It's the Brian Larry Show on WNYC.

Good morning again, everyone.

Now we turn to our climate story of the week, which we do every Tuesday on the show last Friday.

As you all know, the Northeast experienced a 4.8

magnitude earthquake epicenter, New Jersey. And while we were live with our special coverage,

one question came up a few times that we weren't able to get an answer to, and that was,

could the earthquake have been caused by fracking? And while Friday's

earthquake was likely the result of a really old fault line moving, human activity like fracking

or depleting water reservoirs too quickly can cause earthquakes. The U.S. Geological

survey calls these induced earthquakes, and with climate

change, they could continue to become more common. Joining us now to discuss the link between

fracking and earthquakes is Umir Orfan, staff writer at Vox, writing about climate change and energy

policy. Umair, thanks for coming on today.

Thanks for doing this.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

And just to be clear, last Friday's earthquake in the Northeast was probably not caused by

fracking or its after effect, right?

That's right.

This is very likely a natural earthquake, even though it's rare. The East Coast does

have some seismic activity that we've seen in the past, and it is not completely unexpected

that occasionally an earthquake will occur here. But you're right, the gargantuan expansion of hydraulic

fracturing across the United States has left an earthquake epidemic in its wake.

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