Capitol Protesters Think Fossil Fuels are a Big Fracking Deal
What do you get when you bring hundreds of fervent environmentalists and NIMBYs together on the west lawn of the Capitol to denounce fracking, every single fuel that originates from the ground, and, for old time’s sake, Dick Cheney?
You get enviro banjo tunes, the “Ecological Our Father” at the interfaith prayer service (“Our Father, who art in the forest…”), and more punny protest signs built off the F-bomb than even Joe Biden could dream up.
Do it on a standard hot, humid July day in D.C., and add in the global warming condemnations and simultaneous praises of the solar intensity as an endless wellspring of clean energy.
Those trying to escape the mid-afternoon sun under shade trees near the edge of the lawn, though, were chided by an organizer for making the rally look sparse up front as they tried to get a good sign-waving rally photo with the dome in the backdrop. “We can’t hide in the shadows like the gas companies do,” the man at the mic said. “Get out from the shade and in front!”
The “Stop the Frack Attack” event began with lobbying while lawmakers were still around the Hill on Thursday, begging support for the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act (FRAC), sponsored in the House by Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and in the Senate by Bob Casey (D-Pa.). The bill would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to repeal a certain exemption for hydraulic fracturing. Even though DeGette’s bill has 70 co-sponsors including Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), no lawmakers showed up to speak at the rally.
“It’s time to stop getting our energy from the ground… we are here to work toward the day and envision the day when we will get our energy from heaven,” a Unitarian-Universalist preacher told the ground at the interfaith event to kick off today’s rally, a service that also featured a rabbi singing about how “farmers turn on the spigot in their kitchens and the water turns to flame.”
Before the speakers began, the organizers led the crowd of hundreds in a chorus of “This Little Light of Mine.”
Signs in the crowd included “Don’t Frack with Mother Earth,” “Keep the Frack Out of My Water,” “Frack Off NY,” and “Don’t Frack My Future.” Participants included a 15-member group from Butler, Pa., the “Tour de Frack,” who rode bikes the 400 miles to the event for the anti-fossil fuel bragging rights.
“The extreme weather that we’re experiencing is being driven by extreme energy,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, offering mountaintop strip mining and offshore drilling as examples yet calling fracking “the mother of all extreme energy.”
Catherine Thomasson of Physicians for Social Responsibility also linked fracking to weather events such as “tornadoes in February.” Someone in the crowd yelled, “Earthquakes!”
“You all are gonna save more lives than I can as a physician,” she told the activists. “We’re here because of corporate greed, corporate control of our electoral process.”
Thomasson shared the crowd’s view that natural gas is as much an enemy as big oil. “Natural gas isn’t as clean and green as we thought it was,” she said, charging that “unregulated fracking pollutes our water with carcinogens.”
Sierra Club president Allison Chin said the “righteous passion of the American people” can put a halt to hydraulic fracturing.
“No state has adequate protections in place,” she said. “Thanks to multiple federal exemptions we can’t even count on the federal government to keep us safe.”
Chin said fracking is not the answer to domestic energy independence. “What will this do to solve America’s energy problems? Nothing,” she said. “The only way to achieve energy independence is to move beyond all fossil fuels.”
A medic then stepped up to the mic to check on the protesters, who were decrying fracking’s purported negative health effects while broiling in the sun. “Is anybody feeling faint?” she said. “Try to stay in the shade and don’t be afraid to ask for help.” Protesters who were referred to a water table to refill their bottles were referred to a brick water fountain in the park, seemingly on the assumption that fracking taints groundwater but D.C. tap water is pure.
This group deserves a Zombie-esque photo spread.
“Greenland in this past week has melted like it has never melted before.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/26/msm-finally-questions-unprecedented-nature-of-greenland-ice-melt/
But the unusual-seeming event had nothing to do with hot air, according to glaciologists. It was actually to be expected.
“Ice cores from Summit station [Greenland’s coldest and highest] show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time,” said Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data.
