Above Photo: Protesters march against fracking. (Photo: Garry Knight/flickr/cc)
As one of the so-called “dragon ships” arrives in Grangemouth (September 27, 2016) carrying fracked gas from the United States, the great and the good of Scotland have been invited to a ritzy celebration at INEOS’ shiny new HQ.
But the Broad Alliance sees nothing to celebrate. Instead we share this plea from a community affected by this dirty business:
Please don’t accept these shipments of Fracked Liquid Gas from Pennsylvania. Americans are being sacrificed by having this production near their homes, schools and farms. Thousands of violations have been uncovered, showing that our air and water has been polluted by the process of extraction and gas production.
Citizens for Clean Water, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania
The gas INEOS is importing comes from the Marcellus Shale (mostly in Pennsylvania) and travels by pipeline over vulnerable land and water from Mark West processing plant in Eastern Pennsylvania to Marcus Hook, Philadelphia, where Sunoco has turned an old refinery into a chemical production and storage cente. The whole business is putting the Delaware River at risk.
INEOS plans to move 40,000 barrels of US shale gas a day, every day, for the next 15 years and by 2020 is aiming for eight shipments a month. The main ethane suppliers are Range Resources, a company which has access to frack approximately 1 million acres across Pennsylvania.
We heard from people in PA who fear they will suffer a disastrous legacy.
Pennsylvania communities continue to be the lab rats for the fossil fuel industry despite the pleas of her citizens. Studies continue to recognize the health and environmental harms of fossil fuel extraction. Pennsylvania will be left with a toxic legacy, a sick population and we will be unwillingly complicit in contributing to catastrophic climate change.
United Against Fossil Fuels, Pennsylvania
We heard about the impact of the infrastructure used by INEOS’ partners:
People in Philadelphia oppose the shipment of natural gas liquids to Scotland. We condemn the relentless environmental damage caused by Sunoco’s Mariner East terminal in Philadelphia, its polluting pipelines that slash across Pennsylvania from the Marcellus shale fields. We condemn the Mark West processing plant in western Pennsylvania that produces these toxic liquids by fracking the Commonwealth’s communities and ruining their air, water and health. Many in Pennsylvania have fought for years to stop this and we will continue the struggle in solidarity with our friends in Scotland and everywhere.
Green Justice Philly, Philadelphia
And we heard about the tactics used by the industry to prevent moratoriums being turned into bans:
The people of Colorado, one of the most fracked states in the U.S., are fighting to stop fracking in our communities currently with two proposed ballot initiatives after the state Supreme Court overturned 5 of our communities’ local bans and moratoria.
The oil and gas industry raised $24 million to fight us with tactics ranging from PR campaigns to hiring people to harass and intimidate petition circulators. Meanwhile methane leaks from fracking wells are contributing significantly to global climate change. It is time to move beyond all fossil fuels, including natural gas, to a clean renewable energy future. The technology exists, we simply need the determination to stand up against these polluting industries and their corrupting influence on our governments.
350 Colorado, US
And finally, we were told by a world expert that importing fracked gas from the US to the UK is “a climate disaster in the making”:
The only way to reach the climate target set by the UN at COP21 in Paris last December is to reduce methane emissions, yet methane emissions are going up rapidly. The biggest culprit globally is the oil and gas industry in the US, driven by 3-fold higher methane emissions from fracked gas than conventional gas. And then we compound that with liquifying and shipping gas abroad, with even greater methane emissions. When will this nightmare end?
Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D., David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology, Cornell University, Editor-in-Chief, Limnology & Oceanography & Founding Editor, Biogeochemistry
In fact, the Broad Alliance has received messages from New York, New York State, California, Colorado, Ohio, North Carolina, Quebec, Germany, Netherlands, Portugal and Bulgaria, all opposing the opening up of this new trade in fossil fuels. We are part of a growing global movement.
