Beat Back Fracking

According to the Office of the State Geologist, fracking is "probably not" coming to Massachusetts. You can read all the FAQs about the Hartford Basin here, but in the meantime, here's the answer to the question "Is hydraulic fracturing for shale gas coming to Massachusetts?":

Probably not.  Based on a survey of all available scientific data, the geologic conditions in the Connecticut Valley in western Massachusetts are not optimum for shale gas development.  Black shale units in the Hartford Basin are generally too thin, laterally discontinuous, and are cut by too many pre-existing natural fractures and extinct faults. This makes extraction of hydrocarbons economically not feasible with today’s technology at current market prices (see below). However, more data need to be collected to completely rule out that possibility. 

In addition, oil and gas wells used for conventional or enhanced hydrocarbon recovery are defined as Class 2 wells under the Massachusetts Underground Injection Control Regulations (310 CMR 27.00).  Class 2 wells are currently prohibited in the Commonwealth.

This is good news, and I was relieved to read it. But while Massachusetts itself is likely to remain frack-free, we are still complicit in the practice. After all, most of the electricity we generate in Massachusetts comes from natural gas. So every time we switch on the light (or type a blog post, for that matter) we can be sure that it's because somebody somewhere is having their land fracked. Massachusetts could use its market power to require that any company selling natural-gas based electricity in Massachusetts has to certify that the extraction process did not pollute anyone's drinking water.

That was the idea behind a bill the Sierra Club promoted in the last legislative session, and that deserves more support in the next session. The bill won the support of the Massachusetts Democratic Party's state convention in 2011. If you'd like to help the bill become law, please let me know.

3 tips for creating your campaign message

Tony Blair taught me a lesson I will never forget. One day toward the end of the 1997 general election campaign he put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. "The most important thing in politics," he said, "is sincerity." Blair flashed his notorious grin. "Once you can fake that, you've got it made."

Tony Blair on sincerity

Admittedly, only one part of the foregoing is truthful. I have never had a deep and meaningful conversation with Tony Blair (although we did meet once, for all of five minutes) and the ability to feign sincerity will not lead ineluctably to political success. Which leaves the assertion that the most important thing in politics is sincerity. That, I believe, is true.

It is not, however, the first in the promised list of three tips for creating your campaign message (see below). The tips come after my shameless pitch for the upcoming Green Campaign School in Worcester on  Saturday, February 23. If you think you might want to run for office, this event is for you.

If you plan on attending, please take a few minutes to watch these campaign commercials from Greens in other parts of the world. I'll be running two workshops at the conference, Campaign Basics and A Green Electoral Presence. We will draw lessons from the videos in Campaign Basics.

Sian Berry

The first, called Make History Melbourne, features Adam Bandt, a Green who is now a Member of Parliament in Australia. Sian Berry, stars in the second video. Sian was the Green candidate for mayor of London in 2008.

Video number three is from Europe Ecologie and it's in French. The Greens in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) produced the fourth video, a 30-second spot in party's package of single-issue ads for the 2010 elections. As the junior partner in NRW's coalition government, the Greens seem to know a thing or two about winning elections and holding on to power. Closer to home, California's Ross D. Frankel's 2010 campaign video is four minutes long, a painfully long time in politics. Just watch the first 30 seconds and I guarantee that you will agree it's worth discussing in a workshop.

We will analyze the videos (or at least some of them), focusing mainly on audience, emotion, and imagery. By talking about what works well versus what falls flat we will learn to develop our own messages more carefully and deliberately.

Why would we cover this in a workshop called Campaign Basics? Because nothing is more basic to a campaign that its purpose, and nothing reveals the purpose -- or purposelessness -- of a campaign like its fundamental message. Constructing the message starts with asking yourself this simple question: "Why am I running?"

Tip #1: Know why you are running

Answering this question honestly and thoughtfully will uncover your authentic vision, which will shape your message. It may take a while. But unless and until you have the answer, you should devote your time, energy, and other valuable resources to something other than running for office. I do not mean that you should swear off politics. I merely suggest that you should wait until you can give a sincere answer. After all, if not even you know why you are running how can you expect others to entrust you with their vote?

