Two films concerned with water and environmental activism arrive in New York this week. “Groundswell Rising”, which premieres at the Maysles Theater in Harlem today, is about the struggle to safeguard lakes and rivers from fracking while “Revolution”, which opens at the Cinema Village next Wednesday, documents the impact of global warming on the oceans. Taking the holistic view, one can understand how some of the most basic conditions of life are threatened by a basic contradiction. Civilization, the quintessential expression of Enlightenment values that relies on ever-expanding energy, threatens to reduce humanity to barbarism if not extinction through exactly such energy production.
This challenge not only faces those of us now living under capitalism but our descendants who will be living under a more rational system. No matter the way in which goods and services are produced, for profit or on the basis of human need, humanity is faced with ecological constraints that must be overcome otherwise we will be subject to a Sixth Extinction. Under capitalism, Sixth Extinction is guaranteed. Under socialism, survival is possible but only as a result of a radical transformation of how society is organized, something that Marx alluded to in the Communist Manifesto when he called for a “gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.”
This is a video I recorded last weekend in Rockaway, Queens—the epicenter of Hurricane Sandy. It is a follow-up to the video I made in November 2012, shortly after the hurricane had inflicted major damage in Rockaway including the deaths of local residents.
It is a report both on how the peninsula has recovered as well as the threats now posed by a natural gas pipeline being installed underneath Rockaway as part of a nationwide network built by the Williams Company, an outfit that can be described as the BP of natural gas pipelines.
This is the second in a series of videos I made at the recently concluded Left Forum.
Like most people on the left and particularly those with an ecosocialist orientation, I have been following the struggle over fracking quite closely. But I have an additional motivation. Sullivan County in upstate NY, where my tiny village of Woodridge growing up can be found, is a battleground over fracking drawing support from the Hollywood film star Mark Ruffalo who has a country house there.
If you grew up in the southern Catskill Mountains that extends through Sullivan County you will be familiar with the trout streams that were fed by melting snow from those mountains. Their names are legion: the Neversink, the Willowemac and Callicoon Creek. The Neversink was not just valuable for sport; it also feeds the Neversink Reservoir, one of NYC’s primary sources of exceptionally clean water.
When I was young, I used to swim in the Neversink in kind of natural pool underneath a tiny suspension bridge that was designed by John Roebling, the same engineer responsible for the Brooklyn Bridge. Although I stated in my article on Shamir that I have no use for the spiritual, that river is about as close to godlike as any I can think of. It was my Ganges.
The Croton Bridge (named after the company that built it in 1897)
The Riverkeeper Website is a good source of information on the threat posed by fracking:
The entire West-of-Hudson portion of the New York City Watershed (supplying 90% of drinking water to over half the state’s population) sits on top of part of the Marcellus Shale, a large mineral reserve deposit deep beneath the earth’s surface. Oil and gas companies have known about this shale reserve for decades, but the technology to extract natural gas from it has become available only recently. The Marcellus Shale spans across at least five states. To extract natural gas from the mineral reserve, oil companies plan to use a process called “hydraulic fracturing.”
“Fracking” involves injecting toxic chemicals, sand, and millions of gallons of water under high pressure directly into shale formations. This toxic brew, along with any natural gas, is then extracted, or leaked to the surface. Whether any toxic discharges will flow into New York City’s drinking water supply is uncertain.
I keep track of the fracking fight in my hometown newspapers, the Middletown Times-Record and the much smaller circulation Sullivan County Democrat, the newspaper my mom used to write for. Since the hotel industry went bust, Sullivan County has become one of the poorest counties in the state. As such, landowners—many of whom are impoverished farmers—are tempted to lease their land to an energy company. For the time being, Cuomo has suspended fracking but given his shitty politics, there’s some question how long that will last. The third speaker on the panel dealt with NY state issues.
