Buying and Telling
It’s difficult to pick one favorite, but four-out-of-five fractivists agree the ultimate anti-gas image is by Artist/Activist LMNOP. based in Brooklyn, NY.
Interviewed, and often talked over, on Fox News’ Varney & Co., Sierra Club Executive Director, Mike Brune, not only keeps his cool but remains a polite and informative guest.
Despite Stuart Varney’s ill-informed scoffing and scorn, the unflappable Brune manages to state a few facts on climate change, solar power, wind, natural gas and the Keystone XL Pipeline – facts like how KXL isn’t any more inevitable than other planned, non-existent pipelines; and how the number of US solar installations broke the record in 2012, and will do so again in 2013.
A vociferous climate denier, Varney appears to think fossil fuels will last “forever” while one of his co-hosts would simply deny wind power altogether because he’s never seen a windmill turning. (Here’s a hint: just like the sun is more likely to shine in the daytime, the wind is more likely to blow at night – maybe go look then?)
Photo: sierra.org
Brune isn’t baited or cowed by Varney & Co.’s carnival-esque atmosphere. I’ve been unable to embed the video, as is usually the case with Fox clips, but here’s the link:
Sierra Club ExecutiveDirector Mike Brune On His Efforts To Stop The Completion Of The Keystone Pipeline
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2165321833001/
Way Beyond Coal (more…)
The Art of Anti-Fracking Comes of Age
Lately, it seems like anti-fracking artistic expression is exploding out of gaslands everywhere. Maybe the message is mainstreaming? You know when Yoko Ono starts speaking out, the cause is officially big. She may be polite and petite, but she’s got a mighty big bullhorn and she’s obviously peeved.
Sad truth is, the harsh light of reality is unkind to the invasive, destructive processes of shale gas production and frack waste disposal. Across the country, there’s a heightened demand for clean, sustainable energy and increasing local efforts for conservation. Artists, filmmakers, videographers, photographers, musicians, writers and poets have become so passionate about this cause, they’re shouting from their respective rooftops. And voyeurs, if they’re anything like me, are left wondering what we can possibly do when a single industry is systematically destroying our water tables, air quality, and the loamy soil beneath our feet?
We can live without gas but we can’t live without water. It’s the stuff of life pulsing through our veins. Frack with that, and people tend to go hardcore. So go on, get schooled, and enjoy a sampling of the creative contributions inspired by the shale gas boom, in what is rapidly becoming the biggest public push-back the world has ever seen.
“C’Mon EPA, We’re Worried For Our DNA”
What lurks deep beneath Sesame Street? It’s a scary place yet this video is suitable for all ages.
Published on Dec 21, 2012 by John Duarte. Composed by Luvtouch Music. For more information, visit http://www.john-duarte.com and http://www.john-duarte.com/blog.
Give It To Me, Gov
Since New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has declined meet to with Yoko Ono as of yet, she has taken the truth to television. Ono makes it easy for Cuomo – and all the world – to see what’s wrong with Fracking in her new ad. (more…)
The Impacts of Drilling on Human and Animal Health
Groundbreaking Study Presented
Researchers Robert Oswald PhD & Michelle Bamberger, MS, DVM offer viewers “a general introduction to the potential hazards associated with shale gas development. Specifically, it will draw on the descriptive epidemiology and case studies of Drs. Bamberger and Oswald to examine how and why animals can be used as sentinels for human health.”
Harbingers of Human Wellbeing
Published on Jan 30, 2013, Continuing Medical Education (CME) Activity Jointly Sponsored by Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy and the Medical Society of the State of New York. Source: YouTube
Got Frack? (We all do.) Get caught up on the Gas issues bounding around this week:
In Range Resources Accused Of Water Test Tampering Dory Hippauf explains how Range isn’t such a great neighbor after all.
“According to Rende’s logic, it is the plaintiff’s own fault for believing the Range Resource test report was accurate and truthful. Does this mean Rende is also saying Range Resources is not to be trusted?”
Mother Jones: The Surprising Connection Between Food and Fracking
“As they fight the expansion of fracking and push for tighter regulations on it, concerned citizens can count on an opponent nearly as powerful and monied as Big Oil: Big Ag…”
The Marcellus Shale Documentary Project has finally come to Philadelphia. The images collected “tell stories, through photographic images, of how the lives of Pennsylvanians are affected by the Marcellus Shale Gas Industry. By creating a visual document of the environmental, social and economic impact of drilling, the work aims to engage communities in the current Marcellus debate while providing important historical images for the future.”
