Ecotopia

31 May 2011 

Tonight’s program focuses first on international efforts to improve the environment and people’s lives.

 We’ll talk with Josephine Pillai and Tanya Kieselbach of the Braj project of India, which is working to stop destruction of water and land resources and even India’s sacred cattle, which are suffering from destruction of the environment.

Then we will interview Michelle Rasmussen and Marcia Zimmerman of the Women’s MicroFinance Collaborative, which makes low-cost loans to women around the world to create small, sustainable businesses.

In addition, we’ll talk with Sammey Sangrilli and Greg Degovia about the Bicycle Powered Music Festival that takes place in Chico this coming Saturday, June 4.

Listen to the Program

Our Interview on the Braj Foundation

With us in the KZFR studio now are Josephine Pillai and Tanya Kieselbach.  They are Chico residents who work with the Braj Foundation that is conducting a variety of environmental projects in northern India.  We first learned about their project at the Endangered Species Faire a few weeks ago and thought that Ecotopia listeners would want to learn more about it.  

• Please start by telling us about Braj--both the Braj region in India and the Braj Foundation and its aims.

• How did you personally become involved in these projects?

• Let's focus first on the historic and sacred Yamuna River.  Where does it come from and flow to?  What has happened to it over the years?  How has the Braj Foundation worked to restore it?

• Braj has other water restoration projects as well, working on what are called Kunds.  Please tell us about these activities.

• The Braj Foundation is also engaged in even more environmental projects.  (As our time permits), please tell us about:

• Deforestation

• Illegal Mining

• The rescue and preservation of sacred cattle.

• You also indicated to us that the work of the Braj Foundation is sometimes complicated by religious and political issues.  Could you briefly explain those?

• How can our listeners become involved in the work of the Braj Foundation?  We will post the link on our website: www.brajdhamseva.org

  Â

• Can Chicoans contact you locally to learn more or to become involved?

Our Interview on Women's Microeconomics



With us in the studio now are Michelle Rasmussen and Marcia Zimmerman of the Women's MicroFinance Collaboration. This is a local Chico group that works through the North Valley Community Foundation, and they currently have a materials on display at the Chico Peace & Justice Center.  

• Please tell us about the Women's Microfinance Collaborative.  What is your mission?  How do you work thorugh the North Valley Community Foundation.

• As we understand it, you create  loan funds in banks abroad for entrepreneureal projects.  Please tell us how microfinance itself works. (What's your connection with other international projects such as FINCA)

• What's the typical size of these loans?

• Who is eligible to receive them?

• How are people selected for the projects?

• Your first bank project was through the Communal Bank of San Jacinto El Salvador.  Please tell us about that.

• Please tell us about one or several of the recipients: 

• Ana Marian Lopez de Mejia 

• Desyi Guadalupe Perez Soriano

• Marina Rivera de Monge

• Evelin Roxana Mejia

• What’s the next project for your group here in the Northstate? You have an event coming up in July at the Women’s Club. What will that be about?

 How can people become involved in the Women’s Microfinance Collaborative? We’ve been talking Michelle Rasmussen and Marcia Zimmerman of the Women’s MicroFinance Collaboration. We appreciate your great work. Also you can see a window display, including samples of products produced by the women involved, at the Chico Peace & Justice Center.  Our Interview on the Chico Bicycle Music Festival

 

This coming Saturday, June 4, is the annual pedal powered Bicycle Music Festival.  With us in the studio are Sammey Zangrilli, organizer of the festival, and Greg Degovia, who has built an amazing bicycle-powered generator system that will provide electricity for the festival as volunteers pedal. 

• Discuss CBMF and the history.

• What will happen on the day. Discuss new and interesting things that will be

available on the day of the event.

• Transition to Greg and discuss his art....

backround in welding and inventing, summary of work and one favorite piece.

• Also, about the system and why Greg Degovia is interested in such things as pedalpower and LEDs.

