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MF-3735877

Articles Posted: 6  Links Seeded: 41
Member Since: 7/2011  Last Seen: 5/17/2012

New York's Little Revolution: How Fracking Is Remaking the Political Landscape

Seeded on Sat Feb 11, 2012 7:41 PM EST
Read ArticleArticle Source: YES! Magazine
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This has been described as an Environmental Occupy Wall Street. If you live in New York State you need to be concerned. Get educated on the issue and get involved. We have a good chance of stopping the destruction before it starts. Once the water is polluted it's too late. The gas companies will have the money and we'll have the mess - and bills and health problems and ruined environment.

Shale gas is dirty expensive destructive energy that we don't need. It isn't a bridge - that's a myth - it's a delay in getting on to real sustainable solutions.

While most anti-fracking activists have been responding to harms already done, New York State’s resistance has been waging a battle to keep harm at bay. Jack Ossont, a former helicopter pilot, has been active all his life in the state’s environmental and social battles. He calls fracking “the tsunami issue of New York. It washes across the entire landscape.”

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mf-3735877

At the moment, in fact, the anti-fracking movement in the state only seems to be ramping up. Should the government approve the SGEIS in its current form, lawsuits are planned against the Department of Environmental Conservation. And a brief "Occupy DEC" event that took place in the state capital, Albany, on January 12th may have set the tone for the future. Meanwhile some activists, turning their backs on established channels, are already working on legislation that would criminalize fracking.

I live in a town in Western New York that is considering a moratorium on fracking. The town board has held at least 2 public meeting on the matter. At the first one a gas driller, his lawyer, and a couple of his employees spoke to the board and painted a rosy picture of all the economic benefits and how they would be a good neighbor. When that didn't slow the anti-fracking movement down they switched from carrot to stick and for the second meeting they submitted a letter from their lawyers telling the town that they will be sued and forced to spend a lot of taxpayers money in a losing cause. Basically the gas company said you can't stop us and locals have no rights.

Well we think we can stop them and the fight has just began.

  • 2 votes
Reply#1 - Sat Feb 11, 2012 7:51 PM EST
Pat from Montana

Excellent article. Question every single thing they say to you. The money supporting the fracking is enormous. The people need to stand together.

  • 3 votes
#1.1 - Sat Feb 11, 2012 8:17 PM EST
mf-3735877

I tell you Pat it's amazing how people are coming together here against fracking. We haven't won yet and the gas companies have the money, lawyers, and a lot of the politicians. But the politicians are hearing us and running scared. You should of seen the looks on the town board members at the meeting I went to - like deer in the headlights.

  • 2 votes
#1.2 - Sat Feb 11, 2012 8:54 PM EST
Reply
nonStitiousZealot

I've been reading that shale gas is pretty much a waste of resources to develop [above & beyond the environmental problem ] . Supposedly the energy yielded drops off dramatically very quickly .

  • 3 votes
Reply#2 - Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:57 PM EST
mf-3735877

nonStitiousZealot - In addition to the environmental problems with shale gas development there is troubling evidence that it's all a boondoggle. The estimates of recoverable gas and well lifetime are grossly inflated. Shale gas isn't profitable at the moment and if it results in a gas glut it will be even less so. I don't understand exactly how it works but apparently there's reason to believe the shale gas gold-rush is a Ponzi scheme. If it collapses the gas companies won't be stuck with the mess, we will.

  • 2 votes
#2.1 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:49 AM EST
nonStitiousZealot

Thanks for the more detailed description of the problems with fracked gas [FG ?] .

  • 3 votes
#2.2 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 3:43 PM EST
Reply
ambivalent

The interesting thing is that the amount of shale gas that is actually available is questionable. We must never stop pushing for clean energy and one of the ways to do that is to use scientific research to continue to prove and make public the dangers of hydrofracturing and environmentally damaging fuels.
Oil and gas and coal are at the center of our world economy, but we are at a moment of change right now(that is tenuous)although it will take a while. I am confident that old ideas will die out with the older generation. We are the ones who must continue to keep pressure up and scientific proof coming.

  • 2 votes
Reply#3 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 6:37 AM EST
mf-3735877

Absolutely we must keep up the pressure and educate the next generations. A good thing this controversy has revealed is the power of ordinary citizens to stop the madness. What we're seeing at the grassroots level here in New York is inspiring and hopeful. This and OWS. If we can stop the fracking then maybe we can keep right on going and get corrupt politicians and greedy corporations out of government.

