguished contemplation of the passion of Jesus, a process during which one can well imagine Liszt came to identify strongly with the suffering Christ. Via Crucis conveys not only the horror and sorrow of the crucifixion, but also the wonder of God’s redeeming love for humankind.’[10] It is very clear that at this point in his career, he is finished competing with the greats of his age and is simply looking to express his true self through his art. In other fields, refusal to imitate was often seen as an affront to the scene and the fruits of one’s labour were not even considered art (i.e. Vincent van Gogh). Rather than simply producing brilliant transcriptions, he is looking to himself as a Christian, as a Hungarian, and a man that is looking at the winter of his life for inspiration. Instead of becoming despondent about his art, he was invigorated with passion, creating pieces that he intended for performance, particularly about the great Hungarian heroes in history, Mosonyi in particular. Although he had not previously done much work in the Hungarian style during the 1870’s, during the 1880s, he had become much more interested in freeing himself from the stylistic constraints of Western European music. When we had quoted him previously, Liszt said that he lacks the talent to express what he wants to say because there are so many tropes and ideas that he wanted to create through music and he simply did not have sufficient talent to carry it out. From what we know of him historically, he was never one to suffer from a lowered sense of self so he may have meant that his ideas have simply outgrown his ability to express them in art. Using the portrait theme was one of the defining art forms of the 1870s as Mussorgsky created his famous Pictures at an Exhibition ten years before. However, unlike the nationalist sentiment that had become a form of religion in modern Europe, it did not displace his faith in God as noted in Liszt’s letter to his publisher when he first brought up the idea in 1885.[11] As with Via Crucis, scholars concur that his Hungarian Portraits have the depth, resonance, and relevance to the period and served as a foreshadowing of other pieces of that nature. ‘The piece touches upon a number of harmonies which resonate with significant moments earlier in the cycle. It builds to a climactic apotheosis of the main theme in D minor, which subsides to a tender recollection of the contrasting theme in D major, and closes on a solemn note of faith and hope. In spite of the strong projection of the tonic at the conclusion, however, Liszt rigorously avoids stating the tonic root in the low bass, perhaps signifying that life is part of a greater continuum in which only God has the final word.’[12] Conclusion Much of Liszt’s work in the last decade of his life revealed an even deeper understanding of life than when he was younger. Although he was more likely to observe the conventions of composition in his youth (quite brilliantly in fact), he did not yet have more than the intellectual understanding that art was expressive and indicative of life—indeed, that it was not separate from that of the creator but instead flowed organically from his mind and his talents. Unfortunately for Liszt, his knowledge of life’s pain and the existence of other great talents in the arena (i.e. Wagner) led him to doubt his own abilities as an artist. Because he had experienced one of the most devastating losses of all—the deaths of his children, he may have lost all faith in the ‘natural order of things’ recognising that life was often chaotic, out of harmony, and progressed along unexpected paths. Because art is not formed in a vacuum, he poured his energy into crea tion, which is why the body of his later work is characterised by a focus on the sacred, death and dying. In his later years, he tried to turn these realizations into art, and indeed succeeded in creating poetry from his music. Do Liszt’s late compositions perpetuate the progressivism of the 1860’s? Not by a long shot: his songs are religiously themed with sub-themes of destruction, death, and dying in a time characterised by invention, discovery and increasing secularism. Nevertheless, it would not be fair to say that his works signalled artistic breakdown because his exploratory approach created the brilliant sacred pieces Via Crucis and Rosario, Years of Pilgrimage, and The Hungarian Portraits among many others. However, in an age where spirituality becomes increasingly unpopular, artists that reflect it in their work are often alienated by the mainstream and their work is deemed inaccessible. Bibliography Baker, James M. ‘Larger Forms in the Late Piano Works’ in Ed. Hamilton, Kenneth. The Cambridge Companion to Liszt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 Botstein, Leon. ‘A Mirror to the Nineteenth Century: Reflections on Franz Liszt’, Franz Liszt and His World. (eds. Christopher H. Gibbs Dana A. Gooley) Princeton: Princeton University Press: 2006 Gorrell, Lorraine. The Nineteenth-Century German Lied. New Jersey: Amadeus Press LLC, 2005 Hamilton, Kenneth. ‘Liszt’s early and Weimer Piano works’ in Ed. Hamilton, Kenneth. The Cambridge Companion to Liszt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005 Liszt, Franz Agnes Street-Klindworth. Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth: A Correspondence, 1854-1886. New York: Pendragon Press, 2000 Saffle, Michael and Rossana Dalmonte. Liszt and the Birth of Modern Europe. New York: Pendragon, 2003 Walker, Alan. Franz Liszt: The Final Years, 1861-1886. Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1997 1 Footnotes [1] Leon Botstein. ‘A Mirror to the Nineteenth Century: Reflections on Franz Liszt’, Franz Liszt and His World. (eds. Christopher H. Gibbs Dana A. Gooley) (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 2006) 518 [2] Michael Saffle and Rossana Dalmonte. Liszt and the Birth of Modern Europe. (New York: Pendragon, 2003) 8 [3] Franz Liszt Agnes Street-Klindworth. Franz Liszt and Agnes Street-Klindworth: A Correspondence, 1854-1886. (New York: Pendragon Press, 2000) 116 [4] Hamilton, Kenneth. ‘Liszt’s early and Weimer Piano works’ in Ed. Hamilton, Kenneth. The Cambridge Companion to Liszt. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 57 [5] Hamilton, 65 [6] Alan Walker. Franz Liszt: The Final Years, 1861-1886. (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1997) 175 [7] Walker, 369 [8] Lorraine Gorrell. The Nineteenth-Century German Lied. (New Jersey: Amadeus Press, LLC, 2005 ) 246 [9] Liszt qt. Walker, 370 [10] James M. Baker. ‘Larger Forms in the Late Piano Works’ in Ed. Hamilton, Kenneth. The Cambridge Companion to Liszt. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) 126 [11] Baker, 134 [12] Baker, 135

Mother Nature Knows Better in Chemistry Essay

Each and every one of us has a responsibility to protect our environment. Being thinking beings, we have all that it takes to keep our surroundings free from abuse and misuse. All we really need is to know what we do right and which actions we do wrongly to help lessen the effects of modernism to our planet. The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings (Carson 420). Mother Nature is wise. Although all creatures have been given the proper habitats and basic needs to live, earth also provided organisms that would limit each species’ reproduction so that a healthy balance is acquired. This equilibrium has given peace on earth until man had learned to use his mind to alter his environment. The want for a better and comfortable life has always been man’s weakness. This has been the reason why history shows that different cultures have tried to get the best of other worlds into their own lands. Plants and animals have been imported by different countries to adapt these creatures to another culture’s different needs. However, this has destroyed the balance that nature had intended and has resulted to negative effects such as the transportation of unneeded microorganisms. Carson explains that each organism has counter creatures and aspects in its natural habitat that limit its population to the number that is needed to balance the environment it belongs to. Whenever an organism is transported to another place, there is no guarantee that the new habitat will be able to control its population. This, therefore, can become a threat to its new environment in the form of pests or even epidemics. Another reason for imbalance is the farming system that has been developed. When more than the normal quantity of crops are planted in just one place, the insects that are attracted to these also grow in abundance. Therefore, upsetting the natural balance of the environment causes problems like pestilence. Urban lifestyle has also contributed to the problems of insect infestation. In some countries, the natural habitat has been interrupted by the build up of too many houses (and slums) in just a particular piece of land. Irresponsible disposal of garbage and unhealthy habits also give rise to the problem of mosquitoes and other pests. Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) has been the first synthetic pesticide that was ever invented to control infestation. Carson believes that this chemical and the other man-made pesticides leave particles on the areas that have been treated and this harms the other parts of the environment. This has become the premise for the invention of chemicals that will counter attack the problems of insects. The term â€Å"chemical† is defined by the Oxford Dictionary noun a distinct compound or substance, especially one which has been artificially prepared or purified. Being man-made, it can destroy the balance of nature. Modern society has a wide inventory of many chemicals that can be harmful to the environment. Some of these such as hair sprays, cleaning aids, smoke from cigarettes and cars, etc. do not seem harmful