FrackbustersNY, New York State, United States of America
We stand in solidarity with the Broad Alliance and Scottish communities in opposition to fracked-gas imports and exports. Fracking and its related activities poison people, animals (wild and domestic), and destroys communities, farmland and natural habitats, while exacerbating climate disruption. Therefore, we believe fracking and its associate activities should be made a crime.
Coalition to protect New York
We have been fighting the industrial harms of fracking, and the undemocratic, anti-human rights ways in which they are foisted upon communities in our own state, region, and country as well as in other areas around the world. In solidarity with our allies in Scotland we strenuously object to the shipment via “dragon ships” of “natural” gas from the Marcellus shale fields. These fossil fuels are already contaminating our air and water and destroying lives of our neighbors in Pennsylvania. Then the toxic liquid and solid wastes – much of it radioactive – from these corporate activities are being dumped on New York State roads and in our landfills.
Mark Lichty, Executive Producer of Groundswell Rising
The arrival of the Ineos Dragon ships in the UK is not an event to celebrated, but rather to be mourned. The event means the message and commitments made in Paris, go virtually unheeded. Fracked gas with its methane and carbon dioxide emissions fuels the climate crises. The earth speaks resoundingly of its climate-induced pain through unprecedented heat waves, floods, forest fires etc.
The infrastructure to process the gas is a black hole sucking money into it that could be spent on a bright, job-producing alternative future.
Voices are beginning to be heard that we must have a WWII style mobilization effort to rise to the Climate crises. Then as now this is an enemy we can combat. Let the UK and US stand together. United we stand, divided we fall.
Food & Water Watch, USA
The fracking boom has meant more earthquakes, more pollution, more severe health issues, more traffic noise, more spills, more bomb train explosions, and more destruction of our environment and farmland. Shipping fracked LNG from the US to Europe makes absolutely no sense for the climate, the environment or human health, particularly since INEOS wants to mainly use the gas for ethylene and plastics production. Clean, affordable solutions are already available, and we won’t stop as a movement until we ban fracking and transition to 100 percent clean energy everywhere.
Signatories of the Korbach Resolution, Germany
We, as signatories of the Korbach Resolution clearly demand
· An immediate ban without any exemptions of all types of fracking with regard to the research, exploration and exploitation of fossil energy sources. This ban should apply whether or not the fracturing occurs with or without chemicals, hydraulically or in other ways.
· A general import- and trade-ban on”fracked” fossil energy sources.
We – together with all the anti-fracking groups in Europe – share the French motto “Ni ici, ni ailleurs” – “Not here, not anywhere!”
Schaliegasvrij Nederland (No Shale gas Netherlands)
We oppose imports of shale gas, oil or any other products of extreme fossil fuels into Scotland and Europe. We do not want to profit from the water and air pollution created by fracked gas or oil, and stand by American and Scottish citizens.
STOPetróleo-Vila do Bispo, Portugal
We stand with Scotland. It is time for a change and we have the means for that. Continuing under fossil fuels will destroy us faster and faster. To the increasing of health problems, the earthquakes, the destruction of water resources, just to name a few, we say NO! We stand with all the countries that are fighting against destruction!
Regroupement vigilance hydrocarbures Québec.
The sirens of fracking and GNL are also singing here in Québec and many don’t see through their pipe dreams, pun unintended. We stand with all who fight against this last offensive of a dying industry who seems intent on bringing down the whole world with them.
Frack free Bulgaria
Importing fracked gas from the US to Europe will contribute to greenhouse gas emissions that we should be cutting. It will perpetuate the use of fossil fuels which we should be replacing with renewables. And it will increase pressure on politicians to allow fracking in Europe, including here in Bulgaria. We join the Scottish Broad Alliance in opposing this trade, and send support to campaigners in the US trying to halt it on the other side of the Atlantic.
Earth Guardians, USA
We are working tirelessly to stop the devastating expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure on our lands and we are saddened to know that what is poisoning us, is now arriving on your shores. As your government accepts and explores these toxic practices, we stand in solidarity with your concerns for the global community.