Dig this. Occam’s razor and all. There was one Ice Age. It was created by Noah’s Flood. More water means more precipitation. During winters this created glaciers.
The ice is melting off. It will continue, because it is not the normal homeostasis of earth.
Ice cores are interpreted in the framework of Long Ages. All long age scenarios begin with the assumption that the age is simply there. Long ages were believed to be true BEFORE any “empirical” dating methods were developed. Though, not necessarily countering their claims it suggests motive.
It is not like in physics where a 3 kg weight on a string can be known to swing so far on a pendulum, and so forth. If dates do not jive with the beliefs of old-age scientists they throw them out. Mount St. Helens, after it erupted, was dated at 3 million years old. All scientific dating methods for the age of the earth are with the bias that evolution happened and, therefore, necessarily must assume a long time must have passed.
There is a difference in historical science, and operational science. Historical science begins with an assumption, which then tries to fit the evidence with the framework. Operational science is knowledge based on the physical workings of the universe. Testable, repeatable, observable. That is the criteria for science. It doesn’t matter how good or accurate the methods are. If they are born of assumption they are biased.
This is brief and terse, because you really have to research it for yourself. Answersingenesis dot org is a very good site run by Bible defending Phd’s mostly that puts this and much more in laymen terms.
KGB, I would point you to a good website:
http://www.oldearth.org/about_aic.htm
Young earth creationism is a tough and unnecessary sell. The Bible does not explicitly teach this and proponents make all creationists look silly. God’s good news to men should not be obscured by dubious theories and arguments.
We know these protesters worship a pagan god. Arguing creation science takes us away from Christ and salvation’s gifts for us. When we spend time debating theories, we are using our valuable time away from the great commission.
I believe in creation. They believe in evolution. Information and knowledge is abundent, wisdom is scarce.
Of course the reason you are worried about one man’s ideas is because infidels and apostates of the enviroreligion get smeared collectively as anti-science, while the chosen ones are free to mumble nonsense about global warming causing Greenland to melt even though it is part of a 150 year cycle. They have the scientific high ground because they say so, they are smart dammit, don’t question them, they are always right.
I just wanted to point that out, not that you were wrong to defend against his ideas.
Any theory that tries to merge long ages with the Biblical account is a hard sell, in my opinion. All kinds of explanations and asides must be created in order to “properly” compromise the Word of God for man’s ideas. Note that the compromises are entirely on the end of God’s Word. Ideas of man in regards to things he has never seen, mind. I think it is pretty straight forward. If you have accepted that Jesus Christ is indeed the Messiah, and God’s only begotten Son it would follow that the Bible is not corrupted in any way in which a message, doctrine, or historical account is lost or misleading, saying explicity what it means to in the contexts in which it is given.
Have you ever read when Christ said, “thank you Lord for showing these things to children, but keeping it hidden to the learned.”? And, “only those who make themselves like a child can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” But do not make the fallacious judgement and think that I am advocating ignorance in my “interpretation”, but, in my opinion, it certainly seems to be God’s style to have put His unadulterated Word under our noses in the modern world, while men, highly educated and outspoken go around like they have it all figured out. Do you know what the serpent deceived Eve in the Garden of Eden by saying? “Did God really say?” Such is the emphasis of opponents of Creation in any discussions I’ve ever had.
Also, I am not saying that a person who believes in an old earth, or even evolution is not able to receive Christ as saviour. But it is my conviction that they are not giving the Bible its due. It is also written that, “only the Son knows the Father, and only the Father knows the Son”. This means when you know something about Christ it is because God has revealed it to you. And when you know something about God it is because Christ has revealed it. I verily believe that Christ has shown me that the Bible is true, to be understood in a straight-forward way such that even the uneducated may know the great truths of this world (and knowing that such things did happen). And great truths are not limited by man’s understanding of “spiritual”, which I say because Origins and Genesis has very much to do with giving a foundation upon which a mortal man’s spiritual convictions are to be placed.