but researcher say otherwise. DDT has even been ascribed as a factor that leads to cancer. Ronald Bailey (427), an environmental reporter, believes that DDT has been falsely accused of being a carcinogen because research cannot prove that it really does cause cancer. However, environmentalists like Rachel Carson have ignorantly used this premise to increase awareness for our planet. Whether or not DDT is a carcinogen, it is just one of the synthetic materials that have come to dominate human living. Thousands of other inventions using chemicals have brought forth many problems that are not just harmful but also irreversible. Global warming, based on Encyclopaedia Britannica, is an increase in global average surface temperature resulting from an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide (caused by natural emissions of plants and combustion from carbon-containing materials), methane (produced industrially by the destructive distillation of bituminous coal in the manufacture of coal gas), and certain other trace gases in the atmosphere. Industrial emissions and smoke belching automobiles are being blamed for this phenomenon. This has caused a lot of controversy because it means that the earth is becoming too warm for human existence. However, according to climate scientists, human activities have very little effect on the climate, compared to many other factors, from volcanoes to clouds. (Sowell) Global warming is just an issue being used by other scientists to get grants for their studies. These researchers claim that with or without man’s inventions, nature has its own causes of global temperature changes. The truth in the many arguments about what civilization has done to the environment is hard to decipher for common students. However, whether or not pesticides are carcinogens and even if global-warming is a doubtful issue, our environment is a very important place that all must protect from abuse and misuse. Pesticides may not be immediately fatal for humans but to comply with universal laws, there is a need to use these in moderation. Anything overdone can lead to serious consequences such as food poisoning and allergies. Industrial wastes, even if they apparently do not really affect global-warming, can still cause pollution that leads to many health issues. The earth is the only home for us human beings. It is where we get our food and breathe the air that we need to survive. It provides us with the shelter we need to protect ourselves from the harsh realities of our own habitat. We need to find ways to start ensuring the safety of our environment against man’s drive to improve lives by ignoring possible negative consequences. The European nations are a model right now for environmental protection. Car companies need to recall their older less-functional models so that these can be recycled into new products for their later models. Other electronic gadgets like personal computers and mobile telephones are also being eyed for this project. Forced to recover value from their discarded consumer goods, companies will have a strong incentive to design the toxics out of their products and to make them easier to disassemble and remanufacture (Greider 3). As students, there are many ways that we can also help protect the environment. Proper garbage disposal not only makes places look neat but also drive away the possibility of diseases that are brought by the insects that get attracted to garbage. Maintaining electrical and mechanical gadgets according to manufacturer’s advice also ensures that these are performing safely instead of emitting probable poisonous discharges. Reporting to authorities regarding the incidences of environmental abuse or misuse can also bring solutions to possible harmful situations. It is often said that the roots of environmental destruction lie in treating natural resources as â€Å"free† and not giving them â€Å"value. ’ (Shiva 443) Each little creature on earth serves a purpose for Mother Nature in balancing our environment. It may be hard to understand the impact of our small actions but putting value to the environment can make big changes that can only be seen collectively in the future. We have our own place in this natural balance and it is our responsibility to find the ways to maintain this balance. Works Cited Carson, Rachel. â€Å"The Obligation To Endure. † The Informed Argument. Place Published: Publisher, year. â€Å"Chemical. † The Oxford English Dictionary. 23 May 2007 . â€Å"Global Warming. † Encyclopedia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 23 May 2007 < http://www. search. eb. com/eb/article-9037044>. Greider, William. â€Å"Apollo Now. † The Nation. 02 Jan. 2006. 23 May 2007 < http://www. thenation. com/doc/20060102/greider/3>. Shiva, Vandana. â€Å"Values Beyond Price. † The Informed Argument. Place Published: Publisher, year. Sowell, Thomas. â€Å"Global-Warming Swindle. † National Review Online. 15 March 2007. 23 May 2007 .

