News — fracking

The oil and gas companies are spending over $ 3 million to try to prevent citizens from amending the Colorado constitution. They want to put fracking wells and pipelines next to homes, schools, hospitals. They want to be able to pollute the air and water. Here are some links to good groups and articles: 350 colorado.org colorado conservation Who's Behind the 'decline to sign" efforts? Great articles by Joel dyer of theBoulder Weekly about the web of donors and lobbyists pushing to prevent any regulation of fracking. second article Third article.      

Sunday is the deadline for getting signatures for stopping fracking near homes and schools. LINK to help gather petitions. The pro-oil and gas fracking companies have spent over $ 10 million dollars to stop people from protecting their health so far. They are stacking city councils with pro fracking politicians. They flood politicians with angry callers. They develop database on 3.7 million Coloradoans from polls and door to door canvassing. They know how to fashion their ads to appeal to individuals. They have bought the support of major newspapers and TV stations thru massive ad buys. They harass petition gatherers. They infiltrate grassroots citizen groups. They form coalitions to greenwash themselves and claim that fracking is good for wildlife. LINK to Joel Dyer's great story in the Boulder Weekly on 7-28. In a similar way, the Koch brothers and their corporate allies have hired over 450 organizers across the US find to groom, and elect pro-oil and anti-government -regulation politicians. They have gathered over $450 million. They put up candidates for Congress, the Senate, state legislatures, and the courts. Some of their allies even try to dominate school boards, city councils, and county commissions. Jane Mayer's book Dark Money details this. She and other activists including 350.org's Bill McKibben have been followed by hired operatives who try to intimidate them.

Please gather signatures for petitions to keep oil fracking away from schools, homes, and hospitals. Link to circulate petitions or donate. Link to a good article in the Boulder Weekly.

On Saturday 4-23-16 from 9 to 5, fascinating speakers will be at CU Math 100 from 9 am to 5 pm. Antonia Juhasz (live) wrote books about oil and Bush. Cornell professor Ingrafffea found that natural gas wells and pipelines leak at a high rate. TEACH IN: Featuring (live via skype) Professor Anthony Ingraffea, one of the world's leading experts on fracking technology. He wrote a paper on the methane ``leak rate'' of fracking wells/distribution which was denounced by President Obama's Dept. of Energy, and subsequently some years after the same folks apologized to Ingraffea. Ingraffea has also attracted attempts to, shall we say, intimidate him -- but he has not backed down and sticks with solid science/engineering. In person, we will have two exceptional investigative journalist/authors: Antonia Juhasz, San Francisco, (``Tyranny of Oil'' and other books) and Andrew Nikiforuk, Alberta, Canada (``Slickwater: Fracking and One Insider's Stand Against the World's Most Powerful Industry,'' and ``Tar Sands'', and other books), They will present talks and do a book-signing in conjuction with the Boulder Bookstore. We will also have local talent from NCAR (Dan Ziskin, on global warming scenarios that don't get press coverage) and others. Lunch available, but not free :)) Link