And please understand, that when I undertook to investigate about Genesis on my own some years back I began with the allowance that Evolution may very well fit, if it were able. I found that not only does it not fit, but that it is not science, which is also to say it is not logical in the fuller picture.
I think you would be hard-pressed to give even one benefit, which is not circular (such as the employment of evolutionary professors), in which the world has benefited from the so-called science of Evolution. (Note, I am not trying to switch-foot to referring to Evolution now instead of Long Ages, but that Evolution really is at the core of Long Ages – that is, there is no reason to defend long ages without the pressumption that Evolution happens.) If you make the distinction between Natural Selection and Evolution you will be very much hard-pressed, because even in the discoveries of genetics the only appliable science of the two is Natural Selection. Evolution is always given the credit, doing nothing but acting as a “god of life” for those scientists.
It appears that you are convinced of the young earth explanation, kgb. For those who are interested in a more mainstream creationist view, check out http://oldearth.org/ where a compellingly biblical, reasonable explanation is presented.
“compellingly biblical”? That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?
Agree. One rarely finds Jews among Creationists because few of them are literalists. The Torah, which is the heart of the Bible, speaks “in the language of man”. It’s not a book of cosmology. Indeed, the great 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides wrote that those who tried to derive the science of Creation from Genesis were fools.
I’d refer the fundamentalists to a book by (Rabbi) Natan Slifkin called “The Challenge of Creation”. An Orthodox Jew who’s also a naturalist (known otherwise as the Zoo Rabbi) and whose father as I recall was a physicist, he stands by modern science. (Yes, he rejects Intelligent Design too.)
Creationism simply stands by the belief that the events of Creation in the Bible did happen, and should be understood in the context in which it is plainly given, because that is what the Bible says. What Creationism says is that Creation Week is the start point of Science for humans (and, yes, science in the empirical sense of it). I know of no Creationism that makes science ABOUT Creation. It is just the start point. If you put God in the bounds of Science then perhaps you’ve never considered that God is above Science. Please, understand here that I am not deriding Science, or showing any bias against it here in writing that. It is just that if there is a Creator God, then it necessarily follows that He is the author and potential circumventor of Science, if He so pleases. Consider, what is the point in hoping for everlasting life when you put Science above God?
Genesis is not, in context, poetry. What evidence is there for thinking this? – Man’s ideas (and not evidence, but obviation). Genesis does not read like the Psalms or Eccleasiastes. It is specifically laying out what happened, very matter-of-factly. And as for science, we should simply acknowledge that, for example, the miracle of Noah’s Flood took place, Not as a means to figure about HOW it was done, but to know that the earth was changed in the past with a large amount of water, which was amassed in great oceans basins when the mountains came up, and as the fountains of the deep were broken up.
If you look at the world according to the Biblical narrative you would be surprised at how simply and nicely it explaines great mysteries with seemingly divine non-chalance – what I mean to convey here is to do with the idea that, in the perspective of an evolutionist, an ancient peoples religion had guessed so well at events which would succintly and fantasitically explain great “mysteries” of the future world without being irrefutably destroyed by testable Science. I find that very, very interesting. Yes, there are Bible-believing Christian Creationist Phd’s, scientists who uphold this basic premise, all simply from their belief that Jesus Christ is Lord. (Also, consider, if I am not do deride anyone who makes the same claims to Christ whatever their belief about earth’s origins why do you do it to Creationists?) Are you not a Christian (this is not a jab), or are you being hypocritical in the same sense that Liberals are intolerant of anyone who opposes their views?
All Creationism is saying then is basically that evolution of species didn’t happen, the earth is relatively young, diversity in language was God’s doing, Noah’s Flood happened as it was described, and animals are according to their kinds. Is this so hard to accept? These things are considered foolish to the world today, but the world does NOT see it otherwise outside of an esoteric belief in Evolutionism. Do you know Jesus said, “if you did not believe Moses, how will you believe me?” Or do you not know the significance of Abraham’s faith?
