If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you will remember I used to do a thing called Armchair Activist Wednesday, where I talked about a good cause that benefited our Mother Earth and all of its inhabitants and asked you to take a small action, like signing a petition, without having to leave the comfort of your chair.
You might also have noticed Armchair Activist Wednesday died after a couple months. My inbox became overwhelmed with emails from terrific organizations, wanting me to bring attention to their causes. I’d have, at first, dozens of emails each day. Then, scores. Now, every day I receive hundreds. I get so many I’ve had to ask most of these worthy organizations to take me off their email lists, because one person cannot adequately champion that many causes. I got seriously depressed, because I felt like a failure, not being able to do it all.
Our planet is hurting. And as I wrote in a blog post a few months back, “Now You Know How it Feels,” I’m very sensitive to the pains of Our Mother. I feel her pain with physical pains myself. If you didn’t read that post, I urge you to read it, because it explains a lot about me, but also about other Earth Sensitives and Intuitives out there. No, I am not alone. I know many others, and I’m sure there are many more beyond my ken.
Now, Big Oil and the U.S. Governments are on yet another kick to drain every drop of fossil fuel from the body of our planet, by a method called hydrolic fracturing, or fracking. It’s such a new word my spellchecker doesn’t even recognize it. Fracking is when large quantities of toxic chemicals are injected into the earth using high pressure. I don’t know exactly the science behind it, but it somehow allows them to extract oil and gas from places that might otherwise be difficult to drill. There’s a wonderful, easy to understand demonstration of fracking here, and I urge you to take the two minutes it takes to watch it.
What’s wrong with injecting toxic chemicals into the earth? Do you even have to ask? But here are just a sampling of things that have gone wrong in fracked areas:
Farm animals sicken and die, because the water they drink and the grass upon which they graze is poisoned. Note that most of these animals are the ones being raised sustainably. It doesn’t happen on feedlots. (Don’t get me started on feedlots.) There have been documented cases of cows’ tails falling off when they are living near fracking sites.
Organic farms are failing. The soil is no longer organic, because it is laced with the toxic chemicals that seep up to the surface. Poisoned groundwater seeps into the plants’ root systems. The food is rendered not only non-organic, but inedible.
People are becoming ill. Small farmers who live within a few miles of fracking sites have had to give up their land because they are too frail to farm it. Walking on toxic ground, breathing air that contains these toxins, will sicken anybody. It’s threatening not only livelihoods, but lives.
I don’t pretend to be an expert on fracking. But I am a champion for our Mother Planet. They call me The Earth Mage, after all, and while usually I define that job as trying to get people to quit being couch potatoes and get outside and take a hike!, there will be no safe place to take those hikes at the rate our land is being fracked. Think you’re safe, where you live? Think again. Click here for a map created by EarthJustice of the proposed and current fracking sites in the USA. Then, look at the skull and crossbones on that map–the sites where fracking accidents have happened. You’re not safe, folks. Not even if you live in a city like LA or New York or Chicago.
I urge you to spend some time exploring the EarthJustice site, as well as The Organic Consumers Association website to learn more about fracking and the damage it does to our planet. If what you learn alarms you–and it will–explore further. See what you can learn about fracking in your area and the actions being taken by activists to put a stop to it. Write President Obama a letter urging him to put an end to fracking.
The crisis is real, folks. Our climate is on the verge of being irreparably damaged–even the United Nations and the World Bank agree to that. Our planet is being poisoned, all for the greed of companies who poison first and ask questions later, if they ask questions at all. We can no longer afford to be Armchair Activists. We have to get our butts out of those chairs and do something.
Please take the time to check out my books at the link above, as well as further explore my Website. You can read excerpts from my novels and short stories by clicking on the widgets at the bottom of this page.
If you enjoyed this blog, I invite you to subscribe by email via the link on the right. If you’re on Facebook, you can like my author page by clicking that link; if you’re on Twitter, you can follow me by clicking the Twitter link. I follow back. Thank you.
It is really to difficult to navigate such Sophie’s Choice situations, thank you for this, the press is earily silent and the results are that we will have a plethora of Superfund Brownfields to deal with for many many decades to come…
Thank you for stopping by, Valeria. But I don’t think it’s a Sophie’s Choice situation. If Big Oil would put the money they’re spending to drain the earth into developing the alternative energies we already have and know work, they’d become Big Energy instead of Big Oil–Big, Clean Energy. They’re simply short-sighted.
