Tag Archives: Fracking

Clean Energy march opens DNC 2016

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Clean Energy March, July 24, 2016
PHILADELPHIA, PA- Sunday’s successful march kickstarted public demonstrations against the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Thousands called for environmental justice on the eve of the nomination of pro-fracking, pro-pipeline, pro-war-for-oil Hillary Clinton. The banner brought by Denver Occupiers “THINK OUTSIDE THE CONVENTION” dominated the photopress coverage, thanks to a great AP image carried around the world. It was a good thing too, because “Clean Energy” is a bit of a muddy concept, isn’t it?

The event was sponsored in part by the Sierra Club and Food and Water Watch, known to accommodate fracking as part of their Big Greens “let’s be realistic” about what what environmental actions can achieve. I’m not convinced that the average tree hugger has come to favor “clean” over the lesser-descript “green”, but energy industrialists cerainly like clean. They’re confident they’ve squarely branded it with natural gas. The clean coal industry is still making a play for it too.

Though the marchers on July 24 were unanimously against fossil fuels, participants may have been hoodwinked into believing they can reclaim the word “clean” from corporate advertizing and its captive media. I doubt it. This is the same argument for reasserting ownership of the American Flag from the America Fuck Yeah pro-war patriots. No. You retire the Swastika, you don’t rebrand it to mean something transformative. Someone pushing to rehabilitate the swastika is a Nazi.

Also typical of demonstrations coordinated by Big Greens, the march on Sunday didn’t go to the DNC. Instead it went Eastward, from City Hall for Independence Hall, for a rally in sweltering heat –and unshaded sun– that will incapacitate many participants from the next day’s march. The Big Greens know from their membership rolls that the average age is elderly.

Yellen, Lagarde, Merkel, & May, already give us a taste of women-led injustice.

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When Hillary Clinton ascends to the US presidency, she’ll join a girls club of world leaders who’ve already shown that the feminine gender doesn’t lack for sociopaths. It may be hard to know whether IMF head Christine Lagarde or FED chair Janet Yellen are mere figureheads or cold-blooded usurers in their own right. The UK’s Theresa May hasn’t had a chance yet to flex her Thatcherism, but few dispute that Angela Merkel’s power is not as authentic as it is heartless. Those Americans campaigning for Hillary Clinton based on the assumption that women leaders could not possibly fail to restore humanity to a capitalist war-ravaged world, are ignoring the maternal instinct already disappointing on the world stage.
 
When the fracking industrialists came to Colorado Springs, they hired a white-haired grandmother to be their liaison to the city council. Predictably her fracking sold like hotcakes, if you’ll pardon the sexist analogy. Hillary is the frackers’ point-person to the unexploited regions of the world regardless of whether they beckon from war zones to be.

Vermin Supreme you’ve been Trumped

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The US-EU capitalist apparatus won’t give you health care, won’t address climate change, won’t stop fracking, won’t quit war, won’t block the TPP, won’t obey international law, won’t respect human rights, won’t own up to inequity, won’t combat racism, won’t curb corporate hegemony, and won’t engage real democracy, but IT WILL mobilize every TOOL in its arsenal to protect you from TRUMP?

#VanillaISIS, Y’AllQaeda, YokelHaram, al-Shabubba waging YeeHawd. Har har there but for the grace of an IQ go you.

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So where’s the solidarity? Yes the Bundy rancher insurrection is a fight for settler colonial privilege, Yes the hunter-soldierers are reenacting the Okies land rush of the Indian Territories. Yes this Cabelas militia is waging #YeeHawd against the gub’mint for every wrong reason. Such as, the God-given right to despoil the commons, and such as. But NO these paleoammosexuals are not “terrorists”. They can’t even pack their own lunch. What they are are dumbass carbon-bigfoots. Their hillbilly occupation is a sidearmed rebellion. That said, the camo-twits have declared war on the US government. That’s closer to the barricades than you’ve ever ventured.

Under cover of stupid, they’ve brought guns. It’s unbecoming but the strategy has averted a shutdown thus far. Guns speak truth to power in the language power understands. And the oafs are trying to protect the people’s land from the BLM. That’s your wet dream for stopping pipelines, fracking, and ecocide. Of course these yokels want to facilitate the plunder of nature, but that’s no different than the corporate media. They’re not villains, they’re the shills.

Please stop complaining that if these white privileged jerks were black they’d get the whipping they’d deserve. What are you, cheerleading for a violent authoritarian response?! Same as with rioting fratboys, you don’t have to love them, just don’t call for their smackdown. The police need to ease up with the heavy hand, not spread the brutality with equal opportunity.

Same as the drunk fratboys, these “patriots” have zero political awareness. They are no emergent right wing, they’re not fascists. The Bundy posse is to political movements what the Westboro Baptist Church was to activism. No resemblance. Poisoned apples to oranges.

Cliven Bundy, like Donald Trump, is a distraction from the real fascistm long firmly entrenched.

Of course these poachers should be run off public land, without a federal show of air suppremacy. Don’t echo the call for imperial airstrikes. Instead of igniting a Waco, let’s wait the yokels out, slap them with fines, expropriate their gear and put them in jail. Setting a forest fires should be severely punished. But don’t let me hear supposed anti-government social media pundits cry for the ass-kicking of these wannabe-brighter insurgents.

A regime which terrorizes the have-less with drones and death squads and war has no business defining what is and isn’t terrorism, least of all the push-back.

#NotMyRevolution #FuckYou. First they came for the dumb yokels, but I was not a dumb yokel so I said nothing. It’s not without irony that the point of Martin Niemoller’s lament escapes you.

Hickenlooper shows Animas River mine waste is as drinkable as fracking fluid.

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Gov. John Hickenlooper drinks from Animas River
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper put on his usual demonstration of drinking a bottle of contaminated water to show that the Animas River is just as potable as FRACKING FLUID. What he has really shown is that the mine waste which the EPA un-dammed from the Gold King Mine into the Animas River was toxic enough to kill GIARDIA. Who drinks river water in Colorado?! The EPA may have unleashed the waste seeping from a mine closed in 1928, but the extraction industry that created it is still hard at work making more.

