Well.  It’s been a year, and what a year it’s been.  Apologies for the hiatus — an opportunity for a break presented itself and I took it.  But here we are again, Earth Day and all that jazz.  2011 promises to be the same song, next verse, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.  A year after everyone has forgotten about the BP spill in the Gulf, we have another well blowout.  This time in Bradford Co.  Another pasture ruined.  Another stream contaminated. At Camp Bittersweet, there are two new pads and a total of 11 new bores.  There was even a big spill.  A soul can become numb to it all after a while.  Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along.

2011 also puts us on the verge of the silly season known as the Presidential election.  The Left is still pining for alternative fuels — eggspecially that super clean natural gas; and the Right is busy pretending to be aghast at The Donald for his great love of Eminent Domain.  One thing is for sure — when both sides of the political aisle look across the fruited plain and see nothing but “domestic energy” and “energy independence” and enough shale gas to supply “us” for a hundred million billion years, they don’t see the American citizens who own the surface above all that gas. They see no barriers to harvesting every last cubic inch of it.  But the gas does not rise to the surface on it’s own.  It has to be taken. And it will be taken right after the right to control that property is taken from the citizens who live there.  ”That gas is OUR gas”, say the Elitists who are too educated, intelligent, and sophisticated to live in the Sacrifice zone,  ”and WE will take it.”  I get a little nervous when politicians use collectivist language.  It gives the impression they don’t recognize the right to own property.  I get even more nervous when the rank and file voter parrots it.

Speaking of parroting… I have a bit of an allergy to marketing and spin.  Nothing gets my histamine going like all those talking points from Energy In Depth and other industry PR firms. They are so tired and stale that if I hear them one more time — especially if repeated by reasonably well-educated people who ought to possess the critical thinking skills to see through a slick marketing campaign — I just might scream.  Screaming does no good whatsoever, but ridicule surely does!

Buzzword Bingo got its start by similarly frustrated cubical-rats who got really tired of silly business-speak.  You know, the “lean forward and action an out-of-the-box win-win solution to message new product” type stuff.  It is gibberish but managers really like it and everyone else has to play along. The cube-rats turned business meetings into a bingo game.  (There’s even an App for that.)  Playing Buzzword Bingo is easy! Just set up bingo cards and mark the square when the buzzword gets used.  Seems to me this is a perfect response to the double-speak gibberish the Industry spokes-peeps and apologists try to lay on us.  (You know the routine — you’re standing by a torrent of frack fluid rushing down into Towanda Creek and the spokesdude says, “Uh yeah, it’s under control.  There’s no impact.” Wut? Bingo!)

So go try it — go make up some bingo cards with all of your favorite vocabulary words, buzzwords, lies, excuses, and abuses and see how little time it takes to fill up a card at your next community meeting. It’ll make you smile that the stupidity is so predictable. I promise.

Meanwhile, I can’t make any promises about keeping up this blog. The list of cartoons to draw is long and there are endless sources of new inspiration, but the stress that comes from following the news needs to be balanced with other things.  So we’ll see. I remain buoyed by your readership and will be ever thankful that you stop by as often as you do.

Just by way of explanation (because I was recently accused of being too obscure), that  hissing steam-punk assemblage of pipes and joints and wheels and whatnots is called a Christmas Tree.  But for safety’s sake, if you make the Christmas Tree part of your holiday decor do NOT use candles or electric lights.  That hissing is caused by highly toxic and flammable hydrocarbons escaping from the well and things could get real explodey real fast if your holiday cheer provides an ignition source.  Simple ornaments, ribbons, even garlands are a superior choice.  Have a blessed holiday season, everyone!

During this involuntary hiatus, I’ve observed the anti-gas drilling scene has lapped me a time or two.  It’s much more organized, becoming a focal point of local environmental groups.  This is good (because, hey — organized!), but also bad for several reasons:

1.  The national environmental groups  (“Big Green”) are in no small part responsible for the big fracking mess in which we find ourselves.  To wit, Carl Pope, the most pious President of the Sierra Club spent a great deal of time campaigning with various industry chumps on the High and Holy Virtues of natural gas produced using “new technologies”.  ( The Sierra Comes Out in Favor of the U.S. Natural Gas Industry)  True, the National organization is backpedaling a bit with some “yeah but’s..” and “but only if’s…” trying to attach caveats and qualifiers to their agenda in order to mollify the whiners who live above the shale. I got into a bit of a shouty match with a local Sierra Clubber on Facebook which helped me understand the schism that exists within that organization.  The folks on the ground want to do the right thing and oppose the drilling juggernaut, but the National org does not.  Pope ranks right up there with Terry “Necessary Sacrifice” Engelder in terms of the unAmerican notion that elitists know what is best for the rest of us:

What’s happening with the new discoveries of natural gas is that parts of the country that historically didn’t pay any environmental bill for energy production because they didn’t produce energy are going to start paying a bigger share of the bill and people don’t like that.

