Jon Bennett had always lamented that his grandfathers prospecting skills in the far reaches of rural Texas had succeeded in completely missing any lucrative oil deposits. The land was basically worthless scrub that barely supported a small cattle operation that made so little money that Bennett was forced to work a second job as a mechanic at the only gas station in the one stoplight town at the eastern border of his land. Now, however, if that nerdy little engineer from Global Resources was to be believed, all that was about to change. Bennett had been hearing about ranchers in Colorado and Wyoming getting big checks for natural gas drilling rights on their land, and now it seemed that while his grandfathers land had no oil, it had enough natural gas deposits in a type of rock called shale to interest one of the largest natural gas producers in the country. He and his neighboring landowners had attended a very slick presentation in the town hall, where engineers from Global had laid out how much natural gas they thought was in the area, and how they would go about getting it out of the ground. They had kicked off the presentation with a video that outlined how socially responsible Global was, how the company was committed to transparency (a big word for full disclosure), and how it made every effort to protect the environment and the communities in which it operated. One of the engineers had stated, We believe theres enough natural gas here to keep our wells busy for decades, but when were done, I promise you well leave the place exactly as we found ityoull never be able to tell we were even here. Since the town was centrally located to several large ranches in the area, Global was planning, they said, to invest a considerable amount of money in expanding the infrastructure of the area. Bennett wasnt exactly sure what that meant, but he heard the words: more roads, more jobs, new storage facilities, bigger schools. That was enough to get his attention. The town hall meeting had been for invited landowners only, but Bennett had been surprised to see people picketing outside the hall. They carried signs proclaiming that Fracking Is Toxic! and Global Lies! and they were yelling slogans including: Dont be tempted by the money! Dont Believe Them! and Fracking will kill our land! Bennett hadnt heard the word fracking before, but when he fired up his old laptop and started searching the web, the information he found did give him cause for concern. The injection of pressurized fluids (meaning water and other chemicals) to break up (or fracture) the shale rock to release the natural gas was either perfectly safe or dangerously toxic. Critics argued that the research on the chemicals being used was too new to fully understand the consequences to the local water supplies and soil. Advocates of the process argued that it was no different from the pumping of mud into oil wells to replace the oil being drilled out of the ground. That had seemed reasonable to Bennett, but the video of a man in Pennsylvania lighting a match at his kitchen sink and watching the water coming out of his faucet catch fire was disconcerting. Bennett was even more confused after the leasing specialist from Global visited him at his ranch. Mr. Bennett, he began, based on our study of your acreage, we are prepared to offer you an initial payment of $500,000 for drilling rights, and I can confidently forecast an annual payment to you of at least $250,000 for the next 10 years.

Questions: Do you feel the message of transparency that Global is citing is authentic? Explain. As well, explain why or why not you feel Global is being ethically responsible as a corporation.