Greg's website: *www.conceptulight.com*

Playlist:

Jai Jai Shri Yamuna (aarti)        7:06        Bimal Shah, Vimal & Manoj Rayach         
Kirtan Kunj                                
Hare Krishna (Mahamantra) - Raga Puriya Dhanashru        3:28        Jagjit Singh         
Krishna                                
Yamuna Ji Ni Aarti        3:18        Bhushan Dua & Anuradha Paudwal        Shreenathji  
Mala                                
Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28        Peter, Paul And Mary        The Very Best of  
Peter, Paul and Mary        

Bicycle Music Festival Compilation
Track 01        3:03                                                
Track 02        2:44                                                
Track 03        3:00                                                
Track 04        4:56                                                
Track 05        4:49                                                
Track 06        3:57                                                
Track 07        3:07                                                
Track 08        2:58                                                
Track 09        2:19

 

KZFR Community Radio 90.1 FM

Record of Public Discussion:

Program: Ecotopia on KZFR, Tuesday, 6-7 pm

Programmers: Susan and Stephen Tchudi

Date: 31 May 2011

Guests and issues: We’ll talk with Josephine Pillai and Tanya Kieselbach of the Braj project of India, which is working to stop destruction of water and land resources and even India’s sacred cattle, which are suffering from destruction of the environment.

Then we will interview Michelle Rasmussen and Marcia Zimmerman of the Women’s MicroFinance Collaborative, which makes low-cost loans to women around the world to create small, sustainable businesses.

In addition, we’ll talk with Sammey Sangrilli and Greg Degovia about the Bicycle Powered Music Festival that takes place in Chico this coming Saturday, June

Length of Discussions: 45

Local content: All three pairs of interviewees are local Chicoans with global interests.

Playlist:

Jai Jai Shri Yamuna (aarti)        7:06        Bimal Shah, Vimal & Manoj Rayach
Kirtan Kunj
Hare Krishna (Mahamantra) - Raga Puriya Dhanashru        3:28        Jagjit Singh
Krishna
Yamuna Ji Ni Aarti        3:18        Bhushan Dua & Anuradha Paudwal        Shreenathji
Mala
Weave Me the Sunshine        4:28        Peter, Paul And Mary        The Very Best of
Peter, Paul and Mary
Track 01        3:03
Track 02        2:44
Track 03        3:00
Track 04        4:56
Track 05        4:49
Track 06        3:57
Track 07        3:07
Track 08        2:58
Track 09        2:19

No Comments »

17 May 2011

Last week we talked with Dave Garcia of the Sierra Club, Yahi Group about the dangers of fracking–the hydraulic fracturing of underground shale to release natural gas. Dave told us of the environmentally dangerous side effects to ground water, the rock formations themselves, and drinking water and the air. (You’ll recall his stories about tap water that catches on fire due to dissolved methane.)

 As a follow up, tonight we have on the phone Dusty Horwitt, an attorney with Environmental Work Group in Washington, D.C. He is the lead researcher on natural gas issues for EWG, which has just released an alarming paper concerning a newly formed government study group on fracking.

Listen to the Program

 Our Conversation with Dusty Horwitt

–Please tell us about the new panel formed by the Obama administration on fracking. What’s the purpose of the panel? What authority does it have?

–Your news release says, “Notably, the panel does not include citizens from communities concerned about the damage to health, water, and private property posed by the surge in natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.” Who is on the panel? Who has been left off?

–Please tell us a little about several of the big oil members, perhaps Panel Chair John Deutch and/or some of the university professors (whom one would think would have a degree of academic objectivity here: e.g. Stephen Holditch of Texas A&M, Mark Zoback of Stanford). Please also tell us about the panel’s outside interests with the oil industry.

–We have interviewed Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund on this program. EWG identifies him as the only environmental representative on the panel. What role will it be possible for him to play? Why do you have some doubts about EDF on the fracking issue?

–Your press release mentions a new study by Duke University that confirms suspicions in Pennsylvania and New York “that gas extraction was leaking methane into their drinking water.” What other major studies will the panel consider? Are there any studies that actually identify fracking as a safe process?

–More broadly: On our show last week we cited an Exxon/Mobil commercial that brags that there’s 100 years’ worth of natural gas “trapped” underground but that human ingenuity (presumably fracking and other technologies) will free that gas. What’s EWG’s position on 100 more years of fossil fuel consumption? Are there alternatives? Do we need to extract all that natural gas? (If EWG has a position on expanding nuclear energy, we’d love to hear about that, too, and, of course, about solar, wind, and other alternatives to carbon and plutonium.)

–What can interested listeners do to make their voices heard on the fracking panel, in particular, and fracking and other energy sources in general?

Thank you, Dusty Horwitt, of the Environmental Working Group. You can learn more about their work online at http://www.ewg.org. Their California Office is at  2201 Broadway, Suite 308 | Oakland, CA 94612.