A Middletown Times-Record video on the Neversink River:
The first speaker was Steve Horn, who you may know as the foremost journalist covering the fracking beat right now. I strongly suggest you bookmark his blog: http://www.desmogblog.com/blog/steve-horn
This article from the Middletown Times-Record should give you a sense of the sharp divisions in Sullivan County:
Emotions run high as fracking divides neighbors
Takes toll on communities
By Steve Israel
Times Herald-Record, 02/17/13
An anti-fracking hunter no longer hunts in the woods he’s trod for decades. He says he was made to feel so uncomfortable by the pro-fracking hunting friends who own the land, he just doesn’t feel like he’s wanted there.
A pro-fracking volunteer at a public radio station quits the station. She feels ostracized because of what she says is the anti-fracking atmosphere.
Then there’s the builder of second homes who’s potentially put hundreds of thousands of dollars of construction on hold in Sullivan County towns where fracking is a possibility. He’s waiting until the state finally decides whether the natural gas extraction process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, will be permitted.
The possibility of fracking – and all its explosive divisiveness – has insinuated itself so deeply into so many aspects of local life, the fabric of that life has been frayed.
That is the one thing both sides of the issue can agree on.
“Everything has become politicized,” says builder Charles Petersheim, who will not build his Catskill Farms homes in certain western Sullivan County towns until the state issues a decision on fracking.
“The grocery store, the town board, the chamber of commerce. And there’s no rest.”
“I don’t think anything has had the impact on the town as much as fracking,” says Town of Highland Supervisor Andy Boyar, whose Delaware River town banned fracking last summer.
“The residue, the hard feelings still exist and we need to heal.”
“It’s permeating other issues in ways we never would have predicted,” sums up former Sullivan West School District Superintendent Ken Hilton. When his district tried to sell one of its unused schools, the issue of whether to keep or sell the mineral rights for natural gas beneath school property became a point of contention.
No subject is immune
From real-estate values that anti-frackers say would plummet and pro-frackers say would soar, to farms that anti – and pro-frackers say would either be ruined or saved, the implications of fracking have, for many local residents, become as much a part of the daily conversation as the weather. And even that weather would be affected by fracking, say those against it, because of the polluting climate change they say fracking would cause.
But nowhere in the region is the reach of the fracking divide more obvious than the town, planning or zoning board meetings of Sullivan County that once attracted a handful of residents but now can be standing-room only whenever there’s a chance fracking might be discussed.
Take the recent public hearing on the proposed comprehensive plan – or blueprint for growth – in the western Sullivan Town of Callicoon. The plan includes a provision for gas drilling, which fracking opponents (and the county planning department) want removed and supporters want retained.
The steady flow of remarks to the Town Board by the standing-room-only crowd of more than 60 made it obvious that virtually every aspect of local life would be hurt or helped by fracking – depending, of course, how you felt about an “issue (that) can affect us all whether we want it or not,” said Nathan Swenberg.
“Are you really ready to gamble with our tax base, our health, our economy,” asked fracking opponent Jill Wiener, ticking off the areas of local life she said will be at risk if the town allows fracking.
The heart of local life
That’s why emotions always run high whenever this potential strand in the fabric of local life is mentioned as a possibility. It’s no exaggeration to say that for some, the debate over fracking gets at the heart of what local life is all about.
Those for it view it as the key to economic progress and livelihood in this county where the unemployment rate hit 10 percent in December.
Some struggling farmers “wait every day to see what New York is going to do,” says Callicoon Supervisor Tom Bose, who mentions a farmer raising cattle in nearby Broome County who’s waiting for gas drilling – and its royalties – to begin, to pay Bose the money he owes him.
But those against it say fracking and its industrial activity will ruin the lifeblood of Sullivan – its pristine water and pastoral land.
“I know people in the city who want to buy homes but won’t consider the area until this thing is resolved,” says Cristian Graca of Shalom Mountain Retreat in Livingston Manor.
Perhaps the biggest impact of the fracking debate has been on the community itself.
“A lot of people are unfriendly to one another,” said Earl Myers at that comprehensive plan meeting.
John Ebert, who supports fracking and the comprehensive plan, put it like this at that meeting when he said he spoke for “the silent majority of citizens in this township” and expressed a sentiment of the most vocal pro-frackers:
“We also have a minority group with a lot of mouth, money and misinformation to slow progressive progress in this township.”
