It's also real-politik. CN is trying to corner the market on PV production. Obama supported fracking to punish Putin (RUS is a petro-state). There's more going on than what is read in the NYT. Take your area of expertise and go read about what is written in non-academic settings on the subject. Then realize that this isn't a one-off for your area of expertise. This. is. Everywhere.
Oh sure, kinda brain dead can't adapt to the new post cold war order of things legacy real-politik. Makes sense if your power and status makes sense in terms of cold war conflict.
But the Soviet Union is gone. The neoliberal transformation of Russia is a utter failure. The fossil fuel industry is walking dead at this point do to solar, wind, electrified transportation and the imperative to deal with global warming.
It's a classic people and organizations looking out for their short term interest + risk aversion leads to eventual catastrophe.
And as I mentioned, countries whose leadership have no particular interest in legacy cold war real politik or the Wests fossil fuel hegemony[1] are going to move and move fast.
[1] Other countries leaders absolutely despise being beholden to the oil/gas/fossil fuel industry.
The fracks occurred in at least 630 different wells off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama (see interactive map), and many took place in critical habitat for imperiled loggerhead sea turtles. Oil companies were also allowed to dump about 76 billion gallons of waste fluid into Gulf waters in 2014.
---
Not only that, his administration approve fracking with no site-specific analysis of the threats to the environment and also without public involvement.
