“Good luck with that!” Ain’t Help 1.3.12: I was running laps at the Bloomsburg University track when I somehow tripped over my I-pod cord and—in a heroic effort to spare my recently re-habilitated right knee—crashed full force onto my right ankle, ripping every ligament from the bone, wrenching and tearing the muscles half way up my leg, and pulling my ankle bones away from my leg bone. Awesome. And Whoa! Nelly! Ouch! A gentleman walking the track nearby could not have failed to see me … [Read more...]
Obama’s Big Fake Climate Change Speech and the Big Fake Greens Who Loved It
Delivered at Georgetown University to a crowd of students whose own futures hang in the balance, President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated speech on climate change certainly sounded like a clarion call to real and measurable action. Except that it wasn’t. For despite the fact that he does seem get the message about coal and greenhouse gas emissions, he has bought wholesale into the absurd, debunked industry manufactured hornswaggle transition argument for “clean burning natural … [Read more...]
6.15.13: PA State Democratic Committee Passes Resolution to Support Fracking Moratorium
6.15.13: By a vote of 115-81, The Pennsylvania State Committee today passed a resolution to support a moratorium a halt, a stop, a cessation, and the first real hope for an ultimate end to the industrialized extraction of Pennsylvania. Thanks to awesome organizers like Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth and all of the other anti-extreme extractions organizations–Clean water Action, Food and Water Watch, Lehigh Valley Gas Truth, Protecting Our Water, United Sludge Free Alliance, and Shale … [Read more...]
Is there Nothing Sacred? Anadarko Suckers the State to Frack the Loyalsock
Note: This piece is to be read as public comment at the June 3rd, 4-6PM DCNR Hearing at Lycoming College, Wendle Hall, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It is not intended as an analytical piece--but as a philosophical and moral argument. My name is Wendy Lynne Lee, and I’m a member of the Shale Justice Coalition. I’m an academic and a writer by profession, and a committed activist on behalf of social justice, animal welfare, and environmental integrity. I also take a lot of pictures, and I … [Read more...]
Kinder Morgan Energy Partners: A “New” Rumpelstiltskin Tries to Cash in on the Last Gasp of Industrialized Extraction
*The text below offers the first few lines of an essay concerning what I am calling the "magical thinking" of mid-stream energy corporation Kinder Morgan. I argue that Richard Kinder--who I profile after the self-aggrandizing imp from the fable Rumpelstiltskin--epitomizes magical thinking insofar as he holds to the view that the massive pipeline transport and export projects KMEP has leveraged over the course of the shale gas boom will be worth the billions of dollars of investment-despite the … [Read more...]
Invitation from The Center for Rural Pennsylvania to Bloomsburg University to Join the Ranks of Frack-U
Posted to Bloomsburg University faculty as if it were simply one more grant opportunity, The Center for Rural Pennsylvania--effectively an agent of Governor Corbett's mission to sell off Pennsylvania to the natural gas extraction industries--offers BU professors the following: The Center for Rural Pennsylvania(http://www.rural.palegislature.us/ ) is interested in working with faculty to study the potential for increased residential, commercial and industrial natural gas distribution … [Read more...]
Clean Harbors Spells Frack-Tastrophe for the Citizens of Sunbury: Sold Down the Susquehanna by Mayor Dave Persing
You have to wonder whether Sunbury mayor, Dave Persing, really has any very good idea—or even a glimmer of moral compass—about what might be involved in the Clean Harbors construction of a Marcellus Shale Waste Processing Facility smack-dab in the middle of that small city. Planned for the long-idled and stunning eyesore, the Knight-Celotex fiberboard thermal insulation plant shuttered its doors and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April, 2009 (Knight-Celotex files for bankuptcy » News » … [Read more...]
EXCO’s Marcellus Gambit, the SAGO Mine Disaster, and the Price of Natural Gas
Below is the link to the longer research piece titled: Pretending to Forget What's Right Under Our Feet Until the Ground Gives Way: EXCO's Marcellus Gambit, the SAGO Mine Disaster, and the Price of Natural Gas. I have included brief excerpts from the opening of each section. From the opening section: Why Philosophy Matters to Fracking: The Past is the Future Long ago the foresightful German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued that human beings were the sorts of creatures who, in the … [Read more...]
Dear Governor Corbett: Pennsylvania State System Universities are Not Training Depots and Employment Offices for the Extraction Industry. Settle the APSCUF contract NOW.
I’m as deeply committed a union member/activist as they come. Standing shoulder to shoulder with something like 500 of my fellow APSCUF (Associated Pennsylvania College and University Faculty) members in the frigid cold for several hours in peaceful (though loud—at least me) protest of a contract proposal offered by the State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) whose transparent aims are the conversion of the 14 PASSHE universities into training depots, public relations centers, and employment … [Read more...]
War in the Forests of Frackland: EXCO Well Pad, Sullivan County, Davidson Township, PA
Date: 1.12.13. Location: Elk Grove Road, Davidson Township, Sullivan County, PA. Pennsylvania State Game Lands. Location: EXCO frack drill pad staging area. Please follow these pictures from beginning to end for the story of this particular day in the effort to document the industrialization and destruction of Pennsylvania at the hands of the extraction corporations--in this case EXCO: (3) It is war in the once beautiful forests of frackland The pictures begin with the … [Read more...]
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