‘You can be blacklisted’
In fact, fracking is so divisive, and so controversial, some choose not to express their real opinions about it for fear they – or their businesses – will be hurt. Others say longtime acquaintances with opposing views on fracking no longer speak to them because of how they feel.
“If you’re not part of the anti-fracking community, you can be blacklisted,” says Petersheim, expressing a sentiment many for fracking say. He’s spoken out against the legality of towns trying to zone out fracking, as well as the laws that are supposed to protect roads from fracking truck traffic, but, he says, would also hurt construction activity.
Bose agrees that folks for fracking often remain silent.
“We’ve seen contractors who can’t wait for this to happen, but they’re cautious in what they say because they don’t want to hurt their business,” he says.
And because whatever decision the state ultimately makes on fracking will bound to be appealed, the divisiveness in so many strands of the fabric of local life is likely to deepen.
That’s why Boyar – who mentions the cursing and obscene gestures he’s seen because of fracking – speaks not only for his town, but also for just about every area that’s been torn by the divisive issue.
“The town really has to go through a healing process.” he says. “It really does.”
There must be something wrong with me. Here I am at the age of 68 still getting worked up over some Koch brother’s funded op-ed piece in the NY Times. If I had stopped reading newspapers 33 years ago after dropping out of the SWP, maybe I could have launched a career writing fiction. What is it that they recommend for people like me? A chill pill?
The offending piece is titled “China Must Exploit its Shale Gas”. My first reaction was to wonder if it was some kind of onion.com spoof. Not a day goes by without a disaster in China attributable to some profit-driven shortcut. Some reminders. The 2008 Sichuan earthquake caused 7000 inadequately constructed schoolhouses to collapse, thus costing the lives of 5000 children and another 15000 injured. As predicted, the Three Gorges Dam has had a terrible environmental impact, producing erosion on 80 percent of the adjacent land. One last instance to dramatize how risky it is for China to “dig deep” for any resource, including coal. Although producing just 35% of the world’s coal, China is responsible for 80% of coal miner fatalities. For example, a gas explosion at the Nanshan mine on November 13, 2006 killed 24 people. The mine, like so many, was operating without any safety license.
The op-ed piece written by one Elizabeth Muller encourages Obama’s pro-fracking and pro-nuke (what? You were expecting a Green?) Secretary of Energy Ernest J. Moniz to push China to go full blast in hydrocracking (ie., fracking) since this would alleviate global warming. As China’s chief energy source right now is coal, this would cut down on greenhouse gases. I guess that makes sense given China’s current situation–exchange air pollution and climate change for carcinogenic, flammable water.
At the bottom of the article, Ms. Muller is identified as the co-founder and executive director of Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research organization focused on climate change. Gosh, as the head of something called Berkeley Earth, you’d expect her least of all to be wearing Birkenstocks and driving a Prius. But more importantly, that branding would ensure her to be Greener than Green, right?
Being an inveterate “cui bono” investigator, I went to the Berkeley Earth website and checked out the donor page, which is divided into three “phases”. Guess what? In phase one, they got $150,000 from the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the largest chunk. Bill Gates’s Fund for Innovative Climate and Energy Research kicked in another hundred thou. A brief search revealed that Gates’s main interest in all this is to promote geoengineering. An opinion piece by Naomi Klein on October 27, 2012 described Gates’s stake in this jury-rigged technology:
Bill Gates has funneled millions of dollars into geoengineering research. And he has invested in a company, Intellectual Ventures, that is developing at least two geoengineering tools: the “StratoShield,” a 19-mile-long hose suspended by helium balloons that would spew sun-blocking sulfur dioxide particles into the sky and a tool that can supposedly blunt the force of hurricanes.
She adds:
The geopolitical ramifications are chilling. Climate change is already making it hard to know whether events previously understood as “acts of God” (a freak heat wave in March or a Frankenstorm on Halloween) still belong in that category. But if we start tinkering with the earth’s thermostat — deliberately turning our oceans murky green to soak up carbon and bleaching the skies hazy white to deflect the sun — we take our influence to a new level. A drought in India will come to be seen — accurately or not — as a result of a conscious decision by engineers on the other side of the planet. What was once bad luck could come to be seen as a malevolent plot or an imperialist attack.