And here’s the report that was the subject of tonight’s discussion:

News Release – Administration Stacks Panel With Big Oil and Gas
Published May 10, 2011

The Obama administration panel named May 5 [1] to study hydraulic
fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique that injects thousands of
gallons of chemical-laced water into the ground, is dominated by oil
and gas industry professionals.

Notably, the panel does not include citizens from communities
concerned about the damage to health, water and private property posed
by the surge in natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

“An industry insider like John Deutch is completely unacceptable to
lead this panel,” Environmental Working Group Senior Counsel Dusty
Horwitt said. “It looks as if the Obama Administration has already
reached the conclusion that fracking is safe.”

Fracking involves injecting a mix of water, sand and chemicals into a
well under high pressure in order to fracture underground rock
formations and unlock trapped gas and oil. The technology has been
linked to water contamination, air pollution, release of methane [2]
and deteriorating health in communities near drilling sites.

A study by Duke University researchers [3], made public yesterday,
found high concentrations of methane in 68 wells near shale-gas
drilling and hydrofracking sites in northeastern Pennsylvania and New
York, confirming property owners’ suspicions that gas extraction was
leaking methane into their drinking water.

The new panel’s seven members include:

•Panel chair John Deutch, a former director of the Central
Intelligence Agency, now on the board of Cheniere Energy, Inc., a
Houston oil and gas drilling company that, according to Forbes
Magazine online [4], paid Deutch about $882,000 from 2006 through
2009. During a stint on the board of Schlumberger Ltd., one of the
world’s three largest hydraulic fracturing companies, Deutch received
about $563,000 in 2006 and 2007, according to Forbes.
•Stephen Holditch, head of the petroleum engineering department at
Texas A&M University and a leader in the field of hydraulic fracturing
designs, first at Shell Oil, later as head of his own firm, acquired
by Schlumberger in 1997. Today, he is engineering committee chairman
at Matador Resources [5], a Dallas oil and gas exploration company.
•Mark Zoback, a geophysics professor at Stanford and senior advisor to
Baker Hughes [6], Inc., a Houston-based oilfield services company
engaged in hydraulic fracturing [7]. Zoback is chair of GeoMechanics
International [8], a consulting firm that advises on various oil and
gas drilling problems and that was acquired by Baker Hughes in 2008.
•Kathleen McGinty, chair of the White House Council on Environmental
Quality during the Clinton administration and a former secretary of
the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, now senior
vice president of Weston Solutions [9], Inc., which consults for the
oil and gas industry, and a director of NRG Energy [10], a Princeton,
N.J., wholesale power generation company whose assets [11] include
more than two dozen natural gas companies.
•Susan Tierney, assistant secretary of the Energy department under
President Clinton, now managing principal of Analysis Group [12],
which consults for utilities that use natural gas and for the
Interstate Natural Gas Association of America [13], the natural gas
pipeline industry association.
•Daniel Yergin, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of The Prize, a 1991
book about the oil industry, and co-founder, chairman and executive
vice president of IHS CERA, originally called Cambridge Energy
Research Associates [14], acquired in 2004 by IHS [15], an
international consulting firm whose clients include the oil, natural
gas, coal, power and clean energy communities.
The panel’s environmental representative is Fred Krupp, president of
Environmental Defense Fund, a New York-based nonprofit that focuses on
environmental issues. Scott Anderson, EDF’s senior policy advisor for
energy and spokesman on hydraulic fracturing is a member of the
Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, which opposes extending the
federal Safe Drinking Water Act to hydraulic fracturing. The
commission website asserts that fracking “needs no further study.”
Anderson is a former executive vice president and general counsel for
the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association [16].

Will panel undermine EPA study?

The new panel, named by Energy secretary Steven Chu, is part of the
President Obama’s recently announced energy plan that aims to reduce
dependence on foreign oil. The energy industry contends that hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking” is critical to expanding the nation’s
natural gas supplies by tapping gas trapped in shale formations.

The energy panel will focus, Chu said, on “harnessing a vital domestic
energy resource while ensuring the safety of our drinking water and
the health of the environment.” That mandate appears to duplicate an
initiative of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which
announced in March 2010 [17] that it would undertake a two-year study
on the human health and environmental dangers of hydraulic
fracturing’s impact on groundwater, to publish initial findings by the
end of next year.

The energy panel is working on a faster track, with recommendations
due within six months.

