Bomb Trains from Messiah Rhodes on Vimeo.

While on a recent train trip from Denver to New York City, my view of our country was often blocked by the black blur of a train hauling crude-oil tanks.

I watched these bomb trains cross through the backyards of America transporting oil fracked in the Bakken Shale; a once rural region of North Dakota that can now be seen from space because the fracking flares burn so bright.

We recently toured across Pennsylvania and New York, and communities from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and from Buffalo across the state to Albany all the way up through Plattsburgh are scared their town could be the next Lac-Megantic disaster; 47 people were killed there when an oil train derailed and exploded, burning down most of the downtown area.

Seeing those bomb trains rumble through towns, it’s so clear that the future they are speeding off towards is not the one I want for the country beyond my window.

They are careening towards a world where instead of switching to a safer, more sustainable track, we kick it into high gear and squeeze every last drop of fossil fuels from our planet using more extreme methods like fracking and offshore drilling.

The fossil fuel industry is getting more desperate and dangerous with every passing day. They won’t stop endangering our communities and our planet until we demand the alternative.

Please watch and share our Video of the Week: “Bomb Trains” by Messiah Rhodes.

Thanks and have a great weekend,

Lee Ziesche, Grassroots Coordinator

Divest Harvard is calling on Harvard University to:

• immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuel companies
• immediately divest direct holdings (currently $17.3 million) from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies
• divest indirect holdings in the top 200 fossil fuel companies within 5 years, and reinvest in socially responsible funds.

If colleges and universities truly care about their students they cannot invest in the dirty fossil fuels that put the future of our planet in jeopardy. Supporting a system that imperils their future is a hypocrisy we can’t stand for. We hope the brave actions by these Harvard students inspire more young folks across the country to act.

This week, I participated in my first act of civil disobedience. I blockaded the door to Massachusetts Hall (where Harvard President Drew Faust has her office) along with five other activists. We are members of Divest Harvard, and we were calling for an open meeting with President Faust and the Harvard Corporation. 

Planning and participating in the blockade was one of the most complex and rich experiences of my life. I have not yet had a chance to process everything that I learned, but one lesson does stand out in particular: show, don’t tell. Let me explain…

Divest Harvard, a student-run campaign calling on Harvard to divest its $32.7 billion endowment from the top 200 fossil fuel companies, launched in Fall 2012. We first called for an open meeting with President Drew Faust in September 2013. Unsurprisingly, she said no. Since then, our meetings with the administration have been private and off-the-record. Therefore our group has been unable to expose the administration’s  contradictory, hypocritical, and factually incorrect statements. 

We asked for an open meeting so that the Harvard (and wider) community can hear the administration’s reasoning for opposing divestment and engage in a constructive dialogue about how Harvard is, and could be,  addressing climate change. As a University, dialogue is our central mission and  core value. Whether or not President Faust agrees with us about divestment, we should all be able to agree on the value of a public discussion. 

With this goal, we began the blockade at 6 am on Wednesday, April 30. Six students stood in front the door, we erected a banner on the building, and around 20 students came to sit in front of us to show that there is support and passion for this issue on campus. 

Within a couple of hours, the Harvard University Police had arrived, and it looked like they were going to arrest us. But they didn’t. Administrators went through side doors—which we knew would happen—and we continued blockading the front door. Throughout the day, we held four rallies, talked with hundreds of passers-by, discussed our strategy, and danced to keep warm. We remained there overnight, sleeping in front of the door. 

In the morning—in 40 degree weather and a torrential downpour—we made a move to blockade the other doors into the building. Despite the fact that the police were out in force, we had determined that it was necessary to escalate the pressure. Drew Faust’s executive assistant arrived at 7 am to enter the building. He walked right by me and other blockaders, and he never even engaged with us or asked us why we were there. He was blocked from entering, and the student who blocked him was arrested. The University decided that it was preferable to arrest a student than to have an open discussion about climate change and divestment. It was a violation of what is held most sacred in academic life and in a free society. It was a day of shame for Harvard.