Viewed from Interstate 70, Kansas is the selfie of American Idiocracy

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Post office in KansasTOPEKA, KANSAS- Who’s not in Kansas anymore? Anyone with a lick of sense. I crossed the state recently to find the western half riddled with fracked well heads, billboards condemning abortion, tollbooths on the interstate, police cruisers extorting drivers, and privatized postal services! I told the tollbooth attendant I didn’t think much of Kansas, I meant its dumbfuck Kansans.

Susan G. Komen fracks for cancer cure. If they’re drilling for the cause, they’re getting warmer

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pink-washingPINKWASHING has sunk to new depths with mercenary NGO Susan G. Komen of “Race for the Cure” endorsing pink-painted drilling bits used for oil and gas hydraulic fracturing. AS IF they don’t know that toxins which abound in fracking fluids are among the causes of cancer. The pink drill bits are perhaps sloppiness on the part of the NGO, as it recently announced a last ditch blitz to find a cancer cure by 2020. Cancer is a disease like alcoholism is a disease. We know its cause. The cure is to cut it off at the source.

Fracked Gas – the Other Fossil Fuel

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YES, Colorado Springs is so dumb, its local renewable energy fans had to rename themselves green energy advocates after they were called out for promoting NATURAL GAS! UnNatural Gas is not renewable and, guess what, it’s not green either. Of course even the Sierra Club got taken in by the natural gas frackers, and I’m not convinced 350.ORG isn’t equally soft. The upcoming People’s Climate March in New York City features among its speakers President Obama’s faux eco radical Van Jones who tours the country pitching a green jobs revolution equal parts solar panels and fracking rigs. Not only is the gas extraction process more injurious to the atmosphere than coal, on top of the unsustainable contamination of hydraulic fracturing, but “natural gas” is among the fuel reserves which scientists insist must be left untapped if Earth has any hope of mitigating climate change. Eco moderates harp about our economy needing gas as a transition fuel. Ironically the Climate Transition does not need our economy.

My impatience with not so anti frackers

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I’d tell you I’ve had it up to here with moderate turncoats, but of late I’ve resolved to keep them well underfoot. Take the local fight against FRACKING.
 
We’ve built a pretty determined group of fractivists in Colorado Springs, with healthy allies statewide, and in the interest of growth began to make alliances with less hardy participants who have unseemly strong opinions considering their otherwise unproven skills, stamina, and motives. Their most common denominator however is that they do not hold firmly oppositional positions to the oil & gas industry; they consider themselves more diplomatic than radical which by their own assumption will prove more successful. Except, no.

The conviction of moderates is so strong that they compromise not one iota, and isn’t it the same with every political issue? The centrists rule the roost, blind to the fact that their promises deliver absolutely nothing, every time. Yet their goals always look more attainable because they’re “reasonable.” Fuck ’em. Maybe they don’t even know it but they serve to preserve things as they are.

Some of these types appear highly effective in their personal affairs and so reach positions of influence in activist circles, ironically because they have gained a lot of that experience running in place. Some of them are professional, they’re paid whether they get anywhere or not, and it’s not difficult to deduce that their jobs are gone if the mission is accomplished. It’s also not beyond the pale that some are obstructionist, by nature or contract, but to speculate is irrelevant because the solution is much easier and occurs to anyone who’s true to his or her principles: dismiss all the semi-principled outright.

What I do find tiring is having to explain to newcomers, stepping into the conflict between activists and inactivists, that such implacable moderation does not get movements anywhere, it’s a lazy option that detracts from our real efforts, and very likely it wasn’t what drew newcomers to the movement either.

In truth before I joined the fight, there was opposition to fracking, it was faint, it was token, and it was prepared to capitulate. Those voices are around still, at the ready to wave the white flag. Why we welcome them as allies I do not understand, they are worse than worthless. By which I mean they are every bit as harmful as the corrupt administrators, the greedy frackers, or the pro-industry buffoons. And let’s also not dismiss the evidence that industry operatives are manipulating the divisions between community organizers, making the effect of the vacillators worse. Now I’m ready to give you the skinny on our city’s anti and not so anti fracking forces, so you’ll know where to lend your energy when the next assault begins.

BIDDER 70 doc reduces super-activist Tim DeChristopher to a number, lonely

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BUMMER. I was thrilled a documentary would tell the world about Tim DeChristopher. You might think his achievement would be more widely know. It’s a testament of the power he’s up against, added to the meager support he has received, that even here I have to explain who he is and what he did. Tired of the futility of outdoor protests to prevent BLM land sales to the extraction industry, Tim DeChristopher attended an auction of particularly dubious legitimacy and successfully thwarted it by posing as a bidder and buying many of the lots. This happened at the close of Bush’s presidency, but Obama’s administration pursued a successful prosecution. DeChristopher has just been released after serving two years in federal prison. The documentary “Bidder 70” recounts the ordeal in a manner that provides neither encouragement nor inspiration, and leaves me to question how DeChristopher might have been better represented in court, publicized in actions, and celebrated in film. To say Bidder 70 reduces Tim DeChristopher to a number distorts the idiom. No mere number, DeChristopher is the important but solitary number one, among a casualty count always rising. In the sea of ineffectual activism that prompted his improvisational escalation, DeChristopher emerges more singular than when he started, but that’s to judge based on a flawed documentary. Hardly an surprising result.

It’s certainly armchair quarterbacking to suggest Tim DeChristopher’s legal team failed him miserably, likewise his publicity crew, but I can unequivocally conclude that DeChristopher would have served the environmental movement much more successfully had he been free to apply his imagination and energies, literally. Jail time helped Mandela, MLK and Thoreau, but that’s because you heard about it. The makers of “Bidder 70” can’t be faulted for their subject’s obscurity, but they are applying themselves to sealing his fate with coffin nails.

“Bidder 70” has major shortcomings: you are left with an informed impression that one, there is nothing to be done, two, you don’t want to do it in prison, and three, our collective impotence is inescapable. What’s the point then of attending the movie?

Of all the questions left for a post-screening Q&A, probably one should not be whether the subject is other than he appears. Explain this, how does a protagonist gain inspiration from being told there’s nothing to be done, by a Nobel Prize winner, whom he believes and holds as his mentor? Everyone loves a good challenge, but DeChristopher comes off as a poor listener. Nothing? I’ll see your nothing and raise you nothing. Futile? Count me in! Everyone loves an underdog, but he gathers no recruits.