“The new administration panel appears to be an effort to undercut the
EPA’s study by assigning an elitist group of industry insiders to take
a cursory look at fracking,” Horwitt said. “The EPA is trying to
conduct a comprehensive study and to listen to the people directly
affected by drilling. It’s hard to see how the Energy
department-driven panel can have any credibility.”

EWG urges the administration to replace John Deutch as chairman of the
panel with a neutral expert without direct financial ties to the
industry being investigated. EWG also calls on the administration to
balance the panel with citizens who have been affected by hydraulic
fracturing and with other independent experts.

###

EWG is a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, DC that
uses the power of information to protect human health and the
environment. http://www.ewg.org [18]

——————————————————————————–

Source URL:
http://www.ewg.org/release/administration-stacks-panel-big-oil-and-gas
Links:
[1] http://www.energy.gov/news/10309.htm
[2] http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/methane-contamination-of-drinking-water-accompanying-gas-well-drilling
[3] http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-05/du-ml1050411.php
[4] http://people.forbes.com/profile/john-m-deutch/18048
[5] http://www.matadorresources.com/board.html
[6] http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/committeeview.aspx?key=49246
[7] http://www.bakerhughes.com/products-and-services/reservoir-development-services/software/hydraulic-fracturing
[8] http://www.geomi.com/AboutUs/ExecBios.php
[9] http://www.westonsolutions.com/about/officers.htm
[10] http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=121544&p=irol-govBio&ID=184475
[11] http://www.nrgenergy.com/pdf/Projectlist.pdf
[12] http://www.analysisgroup.com/susan_tierney.aspx
[13] http://www.ingaa.org/
[14] http://www.ihs.com/about/executives.aspx
[15] http://press.ihs.com/press-release/corporate-financial/ihs-energy-acquires-cambridge-energy-research-associates-cera
[16] http://tipro.org/UserFiles/Frequently asked Natural Gas Questions(1).pdf
[17] http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/26195e235a35cb3885257831005fd9cd!OpenDocument
[18] http://www.ewg.org

No Comments »

10 May 2011

On this week’s program, we’ll begin with some updates, following topics such as children’s health and nuclear power that we’ve covered recently.  Then we’ll be talking with Dave Garcia of the Sierra Club, which is leading a campaign against something called “fracking” as a way of extracting natural gas from the ground in an especially environmentally unfriendly way.

Listen to the Program

Update: Environment and Health

Two weeks ago we talked with author Dan Farber about his book, Changing Planet: Changing Health, about how climate change can worsen health crises.  This week, we were concerned to read in the online news source, MedPage Today, that “Environmental Illness in Kids [Already] Costs Billions.  An article by Emily Walker published May 5 explains that a new analysis has found:

Childhood diseases thought to be linked to environmental causes cost the nation nearly $77 billion in medical costs and lost productivity in 2008 alone…Building on a 2002 analysis, investigators estimated how much of a role environmental factors play in causing such conditions as childhood cancers, asthma, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then attached a dollar figure to the medical treatment and lost productivity expected to occur because of the preventable disease or disorder. The study was published in the May issue of Health Affairs, which is devoted entirely to examining the link between the environment and health — an issue that often gets short shrift in health policy and medical circles, although a recent congressional hearing focused on disease clusters and their environmental causes.

 The researchers are  Leonardo Trasande, MD, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and Yinghua Liu, MD, of the National Children’s Study New York–Northern New Jersey Center.  They write: “Our principal finding is that chemical factors in the environment continue to contribute greatly to childhood morbidity and to healthcare costs.” Their list of diseases thought to be caused at least in part by the environment include lead poisoning, methylmercury poisoning, childhood cancer, asthma, intellectual disability, ADHD, and autism.

[Cerebral palsy was included in the 2002 analysis, but it was removed for the new study because of “limited data supporting the role of chemical factors.”]

The […most expensive] environmentally-caused disease is lead poisoning, which, Trasande said at a press briefing, cost the nation $60 billion in 2008. About 10% of that cost was for medical care, but 90% is attributable to lost economic productivity from “reduced cognitive potential” resulting from preventable exposure to lead during childhood[….] Lead exposure in childhood — which has greatly declined since the 1978 passage of a law banning use of lead-based paint in homes — has been linked to permanent brain damage and life-long problems with attention and impulsivity control and has also been linked to criminal activity later in life, they wrote.

Methylmercury poisoning — which can lead to brain and spinal cord damage — accounted for $5 billion in lost productivity in 2008, the study authors said. The leading source of mercury in the environment is coal-fired power plants, but people can also ingest it by eating contaminated fish, and, in some few cases, from eating animals that were fed grain coated in a preservative that contained methylmercury.

