Forward-Looking Infra-Red Camera (FLIR) detects infrared radiation at $3,000.

Letter from Barbara Daniels, Morgantown Dominion Post, January 20, 2020

Anyone who still believes that natural gas is a clean fuel might be surprised by the Texas Sharon FLIR videos, with commentary, showing cancer-causing VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and methane freely exiting from horizontal hydrofracturing (hhf) units.

Now a 2019 Cornell study reveals that eliminating this flood of fracked methane, a greenhouse gas at least 86 times more powerful than CO2, would keep the planet under the 2 degrees Celsius, warming limit.

Moreover, in 2016, a University of Michigan team discovered that hhf further emits significant amounts of warming ethane, which also forms lung- and crop-damaging smog. Most alarming is that cheap ethane provided by fracking feeds cracker-plant plastic production, a process so energy intensive that, cradle to grave, by 2050 plastics will emit 50 times more CO2 than all U.S. coal-fired power plants combined do in a year, according to University of Massachusetts professor, Judith Enck.

Eliminating hhf might be difficult however because, at all times, its damage is being hidden. Hhf was the apparent subject of the early 2000s secret meetings between then Vice President, Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton and the heads of energy companies. These meetings resulted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which exempted hhf (fracking) and its wastes from the Safe Drinking Water Act, along with six other federal safeguards.

Why were these meetings held in secret, and why does hhf need exemptions from seven major environmental laws? After compiling over 1,600 reports, the Nobel-Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility and others have concluded hhf cannot be regulated to safety.

Besides uncontrollable air pollution, the below-ground effects are unpredictable and it generates unmanageable amounts of toxic, radioactive waste.

For these and other reasons, 11 nations, three U.S. states and Quebec have banned hhf. They petitioned, used media such as Facebook and newspapers and contacted legislators. In view of hhf‘s extraordinary hazards, we might wish to do the same.

Call our state’s Legislature’s switchboard at 304-347-4836, and Congress’ switchboard at 202- 225-3121.

Barbara Daniels, Concerned Citizen, Richwood, WV

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See also: The Fracking Industry’s Flaring Problem May Be Worse Than We Thought | DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, January 29, 2019

To Be Largest Climate March Ever

People’s Climate March—Largest Climate March in World History—Set for Times Square in NTC

From an Article of EcoWatch.com, July 30, 2014

A spirited press conference in Times Square has launched the People’s Climate March, the largest climate action in world history.

Scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, the People’s Climate March will coincide with September’s UN Climate Summit, where world leaders including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in attendance in answer to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summons to consult on climate change.

Key organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions nationwide, hosted the press conference today to explain the goals of the mobilization and to share expectations for the UN summit. Representatives from New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Sierra Club, 350.org, UPROSE and a number of local unions were there, as well as faith leaders, speakers from superstorm Sandy-impacted communities and millennials.

“The voice of youth is crucial in the People’s Climate March,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE. “They are the first and last generation that can make a difference in this global crisis. We have to work inter-generationally to build momentum for frontline communities and provide our people with the resources to address this complex issue.”

The People’s Climate March will highlight the climate crisis and the need to act now with bold solutions. More than 500 organizations—from community and labor groups to international NGOs and faith organizations—around the world have joined to organize or endorse the event. They describe the motivation for the march as follows:

With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.

“To the untrained eye, this looks like an alliance of unusual bedfellows—labor joining hands with faith joining hands with national environmental groups,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “But the idea that there is choice between environment and economy is a dated paradigm. The climate change march is not about slicing and dicing a political agenda—it’s a big tent. We invite all with an interest in the future.”

Bill McKibben, 350.org founder, hopes you’ll be there. In an EcoWatch blogpost he said, “We need to show just how big and unified our movement has grown, from the environmental justice advocates fighting fossil fuel pollution in our communities to the students demanding divestment on our campuses, from the scientists who have seen their warnings so far ignored to the clergy now showing real moral leadership.

If you’re wondering how to react to the devastating news that the Antarctic is melting out of control: New York. If you’re scared like I am by the pictures of the fire and drought across the West: New York. If you’re feeling like it’s time to change the trajectory of this planet: we’ll see you in New York.”

See also:

Big Polluters Cry Wolf Over EPA Plan to Fight Climate Change and Protect Human Health