“We refuse to take the risk cuz our town is quaking up!”
Family friendly video uploaded by YouTube User PeterAlsop on March 24, 2012: “Uncle Sam and the local community confront the ‘fracker’ about what the fracking procedures are doing to their water. They point out that ‘we live here! And we notice you’re not fracking in your own city, where you and your children live!’ Besides, the point isn’t just keeping the water clean, but just creating jobs is not the way to provide a better world for the children, … but no more fossil fuels, regardless of jobs or profit! Our environment can’t take it! We need to be putting all our resources into renewable energy sources! Uncle Sam knows that the American people can work this out!”
[UPDATE: APRIL 5, 2012] Visit shaleshockmedia.org for full-length video of keynote speech by Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, Cornell University, and other highlights from the conference.
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[Original Post] Marcellus Shale Exposed: A Symposium for Truth and Action onFri., March 16th & Sat, March 17th at Northampton Community College, Bethlehem, PA is a great place to get informed and involved in the effort to protect our land, air and water from the ravages of Unconventional Gas Drilling. Presenters will include: Jeff Schmidt, Sierra Club * Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper Network * Karen Feridun, Berks Gas Truth * Deborah Rogers, Energy Policy Forum.
Ads Cost Money But The Truth About Shale Gas Drilling Is Free
I laugh a little when I hear Gas Industry folks complain about how well-funded the anti-fracking movement is. To which groups are they referring? I’m a fractivist. I volunteer, and I’m in very good company. The organizations I support are transparent about their funding, too, even if it’s the wrong brand of donor, as was recently the case with Sierra Club. Difficult as it must have been, Sierra came clean about Chesapeake Energy underwriting its Beyond Coal campaign. Now, I suspect, they’re working doubly hard to get beyond Gas.
It’s true, there’s a growing list of major environmental groups who want to ban or limit Unconventional Gas Drilling, (more…)
Current Drinking Water Impact Study Emphasizes “Scientific Integrity”
Many fractivists think EPA Chief Lisa Jackson isn’t doing enough to protect citizens from the environmental ravages of Fracking. Iris Bloom, Director of Protecting Our Waters, recently posted that EPA is falling short in its duty “to ensure our rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution to clean water, air, and a healthy environment.” Bloom is putting out the call to rally EPA officials to use their authority to compel Rex Energy to continue delivering replacement water to families in Butler County, whose water has become toxic since drilling began. These families have found no satisfactory recourse with the PA Department of Environmental Protection who, characteristically, insists their water is fine.
Governor Corbett and DEP Secretary Krancer have made it clear they think EPA is overstepping when it regulates Pennsylvania’s shale gas drilling. They routinely refer to EPA’s oversight actions as “duplicative” and “unnecessary.” DEP can manage just fine on its own, thank you. There’s no need for EPA to investigate why the water in Connoquenessing Township suddenly began running red, orange and gray. (more…)
Armed only with facts and logic, one philosopher debates Dr. Terry Engelder, Mack Daddy of the Marcellus
Wendy Lynne Lee has made a career out of her deep commitment to social justice. As a professor at Bloomsburg University, Dr. Lee enjoys challenging her students’ assumptions, “equipping them with critical thinking skills, and offering them new and exciting ideas about, well, everything under the Sun.” Lee has been an outspoken critic of Fracking in posts on her blog, The Meaning of a Philosophical Life.
“There’s simply no such thing as safe fracking,” she asserts in a January post about Governor Corbett’s penchant for leasing state forest land to gas drillers. “When most of the talk of how much gas is extractible, how many jobs, how safe, how profitable, how transitional an energy source, and how minimal a contributor to climate change has proven to be either exaggerated or patently false, why on earth would we continue to pursue this reckless course?”
NOAA’sAir Sampling in Colorado Shows Methane Measurements that Disprove the Gas Industry’s “Cleaner Burning Fuel” Claim
While natural gas may be a cleaner fuel to burn, here’s more proof that it’s a particularly filthy fossil fuel to extract from the earth. A 2011 study by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was recently published in Journal of Geophysical Research and covered in the international journal, Nature. (more…)
It’s not 10am on the East Coast, yet much has been made of President Obama’s State-of-the-Union address last night. The president not only promoted Natural Gas, he essentially gave the government credit for developing Fracking technology! OMG. If there was one line that gave me Hope…
“America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk.”
Sooner or later, President Obama will have to recognize the fact that Fracking is already putting the safety of our citizens at risk. (more…)
As Chevron Corporation moves in to frack the EU nation of Bulgaria, several thousands flooded the streets and squares of major cities, brandishing loaves of bread, beating drums and blowing whistles. The protest, which was organized by the grassroots environmental group, Fracking Free Bulgaria, was meant to be a wake up call to citizens: “No to shale gas, Yes to nature!” was the cry. Protestors were also calling on lawmakers to model France’s moratorium and “Ban Fracking Now!”
Spectacular.
A few days prior to the protests, I received this information from the group:
“The title of the nationwide protest is “Bulgarians, rise up and defend your land!” and aims to make a wake-up call to all of the Bulgarians that are still not aware of the rising environmental catastrophy. (more…)
On Tuesday evening, January 10, 2012 the PA Department of Environmental Protection Secretary, Michael Krancer, once again put the onus on gas companies to protect our land, air and water. The secretary was speaking at Villanova University, at a presentation organized by PA Association of Environmental Professionals and The Pennsylvania Environmental Council, and facilitated by Burack Environmental Law.
