The Climate Movement Takes On Fracking; Rally Against
Fracking June 14-17 in Columbus, Ohio

The Climate Movement Takes On Fracking: Interview With Bill
McKibben

by Christine Shearer, Truthout Interview

Truthout
April 17, 2012

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8518-the-climate-movement-takes-on-fracking-interview-with-bill-mckibben

A coalition of local and environmental organizations
including 350.org - the impetus behind the Keystone XL
pipeline tar sands protests - are turning the nation's focus
on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

In a public invitation letter, the coalition - including
"Gasland" director Josh Fox and 350.org founder Bill
McKibben - urged people to save the dates June 14-17 to
converge on Columbus, Ohio. The first three days would be
"dedicated to training and movement building and on the 17th
we'll be taking over the Ohio statehouse for a people's
assembly."

The action is part of a push to scale back the oil and gas
industry's efforts to expand shale drilling in the state,
supported by Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Once portrayed as the low-carbon fuel to a renewable energy
future, the practice of deep drilling and hydraulic
fracturing to extract gas from shale rock has presented its
own host of environmental concerns. These include cases of
water and air pollution near gas and oil wells, large water
consumption needs for the fracturing process and government
reports linking tremors to the injection of the fracking
wastewater into the earth. In addition, recent studies have
questioned the long-term climate advantages of shale gas and
the amount of methane that leaks out

States have been quickly swept up in the oil/gas industry
push for the "unconventional" drilling, including Ohio,
which sits above the Marcellus and Utica shales. Exempted
from seven federal regulations

Ohio Governor Kasich has been a strong proponent of
drilling. He has also been a large beneficiary of the gas
industry. Kasich received $213,519 of the governor's
campaign records also showed that wealthy executives of
companies connected to the natural gas industry, including
billionaires William I. Koch (founder of the Oxbow
Corporation) and David Koch (of Koch Industries), funneled
an additional $127,268 in personal donations to a political
action committee (PAC) organized by the Republican Governors
Association (RGA); the PAC used a majority of the money to
pay for attack ads against former Ohio Governor Strickland,
whom Kasich defeated in 2010.

After assuming office, Kasich signed a law in 2011 allowing
for hydraulic fracturing in state parks. The United States
Forest Service (USFS) later withdrew more than 3,000 acres
of public lands in southern Ohio from a federal oil and gas
lease sale scheduled for December 7, 2012, saying it needed
more time to review the potential effects of fracking.

Yet, overall permits in the state are increasing: March 2012
broke the record for new natural gas permits, with the Ohio
Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) approving 37 wells.
Having given approval to 27 new wells in February and 19 in
January, it is looking like 2012 will quickly surpass the
2011 total of 100 new permits. The March 2012 permits bring
the total to 194 permitted wells in Ohio, of which 19 are
drilling, 37 are drilled, 11 are producing and 12 are
completed.

In addition to drilling, the state has a large number of
brine injection wells - wells used to dispose of the large
amounts of wastewater that result from the drilling and
hydraulic fracturing process. In 2011, oil and gas companies
injected 511 million gallons into Ohio's wells; more than
half that fracking wastewater was shipped in from out of
state.

In January 2012, Ohio regulators asked drillers near brine-
injection wells to temporarily stop reinjecting wastewater
from hydraulic fracturing while an investigation was opened
up into the cause of 12 earthquakes in the previously non-
seismically active area, including a 4.0-magnitude quake on
New Year's Eve.

A March 2012 preliminary report
(ohiodnr.com/downloads/northstar/UICReport.pdf) by Ohio oil
and gas regulators "on the relationship between the
Northstar 1 Class II disposal well and 12 Youngstown area
earthquakes" found "a number of co-occurring circumstances
strongly indicating the Youngstown area earthquakes were
induced." In response, Ohio regulators said new safeguards
would be added to Ohio's existing disposal well regulatory
framework.

Concerned citizens say the tremors suggest that, until more
is known about the process, the wastewater injection
practice should be curtailed, if not ended. Governor Kasich
instead proposed energy policy legislation, Senate Bill 315
(March 2012), that would raise the state's brine disposal
fees from five to ten cents on in-state waste and from
twenty cents to $1 on out-of-state waste.

