green homes and split estates

Green Guerrillas spent the weekend learning about cool and catastrophe.

Let’s start with the good news first… the cool! 

We always look forward to gleaning inspiration in the beauty, bounty, and sustainability of our local area… our homelands.  This past weekend we joined in with thousands of others all across Turtle Island to participate in the 14th Annual Solar Tour sponsored by American Solar Energy Society.

From ASES:

In addition to highlighting solar options available, an increasing focus of the tour is on energy-saving techniques and sustainability through building design, energy efficient appliances, and use of green materials during remodeling. Tours also provide helpful, real-world examples of costs and how to save money with federal, state, and local incentives.

Ultimately the tour inspires people across the nation to make sustainable energy choices that help lower costs, support energy independence, protect against power outages, and reduce carbon emissions. Be part of the renewable energy revolution.

The Solar Tour happens the first Saturday in October every year in conjunction with National Energy Awareness Month, and is coordinated by various agencies, businesses, activists, and organizations.  For those of you interested in staying in the solar loop and finding out about activities in our area, check out the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.  Guerrilla Griots has been checking out the Solar Tour since 2002, and Green Guerrillas featured green cribs in Tompkins County (New York State) in our second film, Food Clothes Shelter Community.

Now… on the un-cool part of so-called clean energy.

Guerrilla Griots are preparing for a “rumble in the jungle” as we join with others regionally to keep our families/friends, our animals, our air/water/soil quality, and all other life in our homelands safe from the environmental destruction that is headed our way as a result of natural gas exploration and extraction. Green Guerrillas took a break from the solar tour on Saturday to check out the film Split Estate in Elmira Heights to find out what happened in communities out west when gas drilling came to town:

Guerrilla Griots have joined in with other activists and organizers in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York to raise awareness and expose the irreversible damage done to human and animal health, and air, soil, and water quality when high-pressure, horizontal hydraulic fracturing is used to extract gas from shale located deep within Mother Earth.

Here is a lil more information…

From Pro Publica:

The push to find clean domestic energy has zeroed the country in on one resource it has plenty of: natural gas. Vast deposits large enough to supply the country for decades have become the focus of a drilling boom stretching across 31 states. But water contamination has also been reported in more than a thousand cases where that drilling is taking place, raising questions about the primary drilling method being used to get to the gas.

That drilling technique, called hydraulic fracturing, shoots large amounts of water, sand and toxic chemicals into the ground to break up rock and release the gas. The Environmental Protection Agency has declared the process to be safe despite warnings from several of its own scientists that it is not. The gas companies are exempt from federal laws protecting the nation’s water supplies, and are allowed to conceal the identities of their chemicals as trade secrets. Together these things have made it difficult for scientists and investigators to determine the exact cause of the contamination that is occurring in water supplies.

That’s why lawmakers in Congress and in several states are pushing for deeper study of the impact of drilling and for closer oversight of the gas industry. The U.S. House and Senate are considering legislation to reverse the federal exemptions, and New York state is considering a partial ban on drilling anywhere near New York City’s watershed. The industry — in the form of millions of dollars spent on lobbying, a slew of court cases, and a robust public relations campaign — is pushing back.

So… we are gearing up for a massive organizing campaign as we seek to protect our air, our water, and our homelands for seven generations to come.  We will keep ya’ll posted on the latest developments and what you can do to help.

Peace!

~ by guerrillagriots on October 6, 2009.