I hear you, Smoky. yesterday on NPR there was a discussion with the members of a lawsuit with Monsanto Corporation and lawsuits regarding their genetically modified seeds that are resistant to Roundup herbicide, meaning entire fields are doused with Roundup.
: /
Grrr, don’t get me started on Monsanto. The rest of the world needs to follow Peru’s example on this one. Monsanto and their GMO seeds have been banned from the entire country! And they call *us* the developed nation and Peru *third world.*
of course, it’s much bigger than that – just one small example.
When I joined the Sierra Club during the 1960s, Earth was faced with multiple crises. Since then, I’ve supported a multitude of organizations to the point where every day brought more mail about more crises than I could possibly fathom, much less research enough to understand the issues clearly enough to debate them. Now I have to turn away from most of the groups and crises and debates to keep from falling into a dark hole of despair.
I think more people would fight against the issues we see if there were clear alternatives that work right now. This doesn’t mean curtailing development and research for long term solutions. But right now, people want to drive their gasoline powered cars. They expect a stead supply of fuel. Our driving and our expectations create, in part, the fracking. Even when people see the consequences, they keep on driving and using the product because they do not see an alternative to their cars that will get them to work tomorrow. They hope, I suppose, that alternatives will become available before the fracking and the pipelines and the use of plastics and everything else that’s destoying the earth kills us all. That’s a head in the sand approach, but it seems to be the rationale that keeps there from being a larger outcry against all these abusive practices.
I think you’re going to have to keep talking and writing about these violatons of the Earth for a long time.
Malcolm
Good thing I like to talk and write, Malcolm. Talking does no good if people do not listen. And I think most people would gladly give up their gasoline powered cars for something sustainable if Detroit would step up to the plate. I don’t know about in Georgia, but in CA you see more Prius’ on the road than any other car. I’m not asking–the movement isn’t asking–people to give up their gas-powered cars tomorrow. We’re asking that the Big Oil Companies begin switching over to Big Energy. No one is naive enough to believe it can be done overnight. But the clean-air technology already exists. It’s like the fat old diabetic man who always eats steak-and-potatoes but then wonders why he gets diabetes or has a heart attack. Turning a blind eye doesn’t change science, and what Big Oil has done to our climate is that proverbial heart attack.
I think asking big oil to switch over to big energy is like asking a McDonald’s restaurant to go into the vitamin business: they don’t know how. I see new ideas coming from elsewhere, from people not invested in what they’re already doing. Of course, if big oil would look down the road and imagine an end of gasoline, that would be nice. They have the funds to support the research and, should (one might logically think) have an interest in having viable products for the future rather than risking going out of business like companies who didn’t switch from film-related products over to digital.
California’s tax and regs structure probably gives people a larger incentive to switch over to electric cars. Some of the early technology for hybrids turned people off because it was costly to consumers, meaning that a hyrbid cost them more than a gasoline car and the fuel-cost savings over the life of the car were less than the increased sticker price of the hybrid over the car’s gasoline model.
Right now, I would like to see people cutting back on unnecessary driving and doing other things to use less fuel in the cars they now have. You know, combine errands rather than running out to the store every day. Wait a minute, I’m preaching to the choir here.
Malcolm
Pingback: Our magic needs some good science | Magic Moments
It is horrendous! Similar problems in Australia. LIke you, drowning in emails, I am having to unsubscribe from many good causes, but this particular issue is so urgent that I think it’s the single biggest issue facing Australia today – and probably the USA also.
Hi, Rosemary: The anti-fracking movement has gained incredible power and strength here in the US, thanks largely to (a) a huge population of what “they” call “aging baby boomers” and we, who are part of that demographic, call “mature hippies.” We have power, we have strength, we aren’t afraid to go to jail for civil disobedenience, and many of us (not me, alas) have money. The young people are joining too, especially the college students, and I’m delighted to see so many youth stepping out and making their voices heard in defense of our Mother Planet. One voice is strong; put together a billion strong voices and you’d blow Bach out of the water.