Which brings us to Environmental Justice.  Just who does he think will pay the “bigger share of the bill”?  Smug urbanites with their lattes and Priuses? Elitists like Engelder?  Of course not!  It will be the rural poor.  It’s always the poor that get to shoulder the burden of pollution, that get to make the sacrifices. It makes me sick a little to think that the High Holy Head of Big Green’s solution to pollution is not just more pollution, but more pollution for the economically disadvantaged.  We deserve that, why? Exactly?  The EJ link above goes to the EPA’s page on the definition:

Environmental Justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.

So thank you Big Green for targeting rural America to bear the pollution burden of your ridiculous agenda.  To my mind it is criminal and the reason why any argument against ‘fracking’ that is based on an environmental agenda is laughable.

2.  Yes, laughable.  Everyone loves to laugh at the hippies, the tree-huggers, the crunchies, the granolas — you get the picture.  As objects of ridicule, it is really, REALLY easy to dismiss Environmentalists as silly ninnies.  The more the arguments against this assault on rural Americans are associated with “Environmentalists” and “Environmentalism”, the easier it becomes to dismiss the issue as the overwrought emotional tantrums of twits with the reasoning capability of marshmallow fluff.  (Yeah, sorry if that smarts a bit, but I’m annoyed that the critical issues keep getting undermined by enviro-contamination.)

3.  What could be more critical than clean air and water, fishies in the lakes and happy birdies in the trees?  How about our CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to these things?  How about the real damages we incur when our neighbors sell out? The nosebleeds, the dizziness, the lights and noise and dust  24-7?  How about the subsidies we have to pay (water, roads, infrastructure) in order to support their unsustainable greed? How about the seizure of private property to accommodate lethal pipelines?  How about the seizure of your mineral rights under forced pooling?  How about the abuses surface owners endure in split estate situations? What about the inability for communities to manage development via zoning?  What about the right to be secure in our properties? To have control over it?

Where is our equal protection under law? Where is our protection from being deprived of life, liberty, or property? Or from private property being taken for public use, without just compensation?

So riddle me this, Drill Babies:  Who is the author of this little gem*?

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of the petty artisan and of the small peasant? …  There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Yeah, forget the Enviromentalists and the Eeeeeeeeeeeeevil-Democrats and treat yourself to a gut check.

* As always, anyone who shares this humble foxhole is welcome to chime in.

Also – I’m not a Communist.  I hate it when the Dem/Pub parties prove them right.  Call it Socratic Irony.  Urgh.

Well.  That didn’t take long.

Anyone who is surprised, step to the left.  Anyone who isn’t surprised should produce their papers, please, and register with PA’s Department of Wrongthinking Management.

More later.

… I have to make a list.

Alternate title:  F.C. Blues and the Three Bears.

Just back from only our third visit to Camp Bittersweet this summer.  We were kind of startled when it occurred to us that it was only our third trip  because it marks a significant drop off from previous summers.  What happened?  Other than an epic, month-long business trip, we simply found other places to vacation – places that didn’t have natural gas compressor stations roaring all day and night, places that didn’t have giant trucks driven by wild-eyed Texans crashing (Crash 1, Crash 2), places that didn’t have methane bubbling out of the creeks and lakes, places that aren’t bulldozed like friggen industrial zones.  I predict that others like us will find other places to spend leisure time and dollars.  I suppose we’re some of the “wealthy weekenders” that Noel van Swol derides so – the out-of-towners with cash to burn who sweep in for a short time, clog the streets, book the hotels, crowd the restaurants,  shop the stores and then leave when the ‘season’ is over – you know, general touristy stuff.  Yeah, we’re completely different from the Texans and foreign corporations with cash to burn who sweep in for a short time to destroy the streets, book the hotels, pull employees out of the local economy, import food so the roughnecks don’t have to shop at the local grocery stores, and then leave when the next gas patch ripens up.  I suppose if you can sell your soul to the Texans and foreign corporations along with a bit of gas and water, you can sell your goods and services to tourists.  It reminds me of that old joke with the punch line “We’ve already established you’re a whore, now we’re just haggling over the price.”   At least the WealthyWeekenders won’t contaminate your water wells and we much prefer those millions of gallons of water stay in the lakes and streams so that we can go canoe or catch a fish.

Oh, was that a rant?  I apologize.

