Grassroots energy is high as this year comes to an end. Encouraged by insistent power-of-the-people messages, thousands of people have rallied all over New York at educational forums, DEC hearings, and local election debates with calls to stop unsafe shale gas drilling from coming to our state.
As part of a state-wide movement, we’ve helped to hold off massive natural gas industrial development in our Marcellus shale for another year, and the DEC will soon start opening tens of thousands of letters on how to improve the sGEIS. The level of public engagement in gas drilling rules and regulations is unprecedented for any environmental issue in NY history.Because our region’s rural, suburban and urban citizens emerged as leaders in many new groups in the grassroots movement, we have a strong local and state-wide coalition that works together to make our messages loud and clear. Shaleshock is proud to be known as one of the first groups to form three years ago, spreading seeds of resistance that grew in towns and villages near and far. (Our No-Frack lawn signs are visible in pictures as far away as Europe.)
During 2011, Shaleshock accomplishments include:
• Reaching many thousands through our popular website, e-mail listserve, Shaleshock 101 classes, information display tables, and free videos and pamphlets.
• Producing and posting over 200 documentary videos by ShaleshockMedia in the past year, with 42,500 views, vastly expanding our educational outreach.
• Teaching over 600 people more about gas drilling at four Ithaca forums on topics of “Drilling and DEC: New Guidelines”; “Storing Liquid Gas in Watkins Glen”; “From Marcellus to South Africa”; and “Economic Impacts of the sGEIS”. Shaleshock also co-sponsored another dozen events held in the region.
• Providing resources through our high quality communications network and background of deep research for five nearby towns to pass gas drilling ban ordinances over the summer and fall of 2011.
• Giving hundreds of people the opportunity to speak directly about their concerns in meetings with our NY State elected officials.
Your generous donations make all this possible. As volunteers, we gladly donate our time, but we need your help with funds to rent our little office above Autumn Leaves, pay for video production supplies and expenses, print brochures and handouts, put on educational events. Please, contribute what you can to this exciting movement. No donation is too small. (While we are a non-profit community organization, Shaleshock is not a federally tax-deductible organization.)
The fight to protect our water, air and communities continues. If we work together, we can stop the dirty, polluting extraction methods of fossil fuels and move toward the future of clean, renewable energy on which our lives depend.
Best wishes for a joyful holiday season,
From Sara, Ryan, Lisa, Laurie, Hilary A, David, Fred, Margaret, Marie, Hilary L., Elmer, Eric, Steve, And many more!
P.S. Please use the tools below to share this donation page with your friends, and help us spread the word about our efforts! Thanks!
https://www.wepay.com/donate/shaleshock
“Through Shaleshock, I’ve found a really fun way to be a fracktavist: working on the Ithaca Festival Parade. With some zany ideas, a bunch of cardboard, pipes, paper mache, paint and tape, we concocted what many parade goers said was the best entry 2 years in a row! Besides being a lot of fun for us, I feel that keeping our community base energized is essential. With arts + activism we can reach people through their hearts, not just their minds.” – Steve
“My experience faciliating meetings and helping with outreach/education has been really exciting. I’ve learned a lot from the Shaleshock 101 groups and the various trainings we’ve helped to organize.” – Ryan
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Shaleshock Action Alliance
115 E. Martin Luther King St, Ithaca, NY 14850
www.shaleshock.org www.shaleshockmedia.org www.shaleshock.blip.tv
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