Last thing. If you do not know that their is a distinction between Natural Selection, and Evolution then you need to do your homework. The media, and evolutionary scientists often interchange the two terms, and perhaps, throw the average reader off into thinking that they are the same event. Natural Selection is such that dogs may very well change into many different types of dog, but they will never become a horse. Evolution suggests that according to an environment a thing will become whatever it will. Do you not see how this belief is the life blood of the modern God-denying man’s revulsion towards a Creator? And this is not guilt-by-association, because there IS a clear line IF you accept the Bible for what it is, claimed to be by its authors, and do not obviate the contexts in which it is given.
Agreed – God didn’t put the clock up (the Sun to mark growing seasons) until verse 14 of Genesis. Hundreds of millions of years could have passed to the lead up to 14.
You should read Exodus 31:17.
“There was one Ice Age. It was created by Noah’s Flood.”
No
Actually it’s most probable that Noah’s flood (also documented in the Epic of Gilgamesh) was the result of melting glaciers forming a giant sea behind an ice dam that broke thereby flooding the Mediterranean basin.
As an aside, it’s most probable that the volcanic explosion that created the islands of Santorini and ended the Minoan empire triggered the plagues of Egypt documented in the book of Exodus.
Before Darwin, the earth was old. Geologists noted the various shapes of the shells found in their drills, and first correlated them to where oil was found. Reality drove theory even then.
Dont replace one pseudoscience, global warming, with another, young earth creationism. That just makes us look as scientifically dishonest as the leftists. The bible was not written as a literal scientific document, and it should not be interpreted as one. Genesis was not designed to give us the exact age of the earth or the universe or the exact details of creation as a modern scientific paper would. It was meant to show us that a loving God created us in his image, in terms that a scientifically illiterate ancient culture could understand. I prefer the Catholic position. They accept evolution and the big bang (in fact a Catholic Jesuit Monk was one of the big bang’s most important early theorists), but not the aethistic interpretation of those theories. They just say God created the universe and man, as described in the big bang and evolution.
Thank you, richard40, for bringing a much-needed note of calm rationality to this discussion!
My grandma used to tell me that it was very easy to spot a person who was losing an argument – the loser was the person shouting. Logically, then: when everyone shouts, everyone loses.
Mike C, who’s shouting? If you hear shouting from my posts I would suggest that your hearing ears may be providing the amplification.
You have to love Environmentalists. They are so very willing to display their abject ignorance and then compound it with self-embraced, yet massive stupidity. Given their comedic stunts, incoherent rantings, and willingness to beclown themselves, they may be their own worst enemy. We can only hope, and I enthusiastically urge them on. Faster, please!
Now, now…. these fine chirps have every right to display their unhappiness with fracking and the technology behind the industry. I personally support their right to assemble and display their outrage. I sincerely hope this group ‘goes global’ in their righteous indignation. And, I hope they take their protestations to the world starting in Aleppo.
These “rallies” are not always what they appear. One has to wonder if there is any of the federal money dumped into the alternative energy companies that has found its way into this and other such demonstrations. The left has become very expert at finding ways to get public money onto its coffers.
How much Saudi money finds its way to radical enviro groups to protect their money flow? How much Russian or Chinese? An easy way for our enemies to hobble our economy and our country.
Fracking morons.
Hopium, its a hell of a drug, man…
Not a single “Don’t Spend My Future”, “Keep the Tax out of my Wallet”, “Don’t crush Mother Earth with Debt”, or “Cancel the Tour de Spending”? Not one? Oh, right, these clowns don’t have jobs or pay taxes.
Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!!! This heinous chemical used in corporate America is responsible for thousands of drownings each year!
Drowning? The insidious chemicals cause premature loss of lives of small human creatures even at homes when the big creatures were not paying attention. Anything more insidious than that?
It makes up 70% of the unbiodegradable foams, wreaking havocs of the environment. It should have been banned a long time ago. In fact, a courageous Congresswoman from California proposed just that. Alas, her colleagues keeled over under pressure of right wing extremists and were too afraid to let the legislation go forward. We must elect more fearless brainless people to represent us to get things done the brainless way.