  • 1 vote
#3.1 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:55 AM EST
Reply
Lebowsky

Great article MF - There are plenty of examples to look at to see the what does happen. Once the water is polluted, it really is too late. That's going to be the biggest example over the next 10 years.

  • 2 votes
Reply#4 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:27 AM EST
mf-3735877

Lebowsky - As the data from existing fracking operations accumulate it continues to confirm our worst fears and more. How many ways can this be wrong and still have our politicians pushing it?

  • 1 vote
#4.1 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:05 AM EST
Lebowsky

We all know what that answer is to the politicians pushing it. There are many ways one could be compensated before, during and after a term. The bottom line is that we are responsible for who gets into office and that's a big job that not enough take seriously. Issues like this help to raise awareness :o)

But like most teenagers, we will be lucky if we live through our adolescence.

  • 2 votes
#4.2 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 12:15 PM EST
Reply
Shelby Davenport

I'm about as anti-fracking as they come. Not because I'm against raping the earth for all of its body fluids, but because after you do, you can't just throw it away and move on. If an entire aquifer is polluted, you can't just shift a major populated area to another place and say, oh well.

I'm against it also, because Cheney's energy policies didn't include those who should have been in the room. I don't think we can believe a thing they say about fracking (and much of anything else, as well), and for the fracking interests NOT to want to be forthright and cautious, well, that tells me everything.

The fight will be getting more intense, more politicized, and the stakes are high. Fight on!

Gasland: A film by Josh Fox

  • 2 votes
Reply#5 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 10:53 AM EST
mf-3735877

the fracking interests NOT to want to be forthright and cautious, well, that tells me everything

And as evidence a GOP congressman had Josh Fox arrested when he recently tried to film a public hearing on fracking (Fox goes to court Feb 15). After Fox was removed the hearing was reported to be a love fest between the GOP congressman and gas interest representatives, and a bashing of the anti-fracking environmentalists.

Wouldn't it be nice to put Cheney in Guantanamo? Instead of water boarding him just give him a big glass of frack-water to drink daily. Wouldn't accomplish anything I know be he sure deserves it.

Anyway we will fight on and we will win!

  • 2 votes
#5.1 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:12 AM EST
Shelby Davenport

Instead of water boarding him just give him a big glass of frack-water to drink daily.

Probably wouldn't faze him!

  • 2 votes
#5.2 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 11:39 AM EST
gramora

Too bad we can't bring a class action law suit against Bush and Cheney for exempting the oil and gas industry from all the Acts put into place to protect our waters. They made sure they couldn't be held accountable for what the industry (their industry) caused. Wouldn't that be similiar to insider trading?

There is an article on the web site www.thinkprogress.org titled "Bombshell Study:High Methane Emissions Measured Over Gas Field "May offset Climate Benefits of Natural Gas". It might be beneficial to your cause.

I found it helpful here in my small town to host a showing of Gasland. You know what they say," A picture is worth a thousand words". I have also been active in writing letters to the editor of our small paper on some of the various issues around fracking. I've been told people are talking about me and I just laugh. If they are talking about me it means I have their attention! At some point they will connect the dots. I'm just planting seeds....

The general public just does not get the enormity of this issue, mainly because they are uninformed. Its up to us to be "good neighbors" and give them information so they can make decisions based on facts, not propaganda. I am praying that common sense isn't completely gone!

I stand with you!

  • 2 votes
#5.3 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 4:47 PM EST
mf-3735877

gramora - Thanks for the encouraging words. At the risk of being talked about I too am trying raise awareness locally and I'm not alone. The site is crude but the commitment great. I just yesterday wrote a letter to our town board.

The article you mentioned has been seeded here and I've commented on it.

I'm noticing the more people learn the more they are against fracking.

  • 2 votes
#5.4 - Sun Feb 12, 2012 5:17 PM EST
Reply
Kavika

mf, great article. Many thanks for posting it. The horrors of fracking are just beginning to dawn on people in many states. Let's keep up the fight.

  • 2 votes
Reply#6 - Mon Feb 13, 2012 12:52 PM EST
mf-3735877

Kavika - Thanks for visiting and we will keep up the fight.

    #6.1 - Mon Feb 13, 2012 8:03 PM EST
    Reply
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