Governor Kasich has also promoted a 2012 budget plan to
expand fees on Ohio's oil and natural gas industry and cut
income taxes. The plan is for the fee expansion on fossil
fuels to pay for the income tax cut. While the fee on
drillers has been presented in the media as dividing
Republicans, Media Matters argues that "even Grover
Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, which was 'consulted'
about the proposal, is tentatively approving the tax plan
and giving Kasich the 'benefit of the doubt' regarding any
potential concerns about increased taxation."

Innovation Ohio called the governor's plan a giveaway,
estimating that once all the income tax cuts are in place, a
family with an annual income of $50,000 would save just $65
each year. Policy Matters Ohio estimates that 25 percent of
the tax cut would go to the top 1 percent of incomes.

Saying it is clear that Kasich is looking to expand
hydraulic fracturing in the state with only minimal
regulations or benefits for most of the state's residents, a
coalition of concerned residents and environmental groups
formed Don't Frack Ohio, declaring, "The fracking industry
has been causing earthquakes in Ohio. So it's time we caused
one of our own."

Included in the coalition is 350.org founder Bill McKibben.
McKibben has been writing about climate change for over
twenty years, with 350.org referring to his goal: to reduce
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from
the current level of 394 parts per million (ppm) to 350 ppm,
what NASA scientist James Hansen has said is necessary to
avoid climate disruption.

McKibben talked with Truthout about Don't Frack Ohio, the
latest developments with the Keystone pipeline and his
thoughts on the next steps for the climate movement.

Christine Shearer: Many people think of you as on the
forefront of the climate movement and, therefore, focused on
fuels that have a high carbon footprint, such as tar sands
and coal. Why the turn to hydraulic fracturing?

Bill McKibben: Well, even when it's burned natural gas has a
big carbon footprint - not as high as coal, but as the
International Energy Agency pointed out, a global energy mix
heavy in natural gas would still leave us at 660 parts per
million CO2, i.e. Way Too High. Worse, when methane escapes
from these fracking operations unburned, that CH4 is a far
more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 - and the early science
makes it look like lots and lots of methane escapes from
these fracking operations, perhaps enough to make them worse
than coal mines. So - it's a huge worry for global warming
reasons, as well as all the other obvious problems - water
pollution, landscape destruction and the quite remarkable
fact that it seems to be setting off earthquakes.
Earthquakes strike me as a, um, sign that maybe we don't
want to do this.

 CS: So, what would you say to people who say natural gas is
 the best bridge fuel available to renewable energy?

BM: I'd say that's what we hoped at first, but given the
science coming out of fracking fields in Pennsylvania and
the West, it's pretty clear that in global warming terms,
this is not a bridge; it's just a rickety pier stretching
further out into the fossil fuel lake.

CS: How did plans for the Don't Frack Ohio action come
about?

BM: 350.org has long had a strong base of support in Ohio.
During the heat of our campaign against Keystone XL, the
President made multiple trips to Ohio and we called on those
folks to take action, holding rallies at his events,
visiting his speeches and such. And as we got to know those
folks better, we learned more and more about what's
happening to the state. Then the earthquake hit on New
Year's Eve and we figured that the time was ripe. Ohio is an
enormously important state to the industry and politically
for many reasons, so it's a fitting place to plant our flag
and make a stand.

CS: According to a public invitation letter signed by you,
"Gasland" director Josh Fox, and others, the action is set
for "June 14-17, in Columbus. The 14-16th will be dedicated
to training and movement building and on the 17th we'll be
taking over the Ohio statehouse for a people's assembly that
will 'pass' legislation that Ohioans need to stop this
destructive practice." Are you hoping to pass legislation to
prevent fracking entirely in the state?

BM: What's really important is that the government in Ohio
take steps to stop fracking in the state. Legislation is one
option, but it's also clear that Governor Kasich can take
immediate steps to protect Ohio from fracking as well. He
briefly unilaterally halted permitting for injection wells -
the wastewater storage process that was responsible for the
Youngstown earthquake - and he could do the same for
fracking wells. He's the leader of his [Republican] party,
which controls the state legislature and it's up to him to
set the agenda for the state.