Never mind his in-denial heroics, the audience takeaway is that his cause is lost. This is swiftly reinforced with the story of Tim DeChristopher’s road less traveled to prison. Offered encouragement by other activists who’ve served time, who we’ve also not heard of, it’s painted to be a fate of unimaginable awfulness and given an ominous soundtrack.

Who could not to admire Tim DeChristopher and respect his dedication and courage? The filmmakers painted in super-heroic light, notwithstanding his irrational adjustments, and so their thematic choice look awfully suspect. Are we likely to learn that they’re new to activism and have no idea what does or doesn’t motivate?

Filmed between 2009 and 2011 and released last year, “Bidder 70” makes no mention of “fracking.” The environmental movement has been literally bursting with opposition to hydraulic fracturing and these filmmakers were at the forefront of the national rallies. This omission is juxtaposed with a clip of 350’s Bill McKibbon praising the consumption of natural gas over coal.

Threat of Atmel plant closure prompts city council to rescind support of solar farm, on Earth Day

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COLO. SPRINGS- I told the gentleman from Atmel who trolled the city council meeting, this would be my headline: ATMEL KILLS SOLAR IN COLORADO SPRINGS. Prompted by his threat to ship Atmel jobs to Malaysia if a 0.25% utilities rate hike went into effect, the Colorado Springs City Council voted today, inauspiciously the day after Earth Day, to rescind their minuscule subsidy of a community solar farm program. Apparently Atmel is the city’s largest utilities customer, so when Atmel whines, CSU grovels. Actually their rep turns up at every discussion of renewable energy or water restrictions and he’s against everything. Colorado Springs is the coal ash belching, Fountain Creek polluting, burnt foothills, diminished community services, low-tax haven it is today thanks to Atmel and its Tea Party posse.

Working a token solar power start-up into the utility grid would result in a rate increase of 10¢ for monthly energy bill of $100, or 60¢ per $200. Semiconductor manufacturer Atmel faced a potential $6,000 increase per month, enough to jeopardize the multimillion dollar operation according them. It’s the same Powerpoint presentation they conjure when the city’s inquiring about wind turbines or scrubbers on the aging coal plant or solar or water rate hikes.

An Atmel facility in California sources its energy from solar, at a rate of 16¢ per whatever, but our local rate of 3¢ is too high for our local Atmel. He kept saying he was “for solar” but when pressed he answered “but not in Colorado Springs.” You wonder if his headquarters knows their Atmel guy is being such a regressive douche. I plan to inquire.

The vote today meant that Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU) will not implement its tariff planned for May 1st, which solar startup SUNSHARES had been counting on for its financing.

The public turnout at today’s meeting was two thirds in favor of solar power and one third against. (Measured by body weight the two sides were equal. It’s probably no surprise that environmental minded citizens know how to eat sustainably too. The two factions kept to separate sides of the room which was how I formed my size-ist observation.) The pro-solar folk represented themselves, common citizens, but those speaking against solar bore titles with advocacy groups like Americans For Prosperity, Citizens for Affordable Energy, and, get this, the Clean Energy Coalition, which bills itself as the largest advocacy network for renewable energy, but surprise, they’re against solar! Well, not one dared to say they were against solar, in fact they all prefaced their remarks with “I’m for solar, but–“. Their coordinator, noxious AFP henchman Sean Paige explained that climate science is “faith based” and in fact, resistance to fracking is also faith-based. All the anti talking points were boilerplate climate denial crap. Manufacturing solar panels pollutes (what about manufacturing fossil fuel equipment?), renewable energy costs jobs, yada yada. There was even an economics professor from Colorado College, who asserted that solar power was bad for the economy. Weird.

Of course the new slate of city councilors bought it. What has already emerged to be a cabal of mouth breathers conceived of this plan yesterday, EARTH DAY, to rescind their initial foray into solar energy, and today they entertained informed comments from the public and ignored them.

Colorado Extraction Resistance claims responsibility for gas balloon attack on gas frackers

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balloons
DENVER, COLORADO- Organizers of an annual oil and gas industry conference held at the Grand Hyatt on Monday and Tuesday tried to prevent public interruption of their let’s frack Colorado discussion. They tried to ignore protesters outside. They revoked the admissions passes granted to activists who wanted to attend the open segment of the conference designed for public consumption. They didn’t count on the COLORADO EXTRACTION RESISTANCE to successfully negotiate the heightened security and deliver gas balloons to gas frackers convening in the ballroom.

Attached to the balloons, which swiftly lifted to the ceiling neatly beyond reach, were noisemakers which accentuated the shouts of the Extraction Resisters shouting “Ban Fracking Everywhere!” Most of the interlopers escaped but one was manhandled, his head slammed against the wall, and arrested for wielding balloons. In a dispiriting twist, attendees conspiring to frack the shit out of Colorado were not arrested, though the gases which leak from their wells pose a more eminent public threat than helium.

The successful interruption prompted a spirited protest outside, where conference attendees were heckled and passersby were warned to pay special care as they passed the Grand Hyatt, at that moment sheltering eco-terrorists from citizens arrest.
(UPDATE: Now read their account and full DIY instructions!)

This rock could change the world if thrown through the right window

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Time Magazine coverBy “power the world” does Time Magazine mean HEAT IT?! To a rolling boil? –How incredibly inane. This piece of rock’s jagged asymmetry (probably to differentiate it from a lump of coal – the other fossil fuel) and its other-earthly lighting, mean to suggest shale has a meteoric value. The disingenuous cover story, “why shale can solve the energy crisis”, is a curve ball pretending the problem is supply not demand, and FRACKING is the hero not the terminator. Let’s throw this projectile back like we would ordinary crowd control ordnance deployed to disorient waking masses. I think it’s fitting that Time has given its cover to a rock. In the hands of children it’s the bane of US and Israeli occupiers, it’s what defended Tahrir Square, and it will probably be the only sidearm we’ll be left to bear as our own occupiers try to forestall global revolution. But it’s enough.

Now Colorado College students have to ask permission if they want to protest

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COLORADO COLLEGE- How do you protest having to seek permission to protest? Do it without. But Colorado College students learned on Wednesday that protesters risk arrest for trespassing: trespassing on the private property of a private college ostensibly protecting the non-dissenting students from having to see dissent. It would be interesting to see college administrators have to explain that on their campus, the freedom to speak didn’t include the freedom to hear.

