Introducing Wendy Lynne Lee

Dear readers of No Fracking Way,

I am incredibly excited and flattered to have been invited to add my voice to the excellent writer-researcher-activists of Shaleshock Media. I have been writing a series on the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, its associated industries, its promise of future catastrophe for human and nonhuman health, communities, and the environment for Raging Chicken Press since about April of 2011.

I have the “privilege” of living near some of the burgeoning epicenters of frackland-Fracksylvania, or perhaps better, Governor Tom Corbett’s Pennsylvania, Inc. My perspective is informed both by the science relevant to the processes, implications, and infrastructures of fracking and by my particular experience living as a “shaler,” a member of a deeply conservative rural community, an import academic from two other frack-relevant states-Colorado and Wisconsin-and by a long history of political activism on a number of issues, women’s rights, gay rights, animal welfare, union activism, and the rights of the poor. MY aim here will be to draft some short pieces and abstracts with links to the longer work I do for Raging Chicken. I am very much looking forward to the expanded conversations that the No Fracking Way blog may make possible.

Below is a letter I recently wrote to my college dean in response to a phone call he had received critical of academics (well, me) who become involved in the body politic. My university would far rather its professors emulate the staid and-I think-dull-behavior of the patchy suited lecturer. I have been at Bloomsburg for 20 years-none of which have found me fitting this image.

And not this year either: Philosophy is no mere profession, but a way of life committed not only to discovering the truth, but to acting on it for the sake of the public good. Such, at least, is the upshot of Karl Marx’ famous remark that the point of philosophy is not merely to understand the world but to change it. I have sought for all of my now 20 years at Bloomsburg to practice that commitment-often failing, but always with renewed vigor when conditions called for it. No conditions have called more loudly to me to muster both my philosophical resolve and a bit of courage than my involvement over this past year with the anti-fracking movement in Pennsylvania.

One of my areas is environmental philosophy; another is bioethics. But neither of these were necessary for galvanizing my resolve to become involved in the resistance to what can be clearly shown on the evidence to be a serious danger to health, environmental integrity, and community sustainability than slickwater hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. All that was required was being a moral person-and one fortunate enough to be in an economic position to DO something. My hero-like that of virtually all philosophers who endeavor to act as public intellectuals-is Socrates, who gave up comfort and ultimately life to pursue the true, the good, and the beautiful. For him, there was no artificial distinction to be drawn between his “professional” life and his life, between “theory” and “action.” So too it has always been for me. Note-I am not comparing myself to this master-far from it. But I can aspire to his example, and I think that his example is precisely what a university ought to encourage in its faculty.

I have been writing a series on the processes, dangers, infrastructure, politics, corporate influences, and implications of fracking, compressor stations, water withdrawals, water impoundments, transmission lines, and export depots for a small but growing PASSHE Institution zine (Kutztown, editor Kevin Mahoney) called Raging Chicken Press. Some of these pieces are more scholarly in their research:

• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2011/07/01/an-open-letter-to-governor-corbett/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/02/15/the-unholy-alliance-of-big-energy-big-university-big-state-my-exchange-with-terry-engelder/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/03/17/why-fracking-epitomizes-the-crisis-in-american-democracy-profiteering-and-the-good-american/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/04/20/state-codified-avoidance-of-accountability-and-genocidal-profiteering-gag-orders-compressor-station-explosions-childrens-art-projects-and-fracking/

And some are photo-documentary blog pieces devoted to the documenting of what I regard as one of the most important events in recent Pennsylvania environmental history-the invited occupation of Riverdale by Occupy Well Street, Occupy Wall Street, and Earth First! I wrote about these events every day of the occupation-including the day we were raided by the state police and forced to evacuate. Many of us were more than willing to face arrest for civil disobedience. I am proud to say that I am willing to stand with these brave folks-and I wish there had been more academics standing with me.

• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/05/hands-across-riverdale-occupy-well-street-responds-to-fracking-refugees/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/07/hands-across-riverdale-barricades-the-forward-facing-body-of-the-occupation/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/08/hands-across-riverdale-a-man-his-family-some-paint-and-barricades-hardly-captures-the-magic/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/14/the-raiding-of-riverdale-the-resistance-has-only-just-begun-1-photos/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/14/the-raiding-of-riverdale-the-resistance-has-only-just-begun-2-photos/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/14/2569/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/14/the-police-raid-at-riverdale-the-decision-to-stand-down/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/15/the-police-raid-on-riverdale-how-kevin-june-didnt-mean-to-break-my-heart/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/18/riverdale-aqua-americas-incarceration-of-children-photos/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/21/the-demolition-of-riverdale-this-is-not-my-america/ http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/06/26/riverdale-a-story-of-two-very-different-nights-and-two-very-different-kinds-of-light/
• http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/07/08/in-the-way-of-aqua-america-you-aint-nothing-but-disposable/

Some of my work has begun to receive some very positive critical attention-both my written work and my photographs. For example,

The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stanley-rogouski/fracking_b_1566162.html
Mother Jones: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/06/pa-fracking-eviction
Public Source: http://publicsource.org/investigations/marcellus-shales-accidental-activists
The Center for Media and Democracy: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/06/11588/police-raid-anti-fracking-encampment-pennsylvania
Shale Reporter: http://www.shalereporter.com/industry/article_9653d6fa-c230-11e1-8252-001a4bcf6878.html
Shaleshock Media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MhrUceqSR0
Frackedagain: http://frackedagain.blogspot.com/2012/06/riverdaled.
Common Dreams: https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/15-7
Shaleshock Media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFXKxPx6NR0
Keep Tapwater Safe: http://keeptapwatersafe.org/2012/02/20/penn-states-course-in-denial/
The Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition and WNEP:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43hwuC-rjF0

One of my pieces was also presented at The Crisis of American Democracy conference at Purdue/University of Indiana, and will be published in a separate volume later this year, University of Indiana: http://new.ipfw.edu/news/detail.html?id=aeef195c-e889-4bc7-983e-6b11d48d311d.

Today I had the great pleasure of being interviewed on the beautiful BU campus by Alex Chadwick of the series Burn, for National Public Radio: http://burnanenergyjournal.com/meet-your-host-alex-chadwick/. I have to say, I’m really proud of that. I am also in the process of helping to organize, document, and argue for a ban on fracking.

Some of this work can be found here:

http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/08/07/response-to-tom-shepstone-paid-fracking-propagandist/
http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/08/15/you-know-youve-got-them-worried-when-they-cant-stop-talking-about-you-energy-in-depths-faux-reporting-at-schlumberger-8-11-12/
http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/08/19/response-to-mike-knapp-best-not-to-call-me-an-elderly-hippy/
http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/08/20/stream-discharge-drill-cuttings-oil-brine-andor-silt-response-to-mike-knapp-snyder-bros-mds-energy-development-or-best-not-to-call-me-a-junkie/

I am tempted to say something cheesy, like “This is what I did on my Summer vacation.” But, in fact, this is what my life both in and out of the university has always looked like. This Summer, it just got more media attention. I believe that these are the sorts of things academics ought to be pursuing consistent with their disciplines. And I think that this is precisely what the university ought to encourage and support in any of us.