June 20, 2018 Webinar was on Fracking, Pipelines, Plastics and Climate Change

Dear Friends and Concerned Citizens,

Breaking news: We just learned that the new Republican governor in Florida has initiated the process to ban fracking in the state and oppose drilling off Florida’s coasts. (See reference 1 below.)

This is huge — it comes after more than 5 years of work by Food & Water Watch activists, staff, and allies in Florida, and it follows momentous fracking bans in Maryland and New York.

That’s not even all that happened today! Food & Water Watch and over 600 of our ally organizations publicly called on members of Congress to stand with us to fight for our communities and planet. (See reference 2 below).

A new Congress was sworn in last week and they have helped build incredible energy for a Green New Deal — climate policy that builds upon the strong ideals we have been pushing forward for years.

Urge your representative to support a strong Green New Deal.

We’ve spent years pushing the envelope and redefining what is possible for climate policy. From being the first national organization to call for a ban on fracking, to moving forward the Off Fossil Fuels Act — we’ve always been focused on bold solutions for protecting our food, water, and climate.

Together, we have shown the climate movement what’s possible. We’ve built unprecedented momentum for the OFF Act, the strongest piece of climate legislation to date. The hallmark policy points of halting fossil fuel extraction and moving to renewable energy on an urgent timeline are now part of the Green New Deal conversation — something that would have been unheard of just a few short years ago. Send a message today to continue to move strong climate policy forward.

All of this context makes the news out of Florida even more exciting. Our team of dedicated activists, staff, and allies managed to move landmark statewide fracking policy with uncompromising commitment to a full ban.

We know climate change is impacting food supplies, the availability of clean water, and too many urban cities and rural areas — but we also have a solution, and we know how to win.

It’s time we all fight like we live here. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for, and the chance of our lives — for our lives. Our home, this planet, and our families, can’t wait another year.

Take action with Food & Water Action and tell Congress to support a strong Green New Deal now.

Onward,
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch

1. Governor Ron DeSantis Moves to Ban Fracking in Florida, Food & Water Watch, January 10, 2019.

2. 600 Groups Present ‘Green New Deal’ Demands, E&E News, January 10, 2019.

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SEE ALSO: The Green New Deal’s Sudden Popularity Is A Reason For Climate Change Optimism | Huffington Post, January 11, 2019

We are not ready for these climate impacts ...

From an Article by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, November 23, 2018

In a move environmentalists and journalists denounced as a blatant effort to bury facts that conflict with the president’s denialism and pro-fossil fuel agenda, the Trump administration used the Friday after Thanksgiving to quietly release Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), which warned “Earth’s climate is now changing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization” and concluded that “greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are the only factors that can account” for planet-threatening warming.

“Climate change is spawning more extreme weather, causing irreparable harm to communities, costing billions of dollars a year, and leading to countless deaths. We can stop climate destruction, but only if we act quickly to end the use of fossil fuels.”
……………. —Wenonah Hauter, Food & Water Watch

“The decision to release this damning report when families are beginning to celebrate the holidays and newsrooms are short-staffed is a brazen attempt to bury the truth from the public that we must act now to move off fossil fuels and stabilize the climate,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.

“Releasing this report when no one is looking, tweeting his annual nonsense about global warming and cold weather, and announcing that he’ll use the upcoming U.N. climate meetings as a fossil fuel tradeshow, Trump is doubling down on his climate denial for the holidays—as many families are still reeling from unnatural climate disasters across the country,” Hauter continued. “The science is way past in on climate change… We must prepare for our climate future in spite of Trump.”

From deadly wildfires to catastrophic hurricanes and other extreme weather events, the “impacts of global climate change are already being felt in the United States and are projected to intensify in the future,” notes the congressionally mandated report—the first of its kind released since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.

Authored by officials from over a dozen federal agencies, the report warns that in the absence of aggressive action to quickly slash carbon emissions, the climate crisis will continue to have increasingly devastating effects on the environment, wildlife, and human health.

“It is very likely that some impacts, such as the effects of ice sheet disintegration on sea level rise and coastal development, will be irreversible for many thousands of years, and others, such as species extinction, will be permanent,” the report warns.

Using the hashtag #ClimateFriday, environmentalists worked to overcome the Trump administration’s attempt to hide the NCA4 amid the chaos of the holidays by highlighting the report’s findings and stressing its dire implications if ambitious and global climate action is not taken.

