California Communities Rising Against Fracking Tour (April 14th-22nd)

Join the Tour: California Communities Rising Against Fracking
San Francisco to San Diego, April 14-22, 2013

From flaming kitchen sinks, to exploding gas wells, toxic air, floating fish, lost property values, cancers, toxic waste dumped under aquifers, the quadrupling of regional earthquakes and severe impacts on climate change— hydraulic fracturing (fracking) may be the most destructive energy process in the US that there is. On the east coast, fracking is used primarily for natural gas. In CA, it's oil fracking, and while that might not make your sink catch on fire, it's a hazardous business. 

The fracking boom has begun in California, promising to transform the state into the top oil producer in the U.S. Existing well rigs throughout the state are being fracked, particularly in the shale areas of central California all the way down to the border of Mexico, but detailed, public information is limited. In the Golden state, fracking is unregulated and unmonitored. Corporations do not need to disclose the toxic chemicals they are using or inform communities that fracking is happening. As a water-poor state, fracking and its toxic wastewater presents a serious danger to our communities and ecosystems. And in a state prone to earthquakes, human-induced fault pressures present an alarming risk. As a result of all of this, fracking in California is a well-kept secret: only 50% of residents know what fracking is. But that is about to change!

Click here [1] to head back to our main fracking webpage. 

Time for Action: Join California Communities Rising Against Fracking

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                  Click on the map to enlarge and view in a new window

This week-long speaking tour hosted by Global Exchange will visit communities across California and expose the reality of fracking in the state and engage community members in the movement to oppose and stop this harmful and dangerous practice.

The speaking tour will target impacted communities throughout the largest shale regions in Central and Southern California. We will bring prominent voices, community activists, scientists, and anti-fracking leaders to California audiences—and a menu of ways for communities to engage - from working with Global Exchange to pass a “rights-based” local ban, to linking them to all of the tools, tactics and strategies employed by the growing anti-fracking movement in California.

Each stop along the tour will include a day of action; we are working with host communities to develop unique actions that meet each community’s need. Each day’s activity will also be preceded by a local media plan, social media outreach, and collaborative efforts. At each stop we will also hold a planning meeting with community groups. We expect much of the energy we generate on this tour will build toward larger statewide engagement and action.

• Our partners on the road: Center for Biological Diversity, Food & Water Watch, SanDiego350.org, Clean Water Action, Environmental Working Group, Transition Towns and community-based groups and host community partners.

• Confirmed Speakers: Doug Shields-former Pittsburgh PA councilman enacting the first “rights-based” ban on fracking in the nation; Rose Braz-Center for Biological Diversity, Shannon Biggs- Director of the Community Rights program at Global Exchange, Andrew Grinberg- Cleanwater.org, and other fracking experts from our partner organizations (tbd).

Global Exchange is helping Communities assert their right to say “NO fracking”

Five years ago, Global Exchange launched the Community Rights Program confronting corporate power at its core: by challenging unjust law and shifting the balance of power from one that protects the rights of corporations, to one that protects the rights of our communities and the environment. The Community Rights Program enters the California and national fracking debate via our expertise in grassroots, “rights-based” organizing, where we work with communities confronted by various corporate harms to enact local laws that place the rights of residents and nature above corporate interests.  A right-based approach not only offers communities a way to stop the harmful practices of fracking in their midst, but has the power to bring statewide attention.

We’ve already been working with a handful of communities to pass rights-based fracking bans, including San Luis Obispo, and we hope to be working with many more. This efforts builds on the success of more than nine communities who have stopped fracking through passing rights-based fracking bans – the most notable in Pittsburgh, PA, led by featured tour speaker, Doug Shields. Pittsburgh’s fracking ban has been heralded as a  major turning point in the fracking debate, where alarmed industry executives, legislators and regulators began to take community outrage seriously.  Across Pennsylvania, New Mexico and New York, nine other communities have followed suit (with many more underway), declaring their right as communities to protect the health safety and welfare of residents and the groundwater they depend on. 

For  more information, join the tour, be a community host and to get involved
Contact Shannon Biggs, Community Rights Program director, Global Exchange
Shannon@globalexchange.org [8]
415.575.5540