Not able to make a dent with the AstroTurf approach – fracking front groups like Energy In Depth, or recruiting once legitimate leasing groups like the JLCNY into being Koch Sock Puppets, the frackers have now turned to robots – automated calls – to carpet bomb Upstate New York. The script is simple:
1. “Hi, my name is Heather/Krystal/Amber/Javier . . .
2. Did you know that there are no incidents of pollution from shale gas industrialization ?
3. For more information, contact the (Evil) Empire Energy Forum, K Street, Washington
4. Have a nice day.”
Such techniques evidently worked in Arkansas, where 18% of the men tried to engage the robot in phone sex. And in West Virginia, where 23% of the women attempted to gossip or exchange recipes with the robot.
Here’s the transcript of once such RoboCall, courtesy of a voice actress working for yet another Koch Fracking Front Group, a Washington lobbyist that clones itself into multiple local bogus astroturf groups, a PR strategy that Dory previously outed. Meaning the (Evil) Empire Energy Forum is a different robo clone for each shale state – as Dory explains.
http://blog.shaleshockmedia.
“Hi this is Amber and I’m calling on behalf of the Empire Energy Forum — Hydraulic fracturing is safe, creates jobs and provides financial support to our communities nationally. Over one million wells have been drilled, 13,000 here in New York with no incidents of ground water contamination ! Please visit EmpireEnergyForum.com to learn more. Brought to you by the Empire Energy Forum, 111 Washington Avenue, Albany NY 12210 518-813-4836”
(The call may originate from 716-706-2264).
Might tell “Amber” to fracking drop dead and block the number. Or give her your recipe for rhubarb pie.
Here’s a postcard which many people are getting which says about the same thing:
“13,000 oil and gas wells in New York. 1 million hydraulically fractured nationally. ZERO incidents of groundwater contamination ! New York has strict oil and gas drilling regulations ! And they’ll only get stronger when Marcellus Shale is developed ! Maybe that’s why there’s never been a single case of groundwater contamination !”
Malta, NY today at 11am received a call.
My mother-in-law in Brooklyn got robo-called twice on June 1st. She may be old, but she’s sharp enough to smell a rat when it crawls out of her phone. Having spent 5 days marooned in her apartment without electricity, heat, or a phone as a result of Hurricane Sandy, she’s a little sensitized to the whole climate change debate and is not amused by gas propagandists calling her up.
Maybe this robo-call thing will backfire–it certainly set a little old lady in Brooklyn off on a tirade against the gassers!
Recording of Empire Energy Forum propaganda on Fracking and contamination of
Everyday Empire Energy calls my home, I now view this repeated calling as harassment. I think it might be time to find a lawyer (Like that will do any good, right?)