Climate Action Party: Ban CO2 Fracking! May 21, 2024
ATTENTION NEW YORKERS! URGENT!
HELP NYS CLOSE THE LOOPHOLE IN OUR FRACKING BAN! URGE GOVERNOR HOCHUL TO SIGN THE BILL INTO LAW AND BAN CO2 FRACKING NOW!
New York’s long-standing fracking ban prohibits the use of high volumes of water to extract gas. The state legislature quickly passed a new bill in response to a gas industry proposal to exploit a loophole and get around the fracking ban by using CO2 instead of water. The bill amends the fracking ban within the Environmental Conservation Law to include a prohibition on using CO2. Drilling and fracking with CO2 is an experimental, dangerous new method of shale gas extraction that must not be allowed in New York State.
Unfortunately, Governor Hochul has not moved as quickly to sign the bi-partisan bill.
Most of the same impacts associated with the entire drilling and fracking process occur whether water or CO2 is used. Drilling and fracking pose significant risks to human health, air quality, drinking water, and the environment. High-pressure CO2 is very dangerous, and ruptured pipelines can result in asphyxiation and convulsions. This was tragically illustrated in Satartia, Mississippi in 2020 when a CO2 pipeline exploded, leading to mass CO2 poisoning that left 45 people hospitalized. Additionally, high-pressure CO2 injection underground poses significant risk of earthquakes, corrosion of well casings, and acidification of groundwater.
Join us, on Tuesday, May 21 at 7 pm EDT to remind the Governor, our representatives and others that New York State stands by its fracking ban. Help close this loophole and keep New York State free from fracking!
About Our Featured Guests
Roger Downs is the conservation director of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.
Sandra Steingraber, PhD, is a co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York and New Yorkers Against Fracking. Formerly on the faculty at Ithaca College, she currently lives in Hudson, New York and serves as a senior scientist at the Science and Environmental Health Network.
Irene Weiser is a retired veterinarian and current renewable energy activist. For the past 10 years she has been the coordinator of Fossil Free Tompkins, working to effect local and state energy policy to get us off of fossil fuels and bring about the affordable, equitable transition to renewable energy. In addition, she was elected to 3 terms as council member in the Town of Caroline, serving from 2012 – 2020.
About Our Moderator
Tim Guinee, President of Climate Action Now, has been a veteran in numerous climate campaigns around the country, most notably as the Legislative Coordinator for the New York Climate Reality Chapters Coalition. Former Vice President Al Gore awarded Tim the Alfredo Sirkis Memorial Green Ring Award for his work on the climate crisis.
About Our Sponsors
Frack Action
Concerned Health Professionals of New York
Fossil Free Thompkins
The Climate Reality Project New York State Coalition is a group that was set up with the purpose of connecting members across the state for joint action and friendship. In addition to coordinating an annual retreat, the coalition has several working groups that leverage our scale at the state level.
The Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter is a vital part of the Sierra Club, the country’s oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. The Atlantic Chapter represents 43,000 members statewide and is dedicated to protecting New York’s air, water, communities, and remaining wild places.
About Our Action Parties
An Action Party is an online event that packs valuable information and concrete action into a 60-minute venue.
Each Action Party has an environment-related topic and a featured guest who is an expert in that topic. We begin with a 20-minute presentation by the featured guest, followed by 20 minutes of Q&A, and then 20 minutes of optional action-taking with the Climate Action Now app. The actions have been prepared in advance to help participants take the most impactful action in the shortest time. During the action segment, the party’s moderator sets a goal for the number of actions to be taken and shows participants their progress towards that goal in real-time with an online, automated goal tracker. Participants can socialize during the action segment.
Action parties are free and open to all who seek a more just and sustainable world, but we welcome donations to help us continue our mission of creating a just and liveable planet for all.
How to Get the Climate Action Now App
If you want to participate in the action-taking segment, you can get the FREE Climate Action Now app by scanning the QR code below with your phone’s camera OR by searching for “Climate Action Now” in your app store and downloading it to your phone.
The app is currently available to users in the United States only.
Fossil fuel industry, some Pa. lawmakers coming after your ‘pore space.’ Be wary by Karen Feridun, May. 12, 2024, lehighvalleylive
The fossil fuel industry is interested in the ground under your feet, but it’s not because they want the gas, oil, or coal. This time, they’re coming for your pore space.
Pore space refers to the spaces between the rock and sediment deep below the surface where the industry is planning to store CO2 captured in a process called Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). It has been around for a long time, but it was always used for something called Enhanced Oil Recovery, a fancy name for more extraction.
The climate crisis has given rise to new claims that CCS can be used to permanently store CO2. There is no proof that it can and attempts made to date have failed, but that hasn’t stopped the federal government from pouring billions into carbon management initiatives.
The massive investment in CCS means that the industry needs to find a place to put all that CO2. That’s where you and your pore space come in.
Saying yes to use of your pore space means saying yes to dangerous infrastructure. Getting CO2 into pore space requires the use of an injection well. They’re the wells associated with swarms of earthquakes in Oklahoma. The compressed CO2 travels to the injection well in a pipeline. A CO2 pipeline explosion near Sataria, MS left some residents permanently disabled from asphyxiation.
If some state legislators have their way, saying no may be impossible if enough of your neighbors say yes.
Karen Feridun is co-founder of No False Solutions PA and Better Path Coalition. She lives in Kutztown.
The con gov’t of Alberta already stole our pore space in 2010, preparing the rich for that pre-end peri0d “filled with unprecedented opportunities for profit.”
Douglas Malsbury Administrator Alberta Surface Rights Group FB Page:
Bill 24 the “Carbon Capture and Sequestration Statutes Amendment Act” may have been the greatest theft of all the land theft bills in Alberta! In one swoop the “Crown” seized real property with no compensation and no due process of law.