“This report makes it clear that climate change is not some problem in the distant future,” Brenda Ekwurzel, the director of climate science at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), said in a statement. “It’s happening right now in every part of the country.”

The Washington Post summarized the report’s key findings with regard to major regions of the U.S.:

Already, western mountain ranges are retaining much less snow throughout the year, threatening water supplies below them. Coral reefs in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Florida, and the U.S.’s Pacific territories are experiencing severe bleaching events. Wildfires are devouring ever larger areas during longer fire seasons. And the country’s sole Arctic state, Alaska, is seeing a staggering rate of warming that has utterly upended its ecosystems, from once ice-clogged coastlines to increasingly thawing permafrost tundras.

The federal report comes as climate activists and progressives like Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are pushing for the Democratic Party to combat the Trump administration’s fossil fuel agenda with ambitious climate action centered around a Green New Deal.

“It’s not enough to think it’s ‘important.’ We must make it urgent,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “That’s why we need a Select Committee on a Green New Deal, and why fossil fuel-funded officials shouldn’t be writing climate change policy.”

“Climate change is spawning more extreme weather, causing irreparable harm to communities, costing billions of dollars a year, and leading to countless deaths. We can stop climate destruction, but only if we act quickly to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to 100 percent clean renewable energy,” concluded Hauter of Food & Water Watch. “This transition is not only possible, but necessary for the health and prosperity of people and the planet.”

Toxic Chemicals, Water Pollution, Dangerous Pipelines

From an Article by Dillon Carr, Pittsburgh Tribune – Review, 9/25/17

A Washington D.C.-based environmental advocacy group is hosting a meeting in Oakmont on Tuesday to discuss local efforts to restrict Marcellus shale drilling.

Tuesday’s meeting will be the first of three meetings scheduled by Food & Water Watch at the Oakmont Elks.

Each meeting will have its own topic of discussion:

• Sept. 26: The basics of zoning, planning and land-use.

• Oct. 10: Legal issues involving oil and gas companies and local governments.

• Oct. 24: Reviewing Oakmont’s updated draft of the oil and gas ordinance being proposed by council.

The meetings were spurred by Oakmont’s ordinance in July that set limits to seismic testing.

It’s a step that usually precedes the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — a process of extracting gas by injecting rock deep in the ground with high-pressure water, sand and chemicals.

“Drilling for unconventional gas is a pretty complex process,” said Doug Shields, an outreach liaison for Western PA Food & Water Watch, the regional branch of the Washington group.

The meetings are part of the organization’s effort to give its take to residents on the controversial topic, he said.

Oakmont is also working to update its zoning and land-use laws under its oil and gas ordinance, Borough Manager Lisa Cooper Jensen said.

Shields was part of a five-member panel at a Plum Council meeting recently aimed at answering questions about a proposed fracking wastewater injection well. “Food & Water Watch’s role is to just provide technical assistance on the issue,” he said. “We want to give people the light and they will find their own way — that’s our goal.”

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Food and Water Watch Presentation, 6:00 PM, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 – Broadway, VA

You are invited to attend a presentation by Doug Lakey (Director of Development) and Jorge Aguilar (Southern Region Director) with Food and Water Watch. This is a unique opportunity to hear a presentation by a national environmental organization without having to travel to Washington, D.C. or New York City. The presentation is free of charge.

If you oppose the proposed Atlantic Coast or Mountain Valley pipelines or are concerned with the environmental effects of fracking, our continued over-reliance on fossil fuels or factory farms, this presentation will provide you with timely and reliable information.

The topics that will be discussed are:

1. Background & History of FWW

2. Our Water Work: Why We Took On Fracking

3. Victories On Fracking, Oil and Gas Infrastructure Projects

4. Fracking and Virginia

5. Pipelines and VA: The Atlantic Coast and the Mountain Valley Pipelines

6. How we won in NY/ MD on fracking & pipelines

7. Off Fossil Fuels national campaign: Getting to 100% renewables by 2035

8. Problems with factory farms

9. Factory farms in VA

10. What can YOU do? Q and A

Where: 202 North Main Street, Broadway, VA 22815

Directions From Rt. 33 & Rt. 42 in Harrisonburg: Take Rt. 42 north for 13 miles into Broadway. 202 North Main Street is on the left (1 block after the BB&T Bank).