I am very proud to say that the young woman in this video using a classic nonviolent direct action to force attention on a huge public policy crisis is my Goddaughter Liz Arnold in Philadelphia, Pa. The Democratic nominees for governor were having their last debate before the primary. Liz has been leading a campaign to get them to commit to put a moratorium on fracking if elected. As you can see she disrupted business as usual to make sure that the voices of the people whose water has been contaminated, whose land has been ruined, who suffer the effects of fracking are heard.
Liz’s lesson to the rest of us is that if we are to counter this American oligarchy who are ruining our country and their greed beyond greed and destruction of our planet and our lives, we are gonna have to raise some serious hell–and that is exactly what she did last night.
Fracking is a dangerous and destructive energy company practice of drilling as much as 4,000 feet below the surface of the earth to blow up rocks to release natural gas. Fracking poisons ground water, destroys farms, and causes multiple small earthquakes.
It is literally the destruction of the subsurface of the earth to extract another carbon-based fuel to poison our atmosphere–needlessly. There simply is no reason to poison our water by fracking when we have solar, hydroelectric, wind, other green energy alternatives that will also create jobs and boost the economy. Just yesterday we reported on an
MIT study showing that now new technology makes wind power a much cheaper and more effective source of base power.
Fracking Diagram via San Ramon Valley Democrats