Using Pre Written Research Papers

Using Pre Written Research Papers Get the Scoop on Pre Written Research Papers Before You're Too Late You know it's quite different from different types of writing and when the writing work isn't there, there'll be work in the selection of information, reference books citation, bibliography of books you have studies must be listed. Our writers will just allow you to set your thoughts into words on paper. They always produce unique content which is free from all grammatical error. There are lots of writers that are available and ready to assist you in writing your essay. It's noteworthy there are companies on the market that provide both custom-written and pre-written papers. Other products and services provided by the industry representatives include things like proofreading and editing solutions, and pre-written papers. More than a few companies provide free essay writer as a way to make you to cover the already pre-written paper and they just need you to earn a purchase f rom them without any guarantees. There are businesses offering custom-written papers half price in comparison with average pricing. Therefore, as soon as a client comes in to hunt for a History research paper on. Anyone can generate a normal five-paragraph essay with adequate effects, but it takes real talent to take care of the greatest and most complicated research papers. If you need assistance on dissertation writing, our experts give you guidance about how to write an outstanding paper. From here it is possible to obtain the wisdom and insight necessary to compose your own paper. There are lots of companies who offer you to obtain the pre written papers on your topic, so you might use it like a sample, but you maynot use any sentence with that paper because it will appear plagiarized straight away. There's always a writer readily available to aid you with your paper. You be certain that the writer develops the paper depending on your distinct directions. So, even when you want an urgent customized term paper, you're get it ASAP! To use the dependable service is the major task so that submitting your essay won't set you in trouble. Whenever you finish your payment, we start looking for an expert who will perform your purchase. Some sites lie to clients on their delivery time and wind up failing to get to the agreed deadline. You can be certain you will get writing help here for a sensible price, since the name of our site suggests. The more complicated The total charged on the order is directly equivalent to the high quality and time which will be placed in your purchase. Moreover, there's no need to commit a bundle. As a consequence, you get a wonderful deal of free time and completed homework. With us, you might be completely sure that any bit of writing you order from our company is going to be created by qualified professionals that are hired on the grounds of a rather challenging selection practice. The Battle Over Pre Written Research Papers and How to Win It The procedure for research begins with the collection of a topic which is appropriate for your course or purpose. A group of experienced experts is the very best solution for each student because the latter get a chance to provide admission officers exactly what they're looking for. Advancement is almost certain as a youthful engineer develops her or his abilities and as the employer gains confidence in her or his ability. Among the challenges , thus, is in having to meet and demonstrate compliance with the selection of unique requirements. Money back guarantee We can provide you a complete refund of your money if you aren't completely pleased with the work of your writers. If you want to purchase custom research projects for a college or university program, it's essential to be certain that the report you get is of the finest quality. Enabling other people to do research is among the things of which we are most proud. Also there are those who want to acquire their research papers written by other people. When you purchase a custom made research paper from us, we know which you're entrusting us with a significant part your grade, and your future. To compose a great research project on neonatal nursing, first thing you've got to be aware of is that a normal research paper typically is made up of several components. The standard of your Master's research project has to be really high to be prosperous. Well, that effort is currently rewarded. Still, engineers won't be hungry for work. After you set the order, you are going to receive bids for your order from writers that are in a position to complete it. To make the entire process more efficient, the function of the peer reviewer ought to be defined as that of a reader as an alternative to an evaluator. You can also get in touch with your writer to supply some additional recommendations or request information regarding the order's progress. Moreover, our English-speaking writers make sure every order has original content and a suitable structure.

