Since fracking emerged as a way of extracting natural gas, through intense deep drilling and the use of millions of gallons of water and chemicals to fracture shale, it has been controversial. It is perceived in different ways by different people—by some as an opportunity for increased resources and possibly jobs and other income; by others as a public health and environmental threat; and for many, an unknown. Richard Buttny, a scholar who works on rhetoric and discursive practices, read a story in his local paper in New York about hydrofracking coming to his area and had to research what it was, and what it could mean for his community. Soon he joined neighbors in fighting to have the practice banned state-wide. At the same time, he turned his scholarly eye to the messaging from both sides of the fight, using first-person accounts, interviews, and media coverage.

The activists fighting fracking won. New York is now the only state in the US with sizable deposits of natural gas that has banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Unfracked explains the competing rhetoric and discourses on fracking among New York-based advocates, experts, the grassroots, and political officials. Buttny examines how these positions evolved over time and how eventually the state arrived at a decision to ban this extractive technology. His accessible approach provides both a historical recounting of the key events of this seven-year conflict, along with four in-depth case studies: a grassroots citizen group, a public hearing with medical physicians, a key intergovernmental hearing, and a formal debate among experts. The result is a look at a very recent, important historical moment and a useful examination of environmental activist and fossil fuel advocate rhetoric around an issue that continues to cause debate nationwide.

Richard Buttny is professor emeritus of communication & rhetorical studies at Syracuse University. He is the author of Talking Problems: Studies on Discursive Construction and Social Accountability in Communication. His writing on fracking has appeared as a chapter in The Sustainability Communication Reader, as well as in Frontiers in Communication: Science and Environmental Communication, the Journal of Risk Research, Discourse & Communication, and Environmental Communication, in article form. His scholarship has also appeared in Discourse & Society, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, Journal of Multicultural Research, Research on Language and Social Interaction, and more.

“This easy-to-read book is the first I know of which squarely analyzes and documents the push for a fracking ban in New York. The autobiographical account Buttny includes is gripping because readers get an on the ground, inside look at one town’s push for a ban, and it fits nicely because, as the author argues, towns’ pushes to ban fracking locally played a large part in pressing the governor to ban the practice.”—Colin Jerolmack, author of Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom and Community in an American Town

“Buttny assembles an engaging and fascinating narrative making great use of oral history interviews and primary sources to understand the effort to ban fracking in New York State. ”—Robert Lifset, author of Power on the Hudson: Storm King Mountain and the Emergence of Modern American Environmentalism