Fracking protest message at Denver 350 rally cuts through nebulous “Forward on Climate” theme

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DENVER, COLORADO- Score another success for Colorado Fractivists who crashed this weekend’s climate rally with their unequivocal anti-fracking message. The February 17 event was intended to urge President Obama “Forward on Climate”, to borrow his most recent campaign vagarity, but when official speeches began, and the prefab signs were distributed, it became unclear who might be trying to co-opt whom.

Gas
The 350.ORG sponsored march, coinciding with a rally and civil disobedience in DC, called specifically for a halt to the Keystone XL Pipeline and Tar Sands extraction which climate scientists have dubbed “game over” for hopes of averting climate disaster, but the dominant signage spoke vaguely of “Climate Action” and “It’s Time to Cut Carbon” and “Big Coal Makes Us Sick”, all of which are slogans used by proponents of natural gas. 350-ORG has been raising awareness of the imperative to reduce carbon emissions, while recognizing that the groundswell driving environmentalists across the country is opposition to oil & gas hydraulic fracturing.

It’s all the same fight to reduce burning of fossil fuels, but moderate allies like the Sierra Club haven’t been prepared to denounce their new-found bed partners urging consumers to get “Beyond Coal.” To her credit, local 350-ORG coordinator Micah Parkin incorporated fractivist groups into the Feb 17 rally, but Democratic Party panderers didn’t get the memo. A representative read a letter of support from Senator Michael Bennet and was able to sneak past: “I stand with Obama” and even “in favor of US energy independence” although that’s code for oil & gas exports, dependent on construction of the XL pipeline. But when Mark Udall’s representative referred to “clean burning natural gas” the crowd booed. Even as he pleaded “we’re on your side,” the crowd wouldn’t relent, making sure his takeaway would be that fracking compounded global warming, among its other horrors.

The highlight of the rally occurred immediately afterward when the master of ceremonies, a twelve-year-old rapper and member of the Boulder based Earth Guardians, thanked Udall’s rep affably but then assured the audience that “of course there’s no such thing as clean natural gas!”


Occupy
A word about Occupy Denver’s part in Sunday’s march. Occupiers took the black-tie invitation to heart and turned up in black bloc attire with bandanas and balaclavas. OD then pushed the envelope to the consternation of parade marshals, stepping into the street at one point, blocking cars at another, in the spirit of their banner which read “ONLY DIRECT ACTION WILL STOP THE PIPELINE.”

To what end, creating friction during an event otherwise running smoothly? Who knows. The demonstration was uneventful and garnered scant media attention. Mixing it up might have helped, or not. The turnout was large but not up for a confrontation. Occupy didn’t push it.

The irony of 350-ORG supporters being upset by the antics of the Occupiers, was that behind the masks were many activists who’d actually gone to Texas to stop the XL pipeline, who’d gotten arrested, some out on $25,000 bond. How unfortunate that those troublemakers weren’t recognized from the stage. It was a real missed opportunity, this having been a rally to, um, STOP THE PIPELINE. These rowdy boring-party crashers were actually its unsung, veritable heroes. What the crowd wanted to mistake for infantile grandstanding, was really the infantile audacity that stops pipelines. Yes you get in trouble if you step off the sidewalk. Do you think the police are going to let you stop the pipeline?

Manitou Indian Center yet Idle No More

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MANITOU SPRINGS- Idle No More organizers from Denver and Pueblo woke the sleepy local Native American community with a spirited gathering on Saturday, smack in the middle of Manitou, neath the town clock, only blocks from the CS Indian Center.

Gazette not only blocks story of local fracking protest, but assigns goon to disrupt it

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City Hall, December 11, 2012
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.- This past Tuesday saw the largest demonstration yet against oil and gas drilling in Colorado Springs and the ugly practice of hydraulic fracturing. Several dozen fractivists allied with Colorado Springs Citizens for Community Rights (CSCCR) and Occupy were joined on the steps of City Hall by Colorado College students who’d marched from their campus with banners and posters denouncing fracking. You didn’t hear about it did you? After the rally everyone filled the council chamber to give 3-minute personal testimonials that ran for two hours. That too went unreported, in particular by the Gazette, who had two reporters in the room, one who’d conducted interviews, and both who took notes during the presentations. But neither produced a story — an odd dereliction of responsibility you might say. Even more odd was the role played by Gazette editorial page writer Wayne Laugesen who ultimately opined on the city council’s decision to postpone their vote, as “caving to anti-energy activists”, offering no details. Laugesen actually interjected himself into the rally outside as a lone counter-protester, interrupting interviews being filmed for TV stations KRDO and KKTV. When they asked Laugesen to let them do their job, the goon replied that he was doing his. So the Gazette was not satisfied to blackout reports of the community rally, but aimed to sabotage it as well.

Whose job was Wayne Laugesen doing exactly? Was he confusing his publisher for the overseers who hold his tether: the pro-industry PR mill Americans For Prosperity? It could be. But the Gazette is now hardly distinguishable from contract stink-tank corporate profiteering advocacy. When conservative mummies Freedom Communications supervised the Gazette, the pretense was tax-cutting, tax-dodging libertarianism. The Gazette’s new owner made his billions in corrupt oil, real estate and privatization schemes, so prospects are looking dim for the region’s daily paper to offer authentic news. Having their editorial hit-man on the ground as a pretend grass root weed killer is a disturbing development that must not go unchallenged.

Contrast the Gazette blackout and the relatively tepid coverage by the weekly Independent, with the monthly African American Voice which gave the previous anti-fracking rally a front-page, full color, two-page article, whose theme accurately accused the city council of being “out of touch with the community.” AAV publisher James Tucker has participated in several of the rallies and understands whose interest he represents.

On the other hand, Tuesday was the umpteenth time the Gazette has ignored the rising community effort to oppose the oil and gas lobby. For many months of city council meetings, Gazette correspondent Daniel Chacon has dutifully sat at his stenographer’s seat and witnessed testimony after testimony from community voices without reporting a single one. On one particularly contentious council meeting in November, Chacon summarized the council’s decision without mentioning the overwhelming community presence.