Now to one of the most important lessons that I learned: we made the invisible visible. The public can now see the kind of ideology that students have been confronting in private meetings with the administration. By arresting a student, Harvard showed just how unwilling it is to speak publicly about divestment. It is unwilling to produce evidence-based reasoning to back up its claims. It is unwilling to be confronted and engaged in the spirit of open debate. Now the world can see Harvard’s  intransigence, secrecy, and arrogance.  Show, don’t tell. And that is what we did. We believe in a better Harvard just as we believe in a better world.

- Chole Maxmin, co-coordinator of Divest Harvard

Siena is a 10 year old Fractivist from California.  She’s a strong, motivated young lady on a mission to ban fracking, at local, state and national levels.

To spread awareness about these issues, she has given Tedx speeches, lobbied State Legislators, given speeches to Democratic clubs throughout Southern California, and has spoken at Rallies at the Governor’s office, the Federal Courthouse, Cal State Long Beach, and the most recent nationwide Climate Action March – to encourage California Governor Brown, President Obama, and other elected officials about the urgent need to take action now before it is too late and any more irreversible damage is done.  She firmly believes that every single person can help to make a difference, given the right tools and information.

From Siena: “Everyone’s action today directly impacts tomorrow.  If you want your children and grandchildren to have clean water to drink, clean food to eat, and clean air to breathe – then FRACKING MUST BE BANNED NOW!”

California Fractivist, like Siena, are making their voices heard. Los Angles City Council unanimously voted to write a moratorium on fracking and thousands of Californians will come together on March 15th for a rally in Sacramento to tell Governor Jerry Brown to ban fracking.  As California faces a record drought, it’s more apparent than ever that fracking is not the answer. Please share this video and amplify Siena’s message to Governor Jerry Brown and President Barack Obama “No fracking in California! No fracking anywhere! “

We can only continue to share stories like these with your support. Please consider making a donation to the Gasland team today. 

From Lee Ziesche, Grassroots Coordinator:

Every bottle of wine tells a different story. It’s a story that begins in the distinct soil the vines grow from. It’s a story that is shaped by the history and culture of the winemakers. It’s a story that is constantly impacted, pulled towards ripeness or ruin by the climate the grapes grow in. And as in all good stories, it’s really about a relationship. At the heart of each bottle of wine is the terroir: the relationship between the soil, the climate and the winemakers that gave birth to it.

And it’s a story that definitely sounds more beautiful and poetic when those recounting the tale have a French accent.

Domaine Notre Dame de Cousignac

We arrived at the Domaine Notre Dame de Cousignac, a beautiful vineyard and rustic farmhouse bed and breakfast, expecting to chat with a few winemakers about the effects of climate change on their product. We got much more than we expected.

We were greeted by a full round table of organic winemakers and academics. Men and women whose families have been making a living off the earth of the region for generations, and they are worried about the changes they are seeing.

French wine makers in Ardeche

They told us that their harvest dates are moving up every year and the wine contains higher alcohol content. These artisans can and will adapt, but for how long and at what cost? How will it change the terroir? How will it change their story?

Raphael Pommier is the seventh generation on his family’s winery at Domaine Notre Dame de Cousignac. He loves wine and the process of making it so much, his whole face lights up when he shows us samples of soil.

He knows the history of every little bit of dirt on his property and has a vision of what it will be in the future. With every decision he makes, he considers not only how it will impact the current harvest, but also what it will mean for his children and grandchildren, when they take their turn cultivating the land.

Raphael Pommier

He plants some vines for future generations, knowing all too well that he will never see them bear fruit. He worries about what kind of climate they will be growing in one day. How much will the terroirbe permanently altered by the time his children are harvesting grapes? What story will they tell if pollution and rising temperatures surround them?