 Trasande and Liu said more than $5 billion in productivity costs were lost in 2008 because of intellectual disabilities caused by environmental factors. A number of studies have drawn a link between air pollution and IQ, including a 2009 study in the journal Pediatrics that found children who were exposed to high levels of a pervasive air pollutant in the womb had significantly lower full-scale and verbal IQ scores at age 5. Another $5 billion was lost because of ADHD that could ultimately be attributed to chemical factors in the environment.

Meanwhile, asthma cost more than $3 billion in medical costs, such as trips to the hospital and doctors’ visits, in 2008, and another $4 billion in lost productivity as parents had to take off work to care for sick kids.The prevalence of asthma is increasing, which baffles public health experts, because two known triggers — secondhand cigarette smoke and air pollution — have decreased in recent years as a result of anti-smoking and clean air laws.

Trasande and Liu also looked at the costs of autism.  “While we don’t know the specific component environmental factors that contribute to autism, there are a number of reports documenting the role of environmental factors, in specific, chemical factors [that contribute to autism],” Trasande told MedPage Today. Trasande said it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint the exact health effects any of the thousands of chemicals that humans are exposed to in daily life. Manufacturers of new compounds are not required to prove their chemicals won’t make people sick.

A National Institute of Science report estimated that 28% of developmental disabilities may be caused by environmental factors — that is, they are not caused by genetics alone. Or, as the saying goes, “Genes might load the gun, but the environment pulls the trigger,” Trasande said.

Avoiding chemicals is impossible, but parents can attempt to lessen their children’s exposure by monitoring what they eat and airing out rooms when new electronics and furniture are installed.  “That ‘new’ smell is actually a chemical smell,” Trasande explained.

In addition, doctors — most of whom likely never received environmental health training — can ask patients about foods they eat, their living conditions, and past exposure to toxins. Ob/gyns can also inform newly pregnant woman that, although they should be getting omega-3 fatty acids, they should avoid fish such as mackerel and some types of tuna that might contain high levels of mercury. Trasande said he hopes his study will show that environmentally-caused diseases carry a huge financial burden — a dollar figure he hopes will be used in comparisons with the costs of making regulatory changes in the energy industry to prevent pollution. “This analysis re-emphasizes for policymakers the implications of failing to prevent toxic chemical exposures not only for the health of children but also for the health of our economy,” Trasante and Liu concluded.

You can read the full article and other related stories at

http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/EnvironmentalHealth/26306

 That story is only part of the growing awareness of dangers to children, and in some cases, we are teaching our children well. From Time online comes an interesting story about “renegade” Girl Scouts who are fighting against the use of Palm Oil in Girl Scout Cookies and who are fighting to preserve endangered organgutans  Borneo.  Tara Kelly explains:

Because of palm oil, a key ingredient, those delicious and addictive treats may not be as innocent as they seem. Not only is the ingredient linked to child labor in Indonesia, but it also allegedly contributes to rainforest deforestation. But now two renegade girl scouts are lobbying the Girl Scouts of America to remove the ingredient from the cookies.

Rhiannon Tomtishen and Madison Vorva, who are high school sophomores [in Ann Arbor, Michigan], stopped selling Girl Scout cookies in 2007 after they began working on a public service project to bring attention to the plight of endangered orangutans in Borneo [due to deforestation]. To ramp up their efforts have teamed up with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) to make the change a reality.  So far, RAN set up an online form for those interested to send a letter to Girl Scouts of America CEO Kathy Cloninger to pressure the organization to stop using palm oil.  RAN also helped Tomtishen and Vorva make a merit badge available to Girl Scouts across the nation. It’s not endorsed by the Girl Scouts of America, Tomtishen said. The RAN partnership comes after a meeting between the two scouts and the organization, which resulted in no action.

Although Cloninger has yet to comment, Michelle Tomkins, a spokesperson from the organization, has said its hands are tied. In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring unhealthy trans-fats to be listed on the Nutrition Facts labels on food products. Two official Girl Scouts bakers worked to make its cookies healthier in light of the changes, said Tomkins. “In order to rid cookies of trans-fats, you had to find another alternative.” That alternative is palm oil. And despite Tomkins admiration for the girls’ efforts, she said the two bakers the organization uses have no plans to change the recipe. But Tompkins didn’t rule out a possible switch in ingredients. “We have little say if not no say in the recipes used by the bakers.”

