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.

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About Virginia Daffron
Managing editor, lover of mountains, native of WNC. Follow me @virginiadaffron

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

  1. Yep

    More ‘climate change’ BS…gotta keep trying to seduce the public with falsehoods…shame on these nasty activists, even the preacher!

  2. Sounds like you’d rather believe the oil and gas industry, whose motto is “if you’re not lying, you’re not trying.”

    Here’s more info from Prof Howarth, in case you missed it.

    Global warming may push climate into a runaway condition lasting 10,000 years – Figure 11

    Melting of Arctic ice, change in ocean circulation leading to decreased CO2 uptake, melting of permafrost and methane hydrates and clathrates

    The tipping point (2% C warmer) beyond which earth could reach irreversible changes will be reached in 25 years, unless the world starts immediately to control methane pollution

    The USA must phase out all unconventional natural gas well before the next 10 years to avoid a 1.5C temperature increase

    Shale gas is 80-100 times worse than CO2 for global warming

    Airplane flyover drilling Pennsylvania drilling sites revealed methane leakages even before fracking

    Potential sources are exposed coal mines, old oil wells, and pockets of gas

    Methane emissions are highest in states where fracking occurs

    10% of methane escapes during upstream operations

    EPA estimates of greenhouse gas emissions are flawed

    Methane persists in the atmosphere only 12 years

    CO2 persists 1000s of years.

    Only methane reductions can prevent catastrophic global warming

    COP21 target requires the world to be free of fossil fuels by 2050 and the US by 2035

    If we continue methane production at current rates, the world will run up against the 1.5 degrees limit in 12 to 15 years

    If we stop producing methane, which means stop fracking, the world wouldn’t run up against that limit for about 50 years. We could buy ourselves 25 to 35 years of time, which is critical.

    That could allow us to improve our political and socioeconomic responses to climate change and de-carbonize our societies accordingly.

    Natural gas is a bridge fuel to nowhere.

    See sources
    http://link.springer.com/artic

    https://www.scribd.com/doc/306

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