Green Party of Nassau County, NY
We stand in solidarity with the people of Scotland in opposing LNG shipments to their country and the run-away development and use of destructive fossil fuel technologies!
Triangle Branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, North Carolina
We acknowledge with sadness the threat to the health of the ocean, the threat to the waters of the world, the threat to the people of the country of Scotland specifically with the shipment of liquified gas in what we call “Dragon Death Ships.” We will work locally and in solidarity with the people of Scotland to stop the exportation of fracked gas. Cataclysmic climate disasters must be prevented! A sustainable future is possible! Humans must put an end to the extraction, shipping, and burning of fossil fuels.
PAUSE – People of Albany United for Safe Energy, NY
Here are personal messages from three of our members:
“All over the world people are saying no to fossil fuels because the delicate balance needed to sustain life on Earth cannot be maintained while continuing to allow the extraction, transport, and use of fossil fuels. It’s time to end unbridled corporate greed before it’s too late. Albany, NY says no to fossil fuels. In gratitude and solidarity with Scotland!”
“Fracking is a crime against people and planet. CEOs and politicians who support it should be arrested.”
“New York State ramped up a 6 year battle against fracking and we won!!! Green energy is our only choice if we are to continue living on this planet. ALL money spent on energy MUST be invested in new technology which supports green energy. Natural gas and nuclear are NOT CLEAN energy, they are NOT bridge fuels. We have already burned our fossil fuel bridge. We must build a new one made from wind, sun, geothermal and tidal. Our very existence depends on it. All people of the world must unite and fight. Together we will win.”
Uncompahgre Group, Rocky Mountain Chapter, The Sierra Club
Communities here are overtaken by fracking, causing low birth weight babies, stillbirths, cancer clusters, all kinds of skin and respiratory illnesses, loss of property value and damage to our quality of life. Many of us have moved here for the beauty of the landscape, but the patchwork of drilling rigs have scarred the views and driven away grouse, eagles, elk, and mountain lions, as well as key species such as prairie dogs and ferrets. The world must develop renewables and practice conservation rather than drill, condense and ship liquid natural gas all over our beautiful planet!
Idle No More, San Francisco Bay
The Indigenous people of Idle No More SF Bay stand in solidarity with our relatives in Scotland. We rise together to defend and protect Mother Earth and her sacred system of life and keep all fossil fuels in the ground.
Freshwater Accountability Project, Ohio
In the face of global climate change, to expand the fossil fuel industry, especially extreme energy extraction which is dirtier than coal, is an insane path to destruction. While the US becomes a resource colony for fracking profits, we warn other countries not to let that happen to them. We are all in this together. We must stop producing, selling and exporting frack gas and its byproducts and move to the renewable energy economy if we are to avoid climate catastrophe.
People Not Pipelines, NYS
New York banned high-volume hydro-fracking but we did not ban the import of fracked gas from Pennsylvania. New York is burning more gas now than when we banned fracking a year and a half ago. And 70% of proposed new electric power generation in NY is for fracked-gas power plants. And it isn’t only New York participating in this hypocrisy.
Methane leakage across production and delivery is currently estimated at 12%, making fracked gas the dirtiest fuel on the planet. But as long as industry and politicians are able promote this fuel as “clean”, or as a “bridge,” and we keep buying that lie, we will continue on our current path to a cooked planet
Wall Women of Colorado, US
The mountain people of Colorado stand with our brothers and sisters in Scotland to “no more” to dirty energy on this our dear great Earth.
Stewardship Project, Crawford County, PA
Communities across the US are resisting every aspect of this business, from frack sand extraction in rural Wisconsin, bomb trains all along the Mississippi River corridor, and our First Nations are leading the way in North Dakota to stop the development of export infrastructure in the form of pipelines. We need a real energy revolution focused on clean and renewable energy, not climate-disrupting and toxic petrochemicals.