“Chin said fracking is not the answer to domestic energy independence. “What will this do to solve America’s energy problems? Nothing,” she said. “The only way to achieve energy independence is to move beyond all fossil fuels.”
I’m getting so sick of these people. Fracking not only has the potential of creating literally thousands of jobs in this country, but it also pushes us closer to becoming energy independent for years to come. Solar and wind energy have been huge failures and are great for heating a house or two, but none of those technologies are able to power a large town, let alone a major city. Nothing will replace fossil fuels, except possibly nuclear energy. The real irony is, had we fully developed our fossil fuel capabilities roughly 10 or 12 years ago, we would probably BE energy independent right now. But to people like Chin, they would reather see us remain as slaves to some Saudi monarch rather then develop our own supply of PROVEN fossil fuel energy.
Capitol Protesters Think Fossil Fuels are a Big Fracking Deal
Not precisely correct. More properly, these protestors thinkthey’re a big frakking deal. It doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, they’re always right.
Look at Menino’s idiotic staements in the Chik-Fil-A flap. No give, no take, no reason, no diplomacy. Just some fat-ass full of themselves, arrogantly informing someone else that not only will their opposing POV not be accepted, that they don’t even have any right to participate.
THIS is the Liberal mindset displayed in all it’s tawdry glory, for all to see.
I live in an apartment complex in MA which has installed solar panels on the roofs of the buildings to provide electricity for the common areas.
But during the winter, when those panels get covered with snow, they stop generating power. And the cost of hiring workers to clean the snow off the roofs every time it snows can be quite high.
I wonder if any of these demonstrators ever thought about that.
No.
Also, a leading cause of death in the US is accidents. Cleaning off snow in winter or dust in summer will increase accidental falls.
Number of deaths for leading causes of death
Heart disease: 599,413
Cancer: 567,628
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
Catherine Thomasson of Physicians for Social Responsibility linked fracking to weather events such as “tornadoes in February.”
Holy tornado! Somebody is malpractising.
The thing to remember is that while no politicians showed their faces for the rally, if they could be assured a consequence-free outcome (i.e. — if their damn constituencies would never find out about it) a huge number of Democrats in Congress and in the White House would have been right out there howling at the skies about fracking with all the other moonbats.
Once something because The Cause on the left, it doesn’t matter what the facts are to them. It must be destroyed, and anything associated with oil and natural gas drilling companies having more success falls into that category. The “Natural gas isn’t as clean and green as we thought it was,” quote from Ms. Thomasson really means, “We supported natural gas use over oil for years because we never thought the oil companies would be able to get enough natural gas out of the ground to make a difference in American energy supplies.” Now that they can, and prices for natural gas have dropped 70 percent from their highs just six years ago and made alternative energy options even less justifiable based on cost, natural gas now has to become the same demon form of energy that oil, coal and nuclear have been to the leftist environmentalists for decades.
Yeah – natural gas is VERY clean burning. I really wish our entire auto industry would convert to natural gas like the buses have. They don’t smell and the things never break down. The infrastructure is also already in place and just needs converting.
I might pay attention to these damn fools when they come forward with real, practical, scalable, affordable alternatives to fossil fuels and nuclear. Until then, I won’t.
They can’t continue to scream for the end of our use of fossil fuels unopposed unless they also provide us with alternatives.
How many engineers are in this bunch? 0?
How about you live next to these ‘good neighbors, the gas industry’…and when you can’t live with your water…and it is real..and it is YOUR life..and YOUR family you see getting sick…and dying…..then….Let me hear you yell…’the water the water .. the waters on fire..we don’t need no fracking let the corporations burn!’….You see..it is not about sustainable energy people..it is alllll about the money..! OUR lives just get in the way!