Images, like this pipeline cutting through a southwestern Pennsylvania cow pasture, leave an impression. This stirring collection is on display at The Gershman Y in Philadelphia until February 14, 2013.
Photo by Brian Cohen. (more…)
[Updated]
PA State Senators Want To Give Away The Farm, Along With Our Property Rights
If passed, Senate Bill 166 and the flash of an industry ID would give gasland surveyors full access to private property in Pennsylvania. That’s right. Landowners must grant the gas industry full access to their land.
In other words, private property is no longer private. (more…)
No NIMBYs In SEPA: Citizens Say “Yes!” To Clean Energy In Everyone’s Back Yard!
PA Dems to hold a hearing on non-fossil renewable energy for Delaware and Montgomery counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Show your support for solar and wind! Free, open to the public.
The Democratic Policy Committee:
Renewable Energy Legislation Hearing
Tuesday, January 29, 2013 at 10am
Ludington Library, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
~
via Rep. Greg Vitali (D-PA, Delaware County): 
(more…)
This week, I tabled at the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg. The booth was co-sponsored by Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Food and Water Watch, PennEnvironment, Protecting Our Waters and Berks Gas Truth. It was an amazing experience, despite the fact that I had to park in Pittsburgh.
We put a lot of good information in the hands of farmers, food producers, land owners, students and laypeople. We did receive a few dirty looks, but far more people stopped by to ask questions and thank us for our good work.
Meeting others who are committed to the clean energy cause is always a pleasure, and interacting with the show’s visitors was absolutely incredible. The highlight for me, however, was slapping Ban Fracking Now! stickers on the tote bags being handed out by the Marcellus Shale Coalition a few booths away.
Here are a few of my personal observations from the show: (more…)
Resolve to get more involved in the incredible fossil-free grassroots movement that’s been springing up across the USA. No one should be an energy company guinea pig! Help your community maintain control over rampant, unregulated shale gas fracking, toxic waste water, pipelines, compressor stations and dehydration units. Chances are – wherever you are – there’s a local group fighting for our right to clean air, land and water. (more…)
Document Pre-Pipeline Stream Conditions in The Delaware River
DECEMBER 22-23, 2012
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network needs your help:
“We have 19 days to stop this fracked gas pipeline from cutting through healthy pristine habitat and rural communities (more…)
The “Cleaner Burning Fuel” Blows
On Friday evening, a strip club in Springfield, Massachusetts exploded. Thankfully, no one was killed though several people were injured.
According to 22News in Springfield, “Glass flew everywhere…” Unbelievably, the explosion was captured on video:
Did you know there is a city or town named “Springfield” in every one of the fifty United States? The Simpsons live in Springfield, too. And it turns out, the more natural gas is used in buildings, offices and homes, the more likely you are to find a gas leak or explosion in a Springfield near you. (more…)
Bill Moyers talks about Climate Change and Capitalism with Shock Doctrine author, Naomi Klein.
“I believe it’s the biggest challenge humanity has faced, and we’ve been kidding ourselves about what it’s going to take to get our emmissions down to the extent that they need to go down,” Naomi Klein.
Another Wild Week in Fracking…
The true story of the Marcellus Shale Gas Boom is stranger than fiction, full of polemic twists, shocking revelations and methane geysers. Here, an aggregation of the aggravation caused by the gas industry in Pennsylvania in the past week alone. Look out, David Hess, I’ve been taking notes.
AntiGas NewsClips – Friday, November 16, 2012: (more…)
“Fossil fuel is a risk to the planet.”
This statement was debated in early November by Bill McKibben, author and founder of 350.org, and Alex Epstein, Founder and President of the Center For Industrial Progress and former Junior Fellow of The Ayn Rand Institute. The debate was ably mediated by Duke University Law Professor, Bill Brown.
Bill McKibben and Alex Epstein square off on fossil fuels — do they make the planet a worse place to live or a better place to live?
Full Audio Version provided by ImproveThePlanet, Center For Industrial Progress.
Spoiler Alert! McKibben Shellacked Epstein
I learned of the debate via Stefanie Penn Spear in her recent post on EcoWatch.org, DEBATE: McKibben vs. Epstein—Are Fossil Fuels a Risk to the Planet?
“My daughter and I were outraged that Epstein is capable of taking such a humanistic, anthropocentric position on the issues regarding the health of our planet,” reports Spear. Her article (which was the most media coverage I could find) and the accompanying comments make for a great debate primer.