You can read more online

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/05/do-girl-scout-cookies-harm-the-environment-renegade-scouts-fight-against-palm-oil-ingredient/#ixzz1LsHtMxKS

Update: Restarting the Nuclear Industry

Back in March, we talked with activist Harvey Wasserman of Nuke Free dot org, about his concerns,  including the fact that despite the nuclear power plant disaster in Japan, the Obama administration has not backed down on its plans to supply $37 billion in loans for new nuclear plant construction here at home, including  plants using the General Electric/Westinghouse/Toshiba/Mitsubishi design that failed in Fukushima Daiichi. Back in 1979, with David Nash and many others, Harvey helped to organize No Nukes Concerts in Madison Square Garden.  Recently, Nash and David Crosby performed in Newark, Ohio, and Harvey wrote this review:

When a concert starts off eight miles high, only the great can keep it there. That’s what David Crosby & Graham Nash did the other night in Newark, Ohio. The wind beneath their wings was an outstanding foursome of virtuoso musicians. The result was a three-hour love fest that should not be missed.

Crosby/Nash are transcendently talented buddies who come with a set list nicely balanced between the old, the mellow, the rockin’, the oddball and the new.[…  Along the way both Graham and David took some welcome shots at the powers that be. General Electric’s lack of tax bill was enshrined in the edgy “They Want It All,” a sharp, well-reasoned attack on corporate power. “Don’t Dig Here” spoke to the insanity of creating nuclear waste that can kill forever. “Military Madness” gave the brass a kick in the ass.

Some don’t like politics mixed with their music. But these guys have paid their dues and know where of they speak. By way of disclosure, I’ve worked with Graham since 1978 in the “No Nukes” campaign to prevent nightmares like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and now Fukushima. He is savvy, knowledgeable and dedicated.

Most recently [Harvey reports to having]  “conspired” with Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne to help stop billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees for new nuclear plants. The fight continues, partly through the www.nukefree.org website, where you can help tip the balance in a fate-of-the-Earth campaign against $36 billion in radioactive handouts. See us now and call/write your Senators & Reps early and often!!!

This memorable show is a tribute to some warm, wonderfully talented electric poets and troubadours who clearly treasure the magic they’ve been spreading for more than four decades. That somehow it keeps getting better is reason for great celebration and heart.

Check out the nukefree.org/ site for even more information on how we can oppose the new efforts on the part of the nuclear industry and our government to build nukes in the name of oil independency.

 

Fracking and the Environment: Our Conversation with Dave Garcia

 “Tower of Power” tells us, “there is only so much oil in the ground.”  Global responses to our energy crisis vary widely.  Some of us are arguing for a change in fuel consumption habits and on discontinuing our reliance on carbon-based and nuclear fuels.  Others seem to be determined to wring every last ounce of petroleum product from our endangered planet.  For example, in an Exxon/Mobil ad currently showing on TV a spokesperson smugly explains that human ingenuity has discovered new ways to extract natural gas that, he says, is quote “trapped” underground, apparently just awaiting liberation from oil companies.  One of extraction methods  is something called “fracking,”  and here in the studio with us is Dave Garcia of the Sierra Club Yahi Group to tell us what it is and why it’s a bad idea.

• Please tell us about “fracking.”  What is it?  How does it work?
• What are some of the dangers of fracking?
  • How can it affect groundwater supplies?
  • Could it actually tip off an earthquake?
• What is the role of the Environmental Protection Agency in protecting us and the environment from fracking?  Are they doing the job?
• Fracking seems like a hugely complex and costly process.  Are the energy companies that desperate?
• The Exxon/Mobil ad that we referred to talks about “clean” natural gas.  Is it actually “clean”?
• You and the Sierra Club both have alternative visions of the future.  Please share some of your ideas about, say:
  • Solar and wind
  • Changing our oil consumption habits
• You’ve been showing a film called “Gasland” around the area.  What’s in it and how can people see it?  (May 15, Pageant, noon-2)
• What activities do and others have planned in the northstate area to publicize the dangers of fracking?
  • What are timetables and deadlines people should know about?
  • How can people get more involved in your effort?

http://sierraclub.org/naturalgas/
http://hfmeeting.cadmusweb.com/
http://www.earthworksaction.org/hydfracking.cfm
http://www.motherlode.sierraclub.org/yahi

 

Playlist:

 

 

No Comments »