From an email from the Txchnologist:

“FYI – the Txchnologist is an online magazine that looks at new innovations in science and technology.  The next several weeks of coverage will be dedicated to exploring the issues around natural gas. The magazine is presented by GE but the stories are not necessarily reflective of the company’s views or positions.”

Natural gas is a high risk alternative to oil owing to the process to retrieve the gas called fracking. It will be interesting to see how balanced the stories are and to learn, possibly, more about GE’s investment in natural gas development, if they have one.  Most citizens, myself included, are not very well informed on this subject.  On EarthSayers.tv we have a special collection, High Risk Energy Alternatives, and we continue to believe that hearing directly from the leaders and citizens from both sides of the story is important for citizens in their professional and work roles to make informed decisions. We also see that it has been the practice to externalize risk and costs associated with our ecosystem services and the results are unacceptable as is continuing to not discuss the practice until there is a catastrophe such as the Gulf Oil spill and the meltdown of three reactors in Japan. To return to business as usual is also not acceptable and another good reason to listen to the voices of sustainability.

What we don’t know is does a sponsorship by a major corporation compromise the integrity of our collection?  Major corporations have the big bucks and the marketing intelligence to know the value of thought leadership.  It’s tempting. We continue to look for where EarthSayers needs to find the funding support to be part of The Worldwide Commons and remain, like a library, open to all, but unlike the bookish roots of our library systems (special libraries in particular) being rooted in online video, the voices of sustainability.