To the strident observer, it’s stunning how much faith Secretary Krancer places in the corporate good intentions of shale gas drillers. It’s as if he’s incognizant of the industry’s shoddy track record in Pennsylvania, and how they wracked up a whopping 1.8 average violations per inspection in 2011. (more…)
Lately, I’ve become obsessed with simplifying daily life. Simplicity, it seems, may be the only way to collectively solve the world’s energy crisis. I’m all in with this steadily growing, common-sense movement. I’m ready to conserve, tread more lightly, and live with less stuff in better balance. It’s not about rainbows and unicorns, though I do secretly wonder if it’s possible to “go off the grid” in suburban Philadelphia. Rather, it’s an urgent awakening to the dire need for a fundamental change in the patterns of human consumption. I can only speak for myself, but I‘m actively seeking more realistic solutions. (more…)
In case you missed it, EPA Head Lisa P. Jackson was the featured Interview on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show on November 21, 2011. She states her candid views on Fracking and the EPA’s role in regulating “the 10,000 wells.” She states how most Americans are unaware that the Clean Air and Safe Drinking Water Laws are no longer protecting them. She also decries the conservative agenda to scapegoat the EPA for the country’s economic woes, and stresses the need for more science to inform extreme energy extraction practices.
Don’t Let Pennsylvania Become a Fact-Free Zone – Support the EPA!
In what is being hailed as a BIG WIN FOR THE DELAWARE RIVER WATERSHED, The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has cancelled, or postponed, its scheduled November 21st meeting in which the commission was to vote on opening the Delaware River Watershed to industrial shale gas drilling. THE MORATORIUM STANDS! It’s a victory for the nearly 74,000 people who petitioned the DRBC not to frack in the river basin. The watershed protection coalition’s news release is bounding across the internet this morning. (more…)
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced its final research plan on hydraulic fracturing. At the request of Congress, EPA is working to better understand potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources. Natural gas plays a key role in our nation’s clean energy future and the Obama Administration is committed to ensuring that we continue to leverage this vital resource responsibly. (more…)
As Pennsylvania becomes central to an international tight gas boom, the world is watching…
Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ve certainly heard about hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale. The Marcellus and Utica shales, largely located in Pennsylvania, may very well be the second largest shale gas reserves in the world.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, China has the most “technically recoverable” unconventional gas, with 36.1 trillion cubic metres. Argentina comes in third with an estimated 21.9 trillion. South Africa, Australia, Canada and Poland all have serious shale gas deposits, too. [Source: The Economist, August 6, 2011] (more…)
None of the top three Republican Presidential contenders give much credence to the science of Global Climate Change. To ignore it the way they do just seems stupid, and this sets the table for my impressions of these motley characters. I cringe watching all the coverage about the Republican Primary. I don’t disagree with everything they say, but when they speak about energy, the environment or the EPA, they all have the same under-informed, unabashedly biased voice.
Republicans for Obama?
Really? Do they exist? Yesterday, at the supermarket, I saw a Prius with a brand new bumper sticker that read: “Republicans for Obama.” According to their website, “Republicans for Obama is a grassroots organization of proud party members who all share one important trait— we are Americans first and Republicans second.” Cool. I’m a registered Democrat and even I’ve been less than supportive of our president lately. His federal advisory commission on shale gas drilling is stacked with industry insiders, and the revolving door between industry and government has never spun faster. But at least Obama believes in Climate Change! (more…)
The Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) supply chain is generally more energy and greenhouse gas intensive than the supply chain for pipeline gas because of the extra processing steps. If Pennsylvania becomes a major LNG exporter, we will essentially be exporting the primary benefit of using this cleaner burning fossil fuel while bearing all the nasty environmental hazards and downsides of drilling for, processing and transporting it. (more…)
UPDATE: The DRBC announced today that it will postpone the October 21 meeting date to vote on the new gas regulations. The meeting is now scheduled for November 21, 2011.
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ORIGINAL POST: The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will vote on October 21, 2011 whether to open the “Special Protection Waters” of The Upper Delaware to industrial shale gas drilling. If new DRBC regulations are passed, the current moratorium on hydraulic fracturing will come to an end, and fracking will begin in earnest in the Delaware River watershed region. (more…)
If you live in Pennsylvania, and you haven’t read it yet, download/buy/borrow The End of Country right now. Done? Author Seamus McGraw is not only well-informed, he’s irreverent and blunt. To wit, his recent post on Facebook: “I’ve long argued that the two most dangerous chemicals that are used far too liberally in the fracking process are testosterone and adrenaline.”
As a man who facilitated the leasing of his mother’s land to Chesapeake Energy (testosterone), he is often perceived to be a part of the problem by angry fractivists (adrenaline). I would suggest that here’s a guy, a self-proclaimed environmentalist and early biofuel user, who understands the very real dangers of fracking, (more…)
This morning, I sat in traffic for nearly three hours. Record flooding, mudslides and downed trees blocked the way of nearly every commuter in the region. It was a nightmare. I was late for the Freedom from Fracking Conference in Center City, and I was ticked. I arrived just in time to catch hydrogeologist Paul Rubin’s workshop, Our Aquifers, Our Drinking Water: Casualties of Gas Development. (more…)
I’ve called him a gasbag, and predicted he would flip the environmental bird to Camden County and South Jersey by not signing the ban on hydraulic fracturing passed by NJ state legislature earlier this summer. My next guess would have been a series of stall tactics, the likes of which Pennsylvania excels. Surprisingly, Governor Christie neither stalled nor outright vetoed. (No one thought he’d actually approve the measure, not just like that.) Turns out, he took a refreshingly moderate path with a conditional veto of the fracking ban, and the prudent step of proposing a moratorium on gas drilling for one year. (more…)
Keep Tap Water Safe 