This Tueday’s voices were joined by EPA-whistleblower Wes Wilson and environmental activist Phil Doe, who’d come from Denver to testify before the Colorado Springs council. Phil Doe made an earnest plea for council to support the people of Longmont, who had just succeeded in voting in a ban against facking. It seemed an improbable request, to ask the Springs city council to back the people of Longmont, while council opposed supporting their own. But Doe’s request highlighted the incongruity of our council’s stand. Would they take the side of the oil industry against the electorally established will of the people of Longmont? How utterly undemocratically corrupt of them if they do not.

But that’s council, and there is still time for their constituents to pin their ears if they continue to pretend their only masters are the oil players. With his gentle logic, Phil Doe offered city council a redemption it can’t refuse. Unless of course, his act and their response goes unreported.

It’s time the Gazette is called out for what it is, not just a propaganda arm for regional kleptocrats, but a corporate mercenary spoiler, willing to stoop to unprecedented lows to fowl public well-being.

One man’s war hero is another’s snitch. Iraqi informant Jasim Mohammed Ramadon is also an American rapist.

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.– Haha. Iraqi “war hero” Jasim Mohammed “Steve-O” Ramadon was granted asylum in the US after snitching on his countrymen, his tribe, and own father, as a youth informer for the US Army. An American soldier brought Ramadon back to Ft. Carson and praised him as a war hero in his memoir. Now Ramadan has been getting himself into trouble for drunk driving and beating women. Recently, he and four other Iraqi expats were arrested for the violent sexual assault of a neighbor, probably the everyday rape M.O. of American soldiers in occupied lands. I’m laughing because while Ramadon betrayed his dad, beat his girlfriend, and now faces charges of rape, local teabag Red White & Blue guy Jim Cross stepped forward as character witness for Ramadon, saying “his heart is in the right place.” Does being a conservative jingoist mean you have to hit every sour note?
 
I was reminded of Cross today because our City Hall fracking protest was interrupted by the stereotypical blimp-neck sticking his smartphone in our faces with lame gotcha questions, beginning with the usual insincere “So what’s this about?” Today’s idiot was no brighter than Cross, and thought he’d caught us up because we protested oil drilling yet drove there burning fossil fuels. These guys are almost worth having cameras turned on them, so dopey are their leading questions and smug oversimplifications. This one seemed too dumb to actually be of interest, but it turns out we could have unmasked a local media bully. I learned only later that our camera-wielding heckler was the Gazette’s editorialist Wayne Laugesen. So now I’ve confirmed my suspicion that Mr. Laugesen’s relentlessly backward editorials must be cribbed verbatim from right-wing PR mills. For all their nauseating inanity, the editorials are too consistent with the corporate talking points to emit from the moron we saw today. Of course, one man’s idiot is a ditto-head’s intellectual. Laugesen trailed us as we walked to lunch, but filmed it like we were running away from his lard ass.

Oil and Gas Lies

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From Lotus: The oil & gas industry is similar to the tobacco industry – almost everything it tells us is a lie. It has even hired the same PR firm as the tobacco industry used. The biggest lie, and one that the Colorado Springs City Council has accepted, is that local governments cannot legally stop oil and gas drilling.

Pittsburg Pennsylvania and eight other local governments across the US have successfully stopped oil and gas drilling by the use of a rights ordinance. Rather than challenging a state statute, a rights based ordinance is based on our basic rights to things like health, clean water, air and soil. Our basic rights are higher law than the laws passed by the State of Colorado.

It is easy to prove that this rights based ordinance approach works. Just go to CELDF, then to Resources, then ordinances. Or contact the mayor of Pittsburgh, or watch the movie The Sky Is Pink.

Because our City Council was given bad legal advice, the City Oil & Gas Committee it created did not focus much attention on the dangerous practice of fracking, nor evaluate its effect on our health, ground water, air and soil.

Based on comments made by Councilors Val Snider and Scott Hente it seems unlikely that when the Committee’s recommendations are considered by the City Council on July 10 that discussion about fracking will be allowed. Comments about fracking will be allowed during Citizen Discussion.

Many within our City only see dollar signs, but the facts are that France, Germany, Bulgaria and Vermont have banned fracking; South African professor Tonder says contamination from fracking well casings will be one of the biggest water pollution disasters in the world, Cornell professor Ingraffea says 60% of well casings leak after 20 years, eventually 100% will leak; Dr. Tom Myers says fluid migration into aquifers will occur even without casing failures, and faster than almost anyone thought; a health study of Garfield County says people living within less than half a mile of fracked wells have a 66 percent greater chance of developing cancer, and the dangers to people are moderate to high.

This Is Nuts: Colorado Springs Public Input Gagged On Gas and Oil Fracking

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Just in from Lotus: This is nuts. Not only is it nuts to allow a mostly unregulated, major polluting industry inside a city of half a million people, but also citizens are being largely gagged on this issue. Oil and gas drilling is dangerous! 60% of well casings in Pennsylvania leaked over a 20 year time span. A new study indicates that fluid migration into aquifers will occur, and faster than almost anyone thought. An increasing number of scientists are now coming forward with similar warnings.

The Health Impact Assessment for Battlement Mesa, Garfield County Colorado concluded that people living within half a mile of fracked wells have a 66 percent greater chance of developing cancer.

A presentation by the Sierra Club called Fracking in Colorado What are the impacts? says that the dangerous chemicals used pose a long term health risk to workers and local communities.

The oil and gas industry has been exempted from most of the Safe Drinking Water Act and is not typically covered under the Clean Air Act. See Affirming Gasland. The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission is understaffed and very weak on regulation.

Public officials are often afraid to pass strong regulations for fear of a law suit. However, whatever has been used to regulate the oil and gas companies previously is legal now, and at least two important Colorado court cases were won by local governments. An example of a local Colorado government with very strong regulations is Saguache County; and Saguache has NO oil and gas drilling! Another local government with strong regulations located in Texas is Flower Mound.

City Council’s Oil and Gas Committee during its 13 meetings allowed no public input. The May 24 “town hall meeting” was very controlled except toward the end of the meeting. There will be NO hearing on what may be the most important decision this community will ever face.