It’s something the Saladin sisters also think about. Winemaking has been their family’s trade for an almost impossible-to-fathom 21 generations, first purchasing their vines in 1422. The world has changed so much since their story began, but the Saladin sisters know they are but a chapter.

Marie-Laurence and Elisabeth Saladin

Maria-Laurence Saladin told us they are just one stop. There were 20 generations before her and she hopes there will be 20 after.

It’s a mentality that almost escapes me as a 24-year old American. Even as someone who is very close to my family, that sense of tradition and responsibility to pass it forward is almost completely absent from the culture I grew up in.

But as we come face-to-face with the real and growing effects of climate change, I think it’s what we need going forward. We need to stop seeing ourselves as the center of the universe, but rather one stop. What will we leave behind? A toxic legacy of fracking fluids in the ground? A country living in fear of increasing pipelines? Mountains with their tops blown off?

Loï Saladin in his vineyard

While on our grassroots tour of Europe, we spoke to organic winemakers from Ardèche, a region where thousands took to the streets two years ago, leading the charge to ban fracking in France.If there was any place on earth that showed the immediate power of grassroots protest, it was Ardèche. Organizers hit every door, every community meeting, handing out literature and a 20 min version of Gasland (in French) they had bootlegged and with lightning speed 20,000 people were marching in the streets.  The movement in Ardèche spread across France and got the first ever nation-wide ban on fracking in the world.  All because they love their wine, all because they love their culture.

The winemakers of Ardèche are fighting to leave behind a much richer world than one ravaged by fossil fuel extraction. Like farmers in Wyoming or woodsmen in Pennsylvania, the winemakers of Ardèche are fighting for so much more than the environment; They’re fighting for a a culture that is dependent on the health of the world around them.

On this day we have to remember those who died  and those who lost everything.

But more than just remembrance, we have to realize what it means.
We have to end our dependency on fossil fuels.
Unless we shift to renewables, events like Sandy will become more and more common
and our civilization will rush into one state of emergency after another.

Please take a look at my short film, made a few weeks after Sandy hit last year
and take a moment to contemplate.  The film features Bill McKibben, Occupy Sandy volunteers and
many brave and inspiring victims of the storm.

OCCUPY SANDY from JFOX on Vimeo.

But don’t just click and move on.  Take action now.

Sign up for our alerts to fight fracking.

Of course, we’re known for our feature films like GASLAND I and II but our short projects, which are always independent and not funded by a major studio, are sometimes just as important.  We will continue to make new work and share it with you here on our blog. We will also feature blogposts from folks around the world that are fighting against fracking that we think will inspire you.

Our blog and short works need funding. Please donate so that we can continue to make short films like Occupy Sandy in the future.

We are striving to continue to bring you this reporting

Thanks,
Josh

I’m calling on Governor Hickenlooper to immediately enact a statewide ban on all extractive mining operations/Fracking until such time all completed wells in Colorado are just inspected in accordance with flood plain regulations. Current setbacks from water ways have unequivocally proven they do not prevent adverse impacts. This oversight must be immediately addressed on every oil & gas well pad in the state. The horrific environmental and human health catastrophe from the spills & releases from subsurface flow lines, crud oil and  liquid waste tanks must be immediately evaluated and mitigated. There is also a high probability of well casing failures due to the waters seeping down around the annuli and must be an immediate issue of concern.

Pipes were shown broken with what appeared to be bubbling methane releases in numerous areas. The waters are certain to contain BTEX and other dangerous chemicals. Organic farms have been affected by these very waters. Cattle have been pushed up onto small areas with no safe water to drink.

The areas along the South Platte River are destroyed beyond measure and the GOGCC and the industry should be fully held accountable for failing to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and human health.

An immediate statewide moratorium is a sound decision considering the current state rules and regulations are highly inadequate.

–

Shane Davis
@fractivist
Regional Campaign Director – GASLAND