Ms. Muller’s husband Richard founded Berkeley Earth and now is the institute’s Science Director. Doing a bit of research on him, you discover from Wikipedia that he is the director of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project that Koch funds as well. But interestingly enough, that project confirmed that temperatures were rising despite suspicions that it would fall within the skeptic’s camp.
This of course has some bearing on Elizabeth Muller’s op-ed piece that accepts the science but proposes a remedy that will likely kill the patient—mother earth. The only conclusion you can be left with is that the Koch Brothers are hedging their bets. If governments move more and more in the direction of eliminating “dirty” greenhouse emitting energy sources like coal, then why not push natural gas and hydrocracking?
The green blogs were buzzing last week with news of a new bombshell report that affirms the role of human activity in global warming. Studies affirming climate science are nothing new to say the least, but this one was produced through the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project (BEST), under the auspices of well known climate skeptic Richard A. Muller. The kicker is that BEST is partly funded by the Koch brothers, who have become notorious for their financial support of the “climate change denial machine.”
Hence the bombshell, and with it a lesson in the perils of corporate funding for scientific research. But is it really a bombshell? Take a closer look at some of the Koch brothers’ energy investments and pair that with another BEST funder, and it’s clear that the new study works in favor of the Koch interests, not against them.
The Koch brothers and natural gas
First off, it’s important to note that not all fossil fuels are due for a quick and brutal end once the so-called climate “skeptic” movement is neutralized.
Fossil fuels will continue to feature prominently in the U.S. energy landscape during a transitional period to low-carbon energy, and proponents of natural gas have positioned this particular fuel to play a key role in the transition, based on the idea that it is “cleaner” than other fossil fuels.
It’s also worth noting that natural gas is not necessarily deserving of this advantage, at least not when it is obtained through fracking. Fracking is a highly controversial drilling method that involves pumping a toxic chemical brine underground. It has been linked to water contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, and even earthquakes.
Be that as it may, Koch Industries is heavily involved in natural gas, as detailed in an article last spring by Lee Fang in the Republic Report. Its recent activities in the natural gas industry focus on services for fracking operations including pipelines, storage, processing, and supplies.
BEST, Novim and natural gas
That pretty much explains why the new report from BEST is not such bad news for the Koch brothers after all.
In fact, the report is not such bad news for the natural gas industry as a whole, judging by another major funder behind BEST, a non-profit organization called Novim.
According to its website, Novim initiated and sponsored BEST in line with its stated mission, which is “to provide clear scientific options to the most urgent problems facing mankind.” Novim’s mission also focuses on cost/benefit analyses, and it claims to report its findings “without advocacy or agenda.”
That’s all well and good, but Novim’s news page currently leads off with an Associated Press article asserting that evidence of water contamination and public health impacts from gas drilling is “sketchy and inconclusive.”
Other featured articles include a New York Times piece touting increased natural gas production (with a veiled reference to new fracking technology) as a critical factor in carbon emissions management, and a love letter to fracking in the form of a Yale study review published in Forbes.
Aside from BEST, Novim is also involved in at least one other research project with implications for the natural gas industry, an analysis of methane leakage from natural gas drilling. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and critics argue that the leakage effectively neutralizes the low-carbon advantage that natural gas is supposed to have over other fossil fuels.
He who laughs last, laughs BEST…
As for the methodology behind BEST, some critics are already lining up to shoot it down but according to a recent article in The Guardian, others are having themselves a bit of a chuckle over it. For all the media firestorm surrounding BEST, so far it pretty much confirms conclusions about global warming that had already achieved general acceptance back in the 1990′s.
At any rate, regardless of the science it’s a win-win for the Koch brothers. Either the critics are right and BEST contributes little or nothing to the body of climate science, or it is a valid study that happens to support Koch Industries’ investments in the natural gas industry.
