Public empowerment forum to focus on fracking and climate crisis March 30

Press release from NCWARN:

Fracking Gas, Duke Energy, and Climate Crisis are Focus of Public Empowerment Forums

Experts to discuss the climate and economic impacts of a massive expansion of natural gas by the nation’s largest electric utility

Duke Energy, already the nation’s worst polluting utility, is planning a giant build-out of up to 15 large fracking gas power plants along with pipelines and mergers.  This would cause electricity rates to soar, risk supply shortages and accelerate the global climate crisis at the worst possible time.

State politicians and regulators have shielded Duke Energy from debating leading experts who have grave concerns about the massive gas expansion.

Now we’re bringing the experts straight to the public.

Co-sponsored by the Alliance for Energy Democracy and Warren Wilson College Environmental and Social Justice Crew, NCWARN will present a public empowerment forum with energy engineer Bill Powers, solar developer Dave Hollister, former educator and activist Dr. Steven Norris, the NC NAACP’s Rev. Dr. Rodney Sadler, Jr., and NCWARN’s Connie Leeper.

The event will take place Wednesday, March 30 at 7 p.m. in the Canon Lounge at Warren Wilson College, 701 Warren Wilson Road, Swannanoa, N.C.

Duke Energy’s massive shift to fracking gas collides with stunning evidence that methane leakage is now the key driver of US greenhouse emissions.  Research shows that large amounts of methane are leaking from equipment throughout the natural gas industry and that the drilling process known as fracking has caused US greenhouse emissions to soar in recent years.

Methane is 100 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 10-year period.  Cornell’s Howarth and other scientists say the combination of leakage and potency makes the use of natural gas for electricity even worse for the climate than burning coal.

Geoscientist David Hughes warns that the fracking industry is in deep financial trouble due to a Ponzi scheme based on exaggeration of reserves and rapid depletion of fracking wells.  Methane leakage and fracking failure are both simmering just below the national radar.

A growing alliance of North Carolina forces are determined to help drive these issues into an open, public debate, and to move this state into an energy future based on clean, job-creating energy that helps slow global warming and promotes economic and environmental justice.

MORE ON SELECTED SPEAKERS:

 

Reverend Rodney S. Sadler, Jr., Ph.D. is Associate Pastor of Mount Carmel Baptist Church and Associate Professor of Bible at Union Presbyterian Seminary. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the North Carolina NAACP and has worked organizing clergy with, and developing theological resources for, the Forward Together/Moral Monday Movement in North Carolina.

Bill Powers, P.E. has 30 years of experience in electric power generation, with expertise including distributed energy, efficiency programs and other means of avoiding expense and impacts of central fossil fuel power plants.  Bay Area Smart Energy 2020

Connie Leeper, organizing director for NC WARN, is a leading voice for climate and energy justice.  She has been organizing for social change for 45 years.