Environmental Costs of Hydrofracking

Natural gas drilling with high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (hereafter referred to as fracking) has exploded onto the energy scene in the last 5 or 6 years, and the promise of vast stores of natural gas under American soil has prompted a true natural gas rush. Once the technology was developed, new drill rigs appeared all over landscapes in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, and Wyoming. Many have worries about the environmental consequences of this new approach to drilling; here are some of those concerns. Drill Cuttings During the drilling process, large amounts of ground up rock, mixed with drilling mud and brine, are pulled out of the well and transported off the site. This waste then gets buried in landfills. Beside the large waste volume that needs to be accommodated, a concern with drill cuttings is the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials in them. Radium and uranium can be found in drill cuttings (and produced water – see below) from a proportion of wells, and these elements eventually leach out of the landfills into the surrounding ground and surface waters. Water Use Once a well has been drilled, large amounts of water are pumped into the well at very high pressure to fracture the rock in which the natural gas is located. During a single fracking operation on a single well (wells can be fracked multiple times over their lifetime), on average 4 million gallons of water are used. This water is pumped from streams or rivers and trucked to the site, bought from municipal water sources, or is reused from other fracking operation. Many are concerned about these important water withdrawals, and worried that it may lower the water table in some areas, leading to dry wells and degraded fish habitat. Fracking Chemicals A long, varying list of chemical additives is added to the water in the fracking process. The toxicity of these additives is variable, and many new chemical compounds are created during the fracking process as some of the added ingredients break-down. Once the fracking water returns to the surface, it needs to be treated before disposal (see Water Disposal below). The amount of chemicals added represents a very small fraction of the total volume of fracking water (around 1%). However, this very small fraction detracts from the fact that in absolute terms it is rather large volumes that are used. For a well requiring 4 million gallons of water, about 40,000 gallons of additives are pumped in. The greatest risks associated with these chemicals occur during their transportation, as tanker trucks must use the local roads to bring them to the drill pads. An accident involved spilled contents would have significant public safety and environmental consequences.   Water Disposal A large proportion of the prodigious amounts of water pumped down the well flows back up when the well starts producing natural gas. Besides the fracking chemicals, brine that was naturally present in the shale layer comes back up, too. This amounts to a large volume of liquid that is released into a lined pond, then pumped into trucks and transported to either be recycled for other drilling operations, or to be treated. This â€Å"produced water† is toxic, containing fracking chemicals, high concentrations of salt, and sometimes radioactive materials like radium and uranium. Heavy metals from the shale are of concern too: produced water will contain lead, arsenic, barium, and strontium for example. Spills from failed retention ponds or botched transfers to trucks do happen and have an impact on local streams and wetlands. Then, the water disposal process is not trivial. One method is injection wells. Waste water is injected into the ground at great depths under impermeable rock layers. The extremely high pressure used in this process is blamed for earthquake swarms in Texas, Oklahoma, and Ohio. The second way fracking waste water can be disposed of is in industrial wastewater treatment plants. There have been problems with ineffective treatments at Pennsylvania municipal water treatment plants, so that practice has now ended and only approved industrial treatment plants can be used. Casing Leaks The deep wells used in horizontal hydrofracking are lined with steel casings. Sometimes these casings fail, allowing fracking chemicals, brines, or natural gas to escape into the shallower rock layers and severely contaminating ground water that may reach the surface of be used for drinking water. An example of this problem, documented by the Environmental Protection Agency, is the Pavillion (Wyoming) groundwater contamination case.   Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change Methane is a major component of natural gas, and a very powerful greenhouse gas. Methane can leak from damaged casings, well heads, or it may be vented during some phases of a fracking operation. Combined, these leaks have significant negative impacts on the climate. Carbon dioxide emissions from burning natural gas are much lower, per quantity of energy produced, than from burning oil or coal. Natural gas would then seem to be a reasonably good alternative to more CO2 intensive fuels. The problem is that throughout the entire production cycle of natural gas, a great deal of methane is released, negating some or all of the climate change advantages natural gas seemed to have over coal. Ongoing research will hopefully provide answers as to which is least damaging, but there is no doubt that mining and burning natural gas produces great amounts of greenhouse gases and thus contributes to global climate change. Habitat Fragmentation Well pads, access roads, waste water ponds, and pipelines crisscross the landscape in natural gas producing regions. This fragments the landscape, reducing the size of wildlife habitat patches, isolating them from one another, and contributing to detrimental edge habitat. Peripheral Aspects Fracking for natural gas in horizontal wells is an expensive process that can only be done economically at high density, industrializing the landscape. Emissions and noise from diesel trucks and compressor stations have negative impacts on the local air quality and overall quality of life. Fracking requires large amounts of equipment and materials which themselves are mined or produced at high environmental costs, notably steel and frac sand. Environmental Benefits? At the local scale, the land footprint from fracking operations, especially once the well has been established and the drill rig is gone, is smaller than that of coal strip mines, mountain-top removal mines, or tar sands fields. The footprint of thousands of wells and pipeline right-of-ways over an entire region do add up, though.Natural gas from Marcellus, Barnett, or other North American shale deposits allows us to rely on a domestic source of energy.   That means less energy spent transporting fossil fuels from overseas, and more importantly maintaining the ability to have stricter environmental controls over the entire energy production process. Source Duggan-Haas, D., R.M. Ross, and W.D. Allmon. 2013. The Science Beneath the Surface: A Very Short Guide to the Marcellus Shale. Paleontological Research Institute.