Council President Scott Hente said in an email recently in reference to the June 26 Council Meeting, “I plan to limit comments to 3 minutes.” It also appears that comments will only be allowed on what the Committee has recommended.

At the May 24 meeting when a member of the audience said he was tired of hearing people say we cannot regulate this or that or we might be sued, and that he thought our health, water, air, and soil are worth suing over, there was a very loud ovation far louder than any other.

At least 7 communities across the US, including Pittsburgh, have avoided a court battle and yet prevented oil and gas drilling by the use of an ordinance based on civil and community rights to health, clean water, air, soil etc. See CELDF, Ben Price.

A C S Gazzette poll on 5-25-12 asked: Will windmills, solar gadgets and other non-traditional energy sources wean us off fossil fuels in the next 30 years? A whopping 68% said yes! Surveys done by our local utility have had similar results. The fact is that we could save trillions of dollars and transition to a solar, wind and other renewables economy fairly quickly. But we do need to stop the massive subsidies to fossil fuels and nuclear power. See Scientific American, Nov, 2009; ; and Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins ; and Renewable Communities.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

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Our colleague Lotus has initiated some fruitful correspondence on the subject of the still-impending fracking of the Pikes Peak region. In light of the City’s abrupt cancellation of the May 17 public hearing, we’ll present excerpts of his emails and telephone notes here.

Are Colorado Springs Citizens Being Gagged On Fracking Issue?

The fracking hearing was cancelled. The more I learn about how the fracking issue is being dealt with in Colorado Springs, the more it looks like citizens have very little room for input. This even seems to be true of the way the City Council Advisory Committee on fracking was run – very little room for public input.

The letter from Councilman Val Snider below seems to be saying that the public will only be allowed to respond to the recommendations of the advisory committee, will not be allowed general input concerning the issue of fracking.

It appears that 4-5 people from Huerfano/Las Animas Counties, who have been harmed by fracking, may be willing to speak to the city council and the public here in Colorado Springs. But the process seems to be so closed that it does not appear likely that these people who were harmed will be allowed to speak, allowed to warn people here in Colorado Springs what may be in store for them if they allow fracking in Colorado Springs. The informal Council meetings do not allow for public input. The formal meeting only allow for 3 minutes of input on subjects not on the agenda. And what will be on the agenda may not allow for general input, will be limited to discussion of the recommendations of the committee.

I read articles about how the El Paso County Commission dealt with fracking, and they ignored the recommendations of their own planning commission when they watered down their regulations. Where is the protection of our water, land and air when it comes to fracking? There does not seem to be much of any.

Lotus

From Colorado Springs City Councilman Val Snyder:

Hi Lotus,

The city will not be having any public meetings on fracking. The city will have public meetings on the recommendations of the Oil and Gas Committee on areas of potential regulation for oil and gas activities. The first public meeting on this is May 24, 6-8pm, at the City Administration Building.

There will be opportunities for public comment before City Council, as the potential oil and gas regulations work their way through the process. The first is tentatively scheduled for June 12, a formal Council meeting.

…

Thank you for your writing.

Val

From a telephone conversation with May Jensen:

Anti-Fracking Info From Mary Jensen & Other Info
(From my notes, so hope is accurate.)

I have been wondering why people from other communities who have been harmed by fracking (their land, water, personally, etc) have not been asked to speak to the local Colorado Springs City Council, El Paso County Commissioners, etc. So I finally located the author of a letter to the editor of the CS Independent, Mary Jensen, who has a doctorate in applied clinical nutrition.

Mary Jensen’s March 8-14, 2012 email:

Fracking concoction by Mary Jensen:

Across the state and the country, there is documented evidence of wells being contaminated by chemicals used in oil and gas fracking. Yet Gov. John Hickenlooper recently demonstrated how supposedly safe fracked water is by taking “a swig of it.”

I am incensed at the example he’s setting — playing Russian roulette by drinking water that may or may not have been sanitized for a cheap publicity stunt. He need only look as far as his own state to see the irreparable harm done to our people, our livestock, our air, our water and our lands.
Here are some materials Hickenlooper might have ingested in his fracked beverage:

• Benzene, a powerful bone-marrow poison (aplastic anemia) associated with leukemia, breast and uterine cancer. It may also cause fatigue, skin and mucous membrane irritation, and narcotic behavior including lightheadedness, disorientation, loss of consciousness and coma.

• Styrene, which may cause eye and mucous membrane irritation, neurotoxic effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems, loss of consciousness and death.

• Toluene, which may cause muscular incoordination, tremors, hearing loss, dizziness, vertigo, emotional instability and delusions, liver and kidney damage, and anemia — besides potential harm to developing fetuses.

• Xylene, with cancer-causing and neurotoxic effects, which can cause reproductive abnormalities and death through respiratory or cardiac arrest. More toxic than benzene and toluene!

• Methylene chloride, which may cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, central nervous system disorders and worse.

• Or any of more than 1,000 other safe “food additives” used by the oil and gas industry.

Hickenlooper is welcome to come down to Huerfano and Las Animas counties to talk with the ranchers and other folks who have been irreparably damaged by these poisons.

— Mary Jensen, Ph.D.

From telephone conversation with Mary Jensen on 5-12-12:

Mary especially emphasized that we should get Josh Joswick to speak to our elected leaders. Josh Joswick: commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say-1968302.php

Josh Joswick is now a Staff Organizer, Oil and Gas Issues the San Juan Citizens Alliance Staff Organizer, Colorado Energy Issues josh@sanjuancitizens.org Josh brings nearly 20 years of experience in dealing with the oil and gas industry to the position of Oil and Gas Issues Organizer. He served three terms as a La Plata County Commissioner from January 1993 to January 2005; in that capacity, locally he worked to see that La Plata County’s oil and gas land use regulations were not only enforced but expanded to protect surface owners’ rights. Josh has dealt with numerous agencies, and legislative and Congressional elected officials, to uphold the rights of local governments to exercise their land use authority as it pertained to oil and gas development, and to assert the right of local government to address with the environmental impacts of oil and gas development.

http://www.sanjuancitizens.org/otherpages/contact.shtml

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Mary Jensen said there are probably at least 4-5 people who have been adversely affected by fracking that would be willing to travel to Colorado Springs in order to speak to the Council. Many people have gone to court and signed a settlement that they later learned prevents them from speaking to the press. Many of these people have spent everything they have fighting the fracking companies in court.

Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets
http://truth-out.org/news/item/9004-silencing-communities-how-the-fracking-industry-keeps-its- secrets

See attached two page fracking information add that was run in the LaVeta Signature and Huerfano County Journal. Organizers paid over $2,000 for these adds.

Mary mentioned that 6 people in her area have died of brain cancer, and another person has brain cancer.

Mary Jensen went on to say that she had heard that drilling down around Trinidad was disastrous in terms of contaminating many wells, but she did not have specifics. Her understanding is that the gas company declared bankruptcy and walked away from it all. (Contaminated wells are not likely to be usable for 100 years.)

In one of the Gazette articles, see below, it said that the Colorado Springs moratorium on fracking ends May 31, 2012. (A reason to extend the moratorium would be in order to provide more time to revise the regulatory structure.)

Mary said that fracking, this dangerous method of oil and gas extraction, is not more effective than simply drilling for oil and gas. Read: Deborah Rogers Transcript of “In Their Own Words: Examining Shale Gas Hype”

http://preservethefingerlakes.org/?p=127

Mary said that there is now a network of 14 anti-fracking organizations. The contact for getting on the Grassroots EnErgy activist Network (GREEN) is Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com

The CHC website is http://www.huerfanofrack.com/.

Also there is going to be a Colorado Grassroots Fractivist Summit, Jun 9, 2012

Mary stated that it was important that I visit the website TEDX http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php and learn about the 600+ chemical used in fracking hundreds of which adversely affect the endocrine system.

http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/home.php

Mary said another important resource on fracking is A Primer for Local Governments on Environmental Liability

http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/environment/envliabprim.pdf

She said that the president of Citizens for Huerfano County, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com , would be able to provide me with access to this document. The CHC website is
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/

On http://www.huerfanofrack.com/ I located POW: Protect Our Wells appears to be a mainly Colorado Springs based group. The president is Sandy Martin, 719-351-1640, sandra@protectourwells.org .

Other board members also seem to have CS area phone numbers

http://www.protectourwells.org/ ,
http://www.protectourwells.org/BOD.html .
http://www.huerfanofrack.com/
also listed the Sierra Club
http://rmc.sierraclub.org/ppg/
and Green Cities Coalition, which I am already familiar with.
http://www.greencitiescoalition.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=88&Itemid=30

Both of these organizations have people on the committee advising the Colorado Springs City Council on fracking.

Mary said that Perry Cabot from Colorado State University in Pueblo was helping people in her area with base line water studies. These are needed in order to later prove well contamination.

Mary said the Land Owner’s Guide To Oil and Gas Development by the Oil and Gas Accountability Project was another important document. And also the book Oil and Gas At Your Door: 970-259-3353.

Citizens for Huerfano County President, Kelly Kringel, kkringel@gmail.com, asked in an email if I knew Mary Talbott. I do not, so I did a search and came up with:

Mary Talbott & fracking issue:

Commissioner to energy company: ‘We’re scared of you’

http://www.gazette.com/articles/drilling-127253-county-approved.html

Citizens, county respond to frack attack

(Talbott, who is retired from the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment and does not live near prospective drill sites)

County, city leaders to get a present on Tuesday

(She plans to hand them a copy of “Split Estate,” a 75-minute DVD about drilling issues in Rifle, Colo. )

http://thecountyseat.freedomblogging.com/tag/el-paso-county-commissioners/

Talbott presented fracking report to El Paso County Board of Health (bottom p 3)

http://www.elpasocountyhealth.org/sites/default/files/11_14_11_Minutes.pdf

What has happened in El Paso County…Majority of Commissioners Ignored head of own planning commission, and the recommendations of the Commission!

Gazette article:

County adopts slimmed-down oil and gas regulations

ANDREW WINEKE
THE GAZETTE

http://www.gazette.com/articles/talbott-129368-denver-citizens.html

El Paso County commissioners on Tuesday narrowly approved a basic set of regulations to govern oil and gas drilling in the county.

The Board of County Commissioners voted 3-2 to approve a proposal that was significantly scaled down from what the county’s planning commission approved earlier this month. The regulations govern transportation, emergency response, noxious weeds and, controversially, water quality issues related to drilling.

Commissioners Peggy Littleton and Darryl Glenn objected to the water quality regulations, arguing that the county was overstepping its authority because the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission also regulates drilling-related water issues.

“I think it would be irresponsible for us to open ourselves up to lawsuits,” Littleton said.
The Attorney General’s Office and oil and gas commission director Dave Neslin have expressed concern over the county’s proposed rules, both in the version approved by the planning commission and a trimmed-down version the county’s planning staff developed last week, arguing that the county can’t regulate areas where the state has its rules in place.

However, commissioners Amy Lathen, Sallie Clark and Dennis Hisey said that water quality was too important to leave up to the state.

“I really don’t mind pushing the envelope when it comes to our water quality,” Hisey said.
The water quality monitoring regulations adopted by the county are similar to what the oil and gas commission has agreed to in other counties, requiring wells to be monitored initially for a baseline measurement and then at one, three, and six-year intervals after drilling begins.

The commissioners scrapped most of the rules proposed by the planning commission, including measures that would have governed setbacks from structures and property lines, mitigation of visual impacts and noise and impacts to wildlife. The commissioners will instead try to address those issues by working with the oil and gas commission on an intergovernmental agreement.

Getting some kind of oil and gas regulations in place was vitally important for the county, since a moratorium on oil and gas permits expired at midnight Tuesday and the county had no other regulations in place. Houston-based Ultra Resources has applied to drill six wells in El Paso County, four in unincorporated parts of the county and two more in Banning Lewis Ranch, inside the Colorado Springs city limits. The city imposed its own moratorium and set up a task force to study oil and gas regulations. The task force plans to make a recommendation to City Council by early May.
All of this was decided in a meeting that stretched nearly nine hours Tuesday. Several dozen speakers weighed in on the proposed regulations on each side of the issue.

Jeff Cahill, who lives near the Corral Bluffs Open Space, said that the proposed drilling has already hurt his property values and made it difficult for he and his wife to sell their home.
“They say they’re not going to impact us,” he told the commission. “Well, they’ve already impacted me.”