Opposing arguments lasted over an hour and a half, but McKibben took the win in the first ten minutes, in his opening statement no less, when he laid out thirteen very good reasons to phase out fossil fuels on the planet, citing references galore:
Serious issues to face! Luckily, some of the best minds are on it. Later in the debate, McKibben shares the good news: “We have the tools we need in order to adapt.“
DEP’s Permit Pickle
Pennsylvania’s municipal water treatment plants were designed to handle the bio solids of sewage, not the radioactive compounds contained in shale gas drilling waste. They can’t handle the massive volumes of frack flowback produced in our state.
It takes 4.5 to 9 million gallons of fresh water to hydro-frack a single natural gas well. There are more than 30,000 permits awaiting approval in Pennsylvania over the next 10 years. In addition to the 8,982 frack wells currently operating in Pennsylvania, that equals 165 billion gallons of fresh water, largely from the Special Protection Waters of the Delaware River Watershed and the Susquehanna River Basin. Once removed, this water is destined to become toxic, radioactive frack “flowback.” And, by the way, that’s way more water than we actually have.
At first blush, recycling frack flowback – both onsite and at regional treatment plants – seems like the perfect solution. There’s now a long list of companies who want to sell or lease their services to drillers, along with their glorified mobile distillation units. But this, too, poses new problems and raises even more questions about shale gas waste regulation and oversight. Ultimately, waste recyclers still have to deal with the disposal of the super salty waste bi-product known as brine.
So now, recycled frack brine is to be sold – at around $.05 a gallon – to PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) to spray on our roads for deicing in winter, and something called “dust suppression.”
Seriously, dust suppression.
Untreated frack brine has been shown to include barium, radium, strontium and a range of radionuclides. Sometimes, there’s even uranium. (Yes, there’s uranium down there, too.) Flowback may also contain sodium and calcium salts, iron, oil, numerous heavy metals, diesel fuel and industrial soaps. And now this stuff might be on my running shoes, and the wheels of my kids’ bikes. Heavy snows and spring rains will carry these compounds into our rivers and streams, lacing our waterways with toxins. Are you kidding me?
How is it, though they’re using taxpayer dollars to buy this supposedly “clean” brine, that there was no public input?
Because DEP stamped a permit.
Everyday, I see an ANGA ad, or I read a slop-ed from a Marcellus Shale Coalition minion, and I wonder how can they say shale gas is “safe” when ALL their triple cement well-bore seals will fail within 70-100 years? How can the U.S. president say it’s safe?
Cement isn’t magical. It won’t last forever.
Is ANGA, or the Marcellus Shale Coalition, or EPA for that matter, planning to replug all the frack wells in every last watershed and aquifer by 2112? In reality, it’s more like “safe for now” or maybe “safe for a few generations” but down the road, the population in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware will have to deal with toxic drinking water.
Safe Fracking: A Modern Myth (more…)
Are you getting the message, Harrisburg? Don’t frack with Philly!
While these newly elected officials aren’t all for a ban on fracking (yet) many have taken very pro-environment positions on shale gas drilling. It’s safe to say, they’re all fractivist friendly.
Republicans and Fossil Fuel Phanatics rest assured, fractivists are taking names, determined to hold ALL elected officials accountable to their campaign promises. Clean fracking is pure fantasy, but bi-partisanship is always within reach.
Who To Vote For (If You Like Clean Water)
Far be it for me to tell people how to vote, except when there’s more at stake for Pennsylvania’s natural environment than any general election in our history, ever. But don’t take my word for it. You’ll find the most eco-friendly candidates in the race listed on Clean Water Action’s Endorsements and Key Races pages. For the very latest links and news, visit Marcellus at the Polls.
KeepTapWaterSafe.org endorses…
Where Do Our Candidates Stand On The Important Environmental Issues Facing Pennsylvania?
If you’re interested in supporting eco-friendly candidates in Pennsylvania, you might need more information about their voting records, endorsements, contributors and, of course, their campaign promises. And you’ll want to be sure to exercise your franchise on Tuesday, November 6th.
It’s Time To Mother Earth
Visit Marcellus At The Polls to learn where your candidates stand on issues related to shale gas drilling. A note from Marcellus at The Polls: It’s an all-volunteer effort. We have information on candidates running in PA who are ‘fracktivist friendly’. They are running for various offices, they are of varying political parties. We list the ones who have made strong statements against the wanton fracking of PA. We’re all volunteers & accept no $ from anyone/any political party/PAC.
Who Got What
Campaign contributions from the Oil & Gas Industry to Pennsylvania Politicians are tallied up at MarcellusMoney.org
Keep Tap Water Safe 