NO FRACKING WAY!

Say NO to Hydrofracking and
Stop Gas Companies from Poisoning Our Land and Water!

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May 2012
CLIMATE JUSTICE
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Everyone Should Know... The United States is approximately 4% of the Earth's population,
yet we generate 25% of humanity's greenhouse gases.

But global climate change won't hit America or the developed world as hard as it will impact the developing world, which already faces problems stemming from colonialization, corporate globalization, agricultural & demographic upheavel, political instability, poverty, etc.

America can afford to mitigate, compared to the developing world, so, whatever we do about the problem today, we are wealthy enough to control domestic political fallout tomorrow. And we are better able to provide the resources and inputs to protect our agricultural systems, coastal cities, and so forth. So we can hide from our own catatrophic failures, longer if not forever. We can let others feel them while we live in denial. It is happening.

Yet our way of life impacts the people in developing countries, and our bad energy policies create real-life problems that poor countries don't have the resources, nor the responsibility, to solve. If 'Big Nat' pushes Americans around, then imagine what it's like trying to advocate for good governence in the Niger Delta, where oil companies prop up brutal undemocratic regimes. How will these countries ever deal with the implications of global climate change if we, the wealthy nations, won't even acknowledge our own responsibilities?

The United States generates 25% of the world's greenhouse gases,
yet the devastation of global climate change will hit the developing world hardest.

This opinion piece from the New York Times makes a strong case for the spectacular stupidity of North American energy and resource extraction policy. We owe it to future generations of Americans to do better, and we owe it to people living beyond our borders as well.

NYT: Game Over for the Climate? - May 12, 2012

Friends, do you decide where your energy comes from each time you turn on a light or buy a manufactured product? No. The energy crisis will be solved with policy, not personal responsibility. Europeans aren't so much better than we are. They just don't glorify a wasteful and exploitative economic dystopia to quite the same degree as we do. They aren't so beholden to the American Enterprise Institutute and so forth. (Check out 'globalwarming.org' if you want to puke your guts out on high-profile industry propaganda. Do they still have a 'Student Resources' link?) If we let greedy people make our policy for us, then it will be a policy of exploitation, and the developing world will be most exploited. Energy policy is important and we need to care. It's a dire issue of justice and tomorrow is too late.
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Fall 2009, Updated 12/25/11
IMPORTANT LINKS
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ShaleShock.org
A comprehensive resource for information on the dangers of hydrofracking. If you're new to all this, see in particular Drilling 101. This is also the site for people organizing against fracking in New York's Finger Lakes region.


Christmas Day 2011
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Compulsory Integration and Gas Leases
I want to direct this article to the attension of our down-state (New York City) friends, who may consider themselves environmentally-minded, as well as politically aware active or connected.
This article does a good job explaining the difficulties faced by our upstate populace. We were approached by gas contractors exploiting both broken New York State governance and ignorance over the as-of-then not-yet widely understood issue of  "hydraulic fracking" (from the contractors, this was basically the first many had even heard the term.) BUT PLEASE keep reading.
Compulsory Integration may shock you if you are not already familiar with how it works. Please be sure you truly understand what you are reading and what it means to us.
NYC Watershed! They've agreed not to frack you. But they want to frack us. Local governance is ruled by Albany, and you, downstate, have most of our liberal people. This is why they placate you and try to buy us off individually. We are basically fracked without you. Because Albany is broken and the Natural Gas Companies are exploiting this.


The FRAC Act (Wikipedia)
Tell your congressmen to support the FRAC Act! This legislation (co-sponsored by New York Senator Schumer and New York Representive Hinchey in their respective Houses of Congress) "aims to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act." Sounds pretty reasonable. Some have questioned if the FRAC Act goes far enough, and I encourage scrutiny of the legislation. I also feel like it would be a pretty amazing first step.


EPA finds evidence that hydrofracking pollutes well water
Radio ads in the Finger Lakes region [I haven't listened in a while to know if they still run] claim that hydrofracking is "environmentally safe," even as the EPA is [was] beginning to find evidence to the contrary. Ground water is a complicated thing. Do we really want to risk pumping millions of gallons of carcinogens into the ground? Even if hydrofracking appeared safe in the short run (which it doesn't), there is no way to ensure it won't cause problems many years from now, when the gas companies have moved on, and any temporary economic benefits have disipated. Water will be the oil of the 21st century, and once our groundwater is contamined, there will be nothing we can do. At that point, we're just fracked.
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Fall 2011
 
Frack Me Not!

Or, Wow, Natural Gas Industry, That's A Shitty Energy Policy

(Based on my undergraduate and graduate studies of science, engineering, economics, and environmental policy at Cornell University)

This is written for general audience (without formality of jargon) but believe me, the economics and geology behind it all checks out. You can vet it.

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We will never run out of fossil fuels. We extract the "low hanging" fossil fuel "fruit" first, then move on to sources at greater and greater cost. Eventually it becomes too expensive to extract and/or find. This is water tight. Let me repeat the essential point for clarity. We will never run out of fossil fuels, the cost of fossils fuels will only become greater and greater.