Propaganda troll.
i do live next to it, i live in susquehanna pa, the home of dimock, the very clean and fresh water and air dimock!!!!! We are happy and we are healthy, are farms are better now with the industry then it was before, thanks to the income in our area, we have more dairy cows, more horse farms, more updated equipment to run our farms more productively……so stop with the propaganda and the not in my back yard syndrome.nimby. think solar, wind are a good solution, google any one of them, type in toxic and the words solar and wind turbines and see what you get, a real eye opener!!!!!! the differnce the solar and wind trubines, their rare earth minerals are mined for oversea’s and the toxic waste are polluting them, i like to see you let them mine in your yard for it…Home grown energy, on USA soil, with usa regulations, the strictist in the world, with american people making it….no better way to go, go natural gas.
“…we will get our energy from heaven”.
Yep. That comment about sums it up, folks: these people are barking moonbats.
Solar is not perfect. China stripping the world of the rare earth elements needed for solar panel production. And of course we know China doesn’t give a crap about their contribution to global eco responsibilities. The sun is a good idea, but the unicorns won’t make the solar panels.
I’d pay more attention, maybe, if all of them had walked to DC insead of taking transportation that relies heavily on hydrocarbons. Like that Fox guy. What are the odds he came aboard a CO2-spewing aircraft? [In fact, he might possibly have borrowed St Algore's coal- and oldtrucktire-burning personal jet just to show his contempt for us.]
Except for the 15 bicyclists everyone else at that rally got there by burning fossil fuels. And they blame the o&g companies for selling them the product they want to go act out their goofy ‘We’re saving the world’ fantasy.
If these clowns want to get off oil and gas and coal, then do it. Get around entirely by bicycle or horse or foot.
And don’t forget, the processes required to manufacture that bike all also have an impact. However, I suppose these people believe a magic unicorn delivered them the bike with no impact at all. Magical.
Magic unicorns for everyone! Yayyyy!!! Maybe we can all grow money trees in our backyards too.
The self-righteousness of these people can be breathtaking. Bicyclists require food, and lots of it. More hydrocarbons are used to create and process that food than would be used directly in an automobile for transportation.
Note on unicorn-drawn carriages: These require even more food to run. Unicorns are horses and have relatively even more inefficient digestive systems.
Sometimes I really dislike being an engineer. Takes all the magic out of life.
Rush Limbaugh was right when he said many years ago that the radical green movement is the last refuge in America for communists. Some of them will even admit it.
Fascists have no way to control people when energy, food, and employment are plentiful. Thus, to feed their obscene craving for power over other individuals, they must create artificial shortages. They also realize that once embedded in bureaucracy, their BS is extremely hard to root out. Just consider how the corn ethanol industry/folly was built in this country. Even the enviro-whackos now admit it is dumb as a box of rocks but defeating the farm lobby is like going after a nuclear sub with a BB gun.
I live in a tiny little community in Weld County, Colorado called Erie. There’s this group called “Erie Rising” that has been trying bankrupt our little town by getting rid of fracking. They aren’t even residents of Erie. Their main source of funding comes from people in New York and Boston.
This is partly why I fear sending my children to public schools. I don’t want them learning any religion in school unless I send them to a private school (in that case the religion is our CHOICE). The ecoscience and population control religion is pushed in public schools behind a scientific facade, when in fact it is a religion.
I object to the Communist inspired “fossil fuels” designation placed on the hydrocarbons we actually try to find. Fossil data is used to find the relative age of a layer of rocks. Hydrocarbons are not fossil fuel, just as shoes are not feet. While it is common to find fossils within the layers that contain fossils, fossils are not a necessary component for finding hydrocarbons. Fossils are not ever fuel and we are much more interested in the permeability and shape of the layers, than in their fossil content. This reference to “fossil fuels” is just more collectivist claptrap used to imply that hydrocarbons are an old and used up source of energy. Nothing could be further from the truth and I would like to see proponents of oil and gas energy production calling oil and gas what they actually are; “hydrocarbons”. “Fossil fuel” is the terminology of the gang green.