Steve Hicks, chairman of the El Paso County planning commission, urged the commission to pass more stringent regulations such as those approved by the planning commission.

“At times, there needs to be extra regulation where the state doesn’t go far enough, and this is one of them,” he said.

Other speakers praised the economic potential of expanded oil and gas development in the county.
Bob Stovall recounted his experience as an oil and gas lawyer and a city attorney in Farmington, N.M.

“Air is pretty clean there. Water is pretty clean there – and that’s after 100 years of oil and gas,” he said. “If oil and gas is around in this county, it could be good for us and it can be done well.”

Tisha Conoly Schuller, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the county’s new regulations were a good framework to build on.

“The El Paso County commissioners made significant progress today,” she said. “The rules passed are 90 percent within the guidance provided by the Attorney General. There are still a couple of important issues to work through, but I am confident that the county is serious about finding common ground, and after seeing the progress made today, we will continue to work toward county regulations that are protective of the environment and within the scope of the county’s jurisdiction.”

Read more:

http://www.gazette.com/articles/county-132696-water-quality.html#ixzz1ujNiqAjK

Split Estate: an eye-opening examination of the consequences and conflicts that can arise between surface land owners in the western United States, and those who own and extract the energy and mineral rights below. http://splitestate.com/

http://www.splitestate.com/video_clips.html
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?rh=n%3A2625373011%2Ck%3Asplit+estate+dvd&k eywords=split+estate+dvd&ie=UTF8

“split estate,” in which landowners have surface rights but someone else owns the rights to the underground minerals. Josh Joswick : commissioner in southern Colorado’s La Plata County, which successfully fought state regulators and companies in court for a say in oil and gas production.

http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Drilling-threatens-nature-Colorado-residents-say- 1968302.php ;

http://www.spoke.com/people/josh-joswick-3e1429c09e597c10008191b9

Gasland, a documentary on fracking.
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats- fracking/affirming-gasland ,
http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/
http://gizmodo.com/5905909/gasland-the-definitive-documentary-on-fracking

Frack-happy Ultra Petroleum is the city’s largest private landowner. What kind of neighbor might it be?

Ultra Petroleum Corp., which owns subsidiary Ultra Resources…has most of the leases and permits in El Paso County and Colorado Springs

http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/close-up/Content?oid=2422410

Denver April 28 War on Women march was a PRObama rally and we fell for it

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Rita Ague
DENVER- Isn’t there something distasteful about a gathering of Obama supporters who want to rail against “The War On Women” and permit no mention of his non metaphorical deadly engagements? Organizers complained bitterly about activist Rita Ague’s successful subversion of their Democratic Party-only event messaging, while pretending the Pro-Obama theme was spontaneous and not partisan astroturf. While attendees carried all sorts of reproductive rights slogans, the only signage hung on the amphitheater was for Dem candidates. We had anticipated as much from early participants instructed not to worry about signs, they’d be provided. Indeed they were: “Women for Obama”, “Latinas for Obama” and anti Right-wingnut signs. Another clue came from Denver colleagues who surprised us with the news that a significant turnout was not expected because the Denver community was not responding. This was strictly a country mouse affair.

By “we fell for it” I mean of course Colorado Springs, where we fall for everything. War, Jesus, and soon, Fracking. The average Colorado Springs Joe would prefer Sarah Palin in the White House, so to fall on the smarter side of that curve it’s enough to favor Obama. In Colorado Springs even the left is right, gays are Log Cabin Republicans, and Occupiers are Teabaggers. Only on conservative campuses did academics look for common ground between Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party.


Sure enough, three of the five organizers were from Colorado Springs, all outside Denver circles. Does it matter? Not really, the day was a fun outing for Spring’s would-be activated women, and the issues are real and persist. But why now? Why the sudden “Rightwing” onslaught on women’s rights, when Republican candidates and representatives are already wearing the black hat in the economic downturn? It’s called baiting, and the Repugs took it. The War on Women, so-called, is the cry to circle the wagons in fear and support your local gunslinger and hey, he’s a Democrat!


And there they were, keeping to themselves at upstage right, the candidates waited to make their speeches about who was going to save the women.

As a LONG TIME party faithful, Rita Ague sussed immediately that this “grassroots” event was a DP hoax. She recognized the usual suspects and traditional call outs. Newly activated citizens are prey for election year campaigns, and Rita suspected the Dems were after the better half of the 99% like the GOP did the Tea Party.

Even in their country mouse afterglow, organizers pretend they didn’t know their rally would become Pro-Obama. Does that make them duplicitous or simply stupid? I’m tired of suspecting otherwise earnest, personable, and very effective fellow activists of being deceitful, hence the depressing tone of this story. We’re idiots, in a more disguised analogy, we’re sheep.


Rita Ague was criticized for upstaging the speakers with her sign, NO WAR ON WORLD OR WOMEN. Because it clashed with the programmed message. (No Democrat is offering to save women from war.) In threatening Rita, the organizers proved themselves as comfortable as their political guests with censoring all public assertion of free speech at what was supposed to be a grassroots rally. What unmitigated, transparently blank-headed dicks, for want of a sexist term.

The newly formed War on Women defenders circle thought they’d parlay their apparent momentum by calling for a Slut Walk for the following weekend. Why not, the media image-friendly meme has become a successful Jezebel feminist protest form , though not usually scheduled in the cold of MAY.


The authentic grassroots element had a blast on the march, here you can observe a large Occupy Denver contingent, participating to show solidarity and to meet people like-minded enough to take to the street for something they believe in.

Wise up Colorado Springs only YOU can stop fracking

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Heads up Colorado Springs environmentalists! If you’re thinking that among your colleagues, someone’s got your back on hydraulic fracturing, your count is off by one. NOT ONE SINGLE local organization or leader has taken the position that oil and gas fracking must be stopped, or even can be stopped! Did you miss that memo? I’m guessing they haven’t issued a distress signal among their membership, because, um, fracking’s “inevitable” right?! Green-minded residents, and Manitou tourists we’ve come across while holding NO FRACKING signs are incredulous at the thought that local officials would permit fracking, I’ve even been assured that local eco-celebs are on the case. NOPE. If you’ve got the phone tree, give them a call. If someone’s going to stop fracking, it’s going to be you.