One thing that continues to impress is the number of black bears running around the Camp Bittersweet neighborhood.  The neighbors tell of seeing them almost every evening.  Bears are territorial (5-200 sq mi for males, and 1-20 sq mi for females) and I can’t help but suspect that the current state of overcrowding isn’t exactly voluntary.  Our neighborhood of family camps and hunt shacks is bounded on the north and south by state forest.  The forest to the south is where Fortuna/Talisman are doing their dirty deeds.  The drilling is done – all that is left is the compressor station that roars and rattles day and night.  If I were a bear, with big bear ears, I wouldn’t hang around 90 decibels of noise pollution.  You don’t have to be Yogi to do that math.  Can I prove that the bears are being driven out of their territories by drilling activities? No, I can’t.  It’s been a dry summer so they might be roaming for food sources.  But wouldn’t it be nice if there were some researchers on the ground tracking shifts in bear territory?  Argumentum ad Ignorantium.  No data = no problem.  No problem = no data.

It’s been quite a while and I’m rusty.  Apologies for the retread, but the conversation illustrated above needed to continue.  I had the privilege of traveling across this great country for several weeks.  While it was good to get away from my regular routine and not have quite so much time to dwell on the tragedy that is gas drilling, I had constant cause to think on just how big this great country of ours is, how the best part of America really is rural America, and how small rural Americans seem from the window of an airplane cruising at thirty thousand feet.  Thirty thousand feet does not diminish the ugly that is the gas patch in the San Juan Basin (NM), however.  I had occasion to fly over it on one leg of my trip.  It’s breathtaking – and not in a good way.

The plan to attend GasStock got derailed when the president of our neighborhood association called a meeting.  It’s a little strange to have an association of hunt shacks and family camps.  But rather than inspecting the length of the blades of grass in your yard and ensuring that all of your curtains or shades are backed with white fabric or paint, this association exists for one reason:  maintaining our private road.  It was a good idea, actually, for Tioga Co to require an association for this purpose when the plats were initially laid out.  On private roads, everyone owns out to the center of the road and is responsible for maintaining it.  However, the economies of scale come into play and it’s much easier to maintain the whole road rather than just a patchwork of it. The county has had enough of the patchwork effect, I guess.  It’s a dirt road that gets lots of four-wheeler traffic, pick-up trucks, and a weekly visit by the honeypot replenisher.  The road that connects to our road is a mess – mostly from construction traffic. One property on that  road chose to log the last of their commercially viable lumber which did a number on the road.  Of course the loggers did not clean up after themselves and we are stuck with the bill.  Because in order to get the equipment in to plow during the winter, we have to fix the other road.  So needless to say, the conversation was boisterous and focused on greedy bastards who have no regard for their neighbors.  Background noise to the whole event was the helicopter-like, rattling drone of the compressor station on the ridge across from ours.

GreenMan makes a good point:  Everyone. Will. Lease.  It’s just a fact. Just like times are too tough to not sell timber off your land,  times are too tough to not lease, and I’m sure that will hold true for whomever holds the mineral rights to our little neighborhood of hunt shacks.  And the day will come when the Halliburton trucks (and the Texans who drive them) will make their way up our ridge and start clearing pads in the middle of our properties.  If cemeteries and state forests areas aren’t off limits, nothing is.  At that point, maintaining our road will be the least of our worries.  The good news is that the fact that it is a private road means there will have to be a negotiation for surface use.  The better news is that we are already organized… and boisterous.

GAS STOCK

Concert – Festival – Rally

If you care You will be there!

21 August 2010

And another offering from the fun movie quote front.  I’m still dwelling on the “How many people have to be lying in order for the Gas Industry to be telling the truth?” question.  How much longer will the industry continue to insult our intelligence with marketing, spin, and outright lies?  I don’t have an answer but I am so grateful to Josh Fox for getting Gasland on HBO.  I’ve had so many great conversations with friends about the issue since they saw it.  Truly wonderful.  Awareness is spreading!!

In other news, I’ve been invited to be a panelist on Penn State Radio’s Sustainability Now program.  It’s on 90.7 WKPS TheLion Friday evening at 5:00.  I’m most excited about the other bloggers who will be appearing including the sharp pens behind Un-naturalgas.org and Susquehanna River Sentinel!  Hope you can listen in.  The secret to undermining the industry marketing is our own independent networking.

And in other other news, I’m headed out on an epic, cross-country multi-week business trip that will have me away from the keyboard for a while.  I’ll sketch whenever I can, but in the meantime I urge you to visit the great blogs on the blog roll. —>   I’ll try to put up some more video collections before I head out, too.

From Animal Farm:  ”Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples.”

Always remember:  ”All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”  Have a safe and happy 4th and keep the sparklers away from the wellheads.