The way a corporation like Halburton, Slumberger, even bomb-contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, look at the "profit" equation (goal of a corporation is to maximize profit), their business practices clearly demonstrate they see YOUR resources (including natural resources and the Iraqi infrastructure) as THROUGHPUT THEY CAN PROFIT FROM and the ONLY TRICK is dealing with the (greater and greater) costs.

Costs are SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, and ECONOMIC.

When I was growing up in the 90s, a portion of my parent's utility bill went toward PRO Natural Gas ads during a time when, to my small child self, there was no real obvious reason why it should be necessary to promote such a seemingly wonderful energy choice. After all, was energy in my state of New York even degregulated yet? Why advertise the cheaper, cleaner choice? Here's my guess:

-Energy companies literally hire Geology to understand fossil fuels (not groundwater so much, I'll add)

-They've known about the MARCELLES THROUGHPUT for a long time, and know it's a hard sell

-So what does the ad (call it propaganda if you like) do about dealing with the costs? How can we write them off the financial books and out of the text books? They teach us to accept or ignore the social and environmental costs (despite whatever benefits they further claim).

-Meanwhile, government is (I'd argue) literally pressured, certainly given cover to, subsidize companies, technologies, industries, etc., around NATURAL GAS EXTRACTION. So we are not actually reducing the economic cost so much as investing society's resources toward the problem of getting that THROUGHPUT out so that BIG NAT can profit off you.

-I'll try to slip in here subtly, they use war and resource profiteering to pay off under-informed landowners to buy consent. The best technology they've come up with is pumping carcinogens in copius quantities into the earth while creating waste water and numerous other complications they later intend to walk away from.

This will either depress or amuse you or more. I say, Reagan must have seen no point to computers the size of a room. Why? Because he took the solar panel off the White House that Jimmy Carter put there, and then dismantled all the subsidizes that supported the domestic renewable energy industry causing its swift collapse. Look at the progress computers made in the 30 years since and weep for your climate. Why did we invest in FRACKING TECHNOLOGY instead of SOLAR PANEL TECHNOLOGY? Because Reagan said so. Or someone told him to. Because energy companies already knew about the shale under your feet. Dreams of fracking you go back to the 1950s, as I recall. They predate the energy crisis of the 1970s and streamroll past reality with just a little bit of energy policy trickery.

Hey, BIG NAT! Fracking is pretty contraversial in my state, no? I think for an economic player of your magnitude, SINKING (economics term) so much in preliminaries and makin' such big and lofty promises, you maybe owe it to the state of New York and responsible business practice to do some overt CONTINGENCY PLANNING in case hydraulic fracturing is deemed too COSTLY (in oh so many ways) to actually go foward in OUR state. Doesn't that sound responsible? Or are you truly not accustomed to ever not getting your way? You are used to literally writing the laws, and then you can pay the legal system to litegate until you are happy with the outcome.

Cause, honestly, that THROUGHPUT starts to look pretty expensive if you DON'T GET TO TOUCH ANY OF IT.

(Society pays for everything one way or another.)

New Yorkers, join me in a chorus of FRACK ME NOT! Or how about this one, DON'T FRACK WITH NEW YORK.


My advice before and again is to TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW about the problem of HYDRO-FRACKING.

I see it this way. We just need to reach the people who can affect this. The people who can stop this. Anyone and everyone. Because it will eat on the consciousness until they figure out a way.



Energy and carcinogens and destroyed landscapes in
Energy and wastewater and carcinogens out
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Fall 2009

New York is truly a great state. We can claim the greatest city in the world, some of the best wilderness and wildlife in the country, as well as thriving agriculture and rural communities. Let's keep it great!

Rural Upstate communities have genuine economic concerns, and it's easy to see why some see hydrofracking as an opportunity for economic development. But hydrofracking is not the answer. The benefits are temporary, and the costs outweigh these benefits. Hydrofracking is not the future. When the gas has been extracted and the profits reaped, the gas companies will move on and leave us back where we began (along with a whole new set of problems). Hydrofracking isn't real economic development.

Instead of waging our economic stakes on hydrofracking, let's invest in real, sustainable economic development. Renewable energy is the future. Local agriculture and green industries are the future. High-speed rail and data linkages are the future. Instead of trading our environmental quality for temporary gains, let's build on what makes New York special. Let's attract new business with good quality of life, not by trashing the environment. The future is clean air and clear water. The future is cultural opportunies-- music, sports, cuisine, art, etc. New York State is way ahead in the game, so let's not throw it away!

This is an uphill battle so we all need to work together and do what each of us can. Tell everyone you know about hydrofracking. This is everyone's problem, and sticking our heads in the sand won't keep us safe.

But when we stand together, we can turn back any threat. Hydrofracking? No fracking way!


Thank you for visiting
NoFrackingWay.com

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