CS: Many states are facing various issues related to deep-
well drilling and hydraulic fracturing - why focus on Ohio?

BM: We need to make this summer the high water mark for the
fracking industry. We just don't have time to lose. Ohio is
important, both for the industry and in our political
system. The nation's attention will be on Ohio this summer
and fall, as one of the swing states that will decide the
Presidential election. Ohio is also the next frontier for
the industry and they haven't put into production the 4,000
or so wells they'd like to drill. Those injection wells are
a key piece of the puzzle too  -  without access to
wastewater disposal in Ohio, it will be much tougher for
drilling in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states to
move forward.

CS: Yes, the Don't Frack Ohio letter states that "as the
nation's attention turns to Ohio for the election this fall,
it is a fitting place to make a stand and say that this
process must stop once and for all." How do you anticipate
this action fitting into the 2012 election season?

BM: As both major Presidential candidates come to Ohio,
they're going to be met by a state that is highly skeptical
of fracking and gas drilling. I think they'll be greeted
with very tough questions about their support for drilling
and they'll be forced to think twice about uncritically
backing this dangerous industry.

CS: Do you see this action as part of the 99 Percent
movements planned for this spring?

BM: I hope this summer will be a long, hot, tough one for
the 1%. The CEO [Aubrey McClendon] of Chesapeake Energy -
the company most responsible for the fracking boom in Ohio
and elsewhere - has become a billionaire speculating with
the lives of landowners, workers and future generations who
will be impacted by climate change. I expect he and others
will be swept up in the powerful backlash to that kind of
greed that is developing in Ohio and across America.

CS: You helped organize the protests against the TransCanada
Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which are widely credited
for the Obama administration's eventual refusal to fast-
track the pipeline's permitting process. What do you make of
Obama later saying he directed his administration to move on
the southern end of the pipeline? I have heard the southern
end did not need federal approval because it does not cross
international borders, and the fate of the northern end is
far from certain?

BM: Look, environmentalists only ever win temporary
victories and this one may be more temporary than most. Big
oil isn't used to losing and they're pouring tens of
millions of dollars into ads to overturn Obama's decision.
The Congress may buckle, the president may buckle - and even
if they stand strong, it's important to understand that
stopping Keystone doesn't stop climate change. We've got to
take the lessons we learned in that fight and come harder
and stronger at the fossil fuel industry - the big push for
the next few months nationally is over the outrageous
subsidies that the federal government pays the richest
industry on earth.

CS: What do you make of the Obama administration's first
term so far on environmental issues? What would you like to
see?

BM: I'd say mixed. On the plus side of the ledger, there's
Keystone first and foremost and then the automobile mileage
standards and the new regulations on greenhouse gas
emissions. Contrast that with opening the Arctic to oil
drilling, huge swaths of the High Plains for coal-mining,
fumbling the international negotiations on climate change
and failing to even really try to get global warming
legislation through the Senate.

CS: You have been writing about climate change since the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) first
formed in the late 1980s. What has surprised you most in
being involved in this issue for over two decades? What have
you learned?

BM: What's surprised me is how little we've accomplished,
faced with the biggest challenge humans have ever faced. And
what I've learned is that the fossil fuel industry will
spend and do whatever it takes to keep governments from
doing anything.

CS: What do you perceive as the biggest barrier to action on
climate change in the US: is it corporations, government,
misinformation, peoples' internal resistance to change?

BM: Corporate influence on government. Occupy has it right -
the system is rigged and dangerous.

CS: Climate change can sometimes feel like a huge,
insurmountable problem. Where do you find your hope and
inspiration?

BM: In the huge number of people all over the world who have
come together in the 350.org movement. We work in every
country on earth but North Korea - CNN has called it the
most widespread political activity in the planet's history -
and that's all happened in the last four years. We've not
got much in the way of resources - I'm a volunteer, most of
the people doing the real work are in their 20s - but it is
amazing to see how many people on the planet really want to
put their hopes for the future on the line. On to Ohio.

[Christine Shearer is a postdoctoral scholar in science,
technology and society studies at the University of
California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher for CoalSwarm,
part of SourceWatch. She is managing editor of Conducive,
and author of "Kivalina: A Climate Change Story" (Haymarket
Books, 2011).]

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