For many of us, having to explain why we are running forces us to ponder issues that go to the very heart of who we are. Our passion for politics is like a pilot light, always burning away in the background. Why do you care about politics? "Why do you breathe?" might be easier for us to answer. If you have not wrestled with these matters since Existentialism 101, you should do so before you commit to running. Otherwise you risk not only being stymied in the manner of the late Senator Ted Kennedy in this 1979 interview, but also you rob yourself of the opportunity to develop a genuinely compelling message that connects with the people who matter most, i.e. the voters.

Tip #2: Know where you are running

Narrowing that broader question of why you are running, you need to ask yourself why you are seeking this particular office. Remember, you are not running in the abstract: Your goal is to win a specific election in a specific district. Your campaign can certainly educate people about the big subjects, the ones you care about so much that you decided to run (see Tip #1). But as any teacher will tell you: "It's not what you say, it's what they hear." So you need to meet people where they are, and introduce the global and national subjects through local issues.

How? Let's say climate change is the reason you devote yourself to electoral politics and that you are running for state representative in a district where the front-page stories are about job losses. You will be tempted to repeat the phrase "green jobs" over and over again until you ride an electoral tidal wave to Beacon Hill. After all, no progressive campaign seems complete nowadays without that mantra. Resist the temptation.

What you need to remember is that jobs gains are general, whereas job losses are specific. So start acting like a state representative, or rather like a state representative should act. Do your research and find out what kind of clean-energy businesses might come to your district -- and which local businesses would hire more workers-- if the conditions were right. Then reach out to the people in your district who are already trying to grow green jobs. Learn from them, and show them that you respect the voters enough to have done your homework.

At that point you can start connecting the dots in a very clear way between climate change and job growth in your district, and you will be better prepared to ask the human beings who live there to trust you with the task of representing them.

Tip #3: Know who to ask

So who do you want to vote for you (bearing in mind that "everybody" is not an acceptable response)? To answer the question realistically you should calculate how many votes you will need in order to win. Happily, you will discover that your universe of potential voters is relatively small.

For example, in 2012, a presidential election year, approximately 20,000 people voted in some House district but in many others the turnout was closer to 15,000 (click here for the official results). In 2010, the numbers were lower. Assuming a two-way race in a district where the likely turnout is 16,000, your target number of votes should be no less than 8,000.

It is very likely that there are 8,000 people in your district who would vote for you if (a) they knew you were running; and (b) they believed that you would represent them well. Who are they and how do you find them? Start with the most up-to-date list of registered voters, which your town/city clerk will provide. Next create smaller lists arranged by neighborhood so that you can go from door to door in an efficient way (the GRP's NationBuilder capability can help with this). When you have these walk-sheets, start canvassing your district in a systematic way for several hours every day, recording the voting intentions of the voters you meet.

After a day or two, you will have a reliable sense of how your target voters are responding to your message, which is the subject of next week's more detailed post. If the responses consist mainly of glazed eyes and bemused expressions, you will need to adapt your message, your delivery, or both. But you will be building on a solid foundation, the why, where, and who of your campaign.

What's wrong with fracking?

Why am I against fracking? That was the question Benjamin Coleman, a student at Boston University, posed when he interviewed me for his film project. My short answer: climate change. For my slightly longer answer (about two minutes) please check out this video.

Good News in the Fight to Beat Back Fracking

Today some very welcome news emerged from the State Geologist. According to the FAQs posted on the office's website, which you can read in full here, fracking is “probably not” coming to Massachusetts:

Based on a survey of all available scientific data, the geologic conditions in the Connecticut Valley in western Massachusetts are not optimum for shale gas development.  Black shale units in the Hartford Basin are generally too thin, laterally discontinuous, and are cut by too many pre-existing natural fractures and extinct faults. This makes extraction of hydrocarbons economically not feasible with today’s technology at current market prices... However, more data need to be collected to completely rule out that possibility.  

In addition, oil and gas wells used for conventional or enhanced hydrocarbon recovery are defined as Class 2 wells under the Massachusetts Underground Injection Control Regulations (310 CMR 27.00).  Class 2 wells are currently prohibited in the Commonwealth.

This is certainly worth at least one sigh of relief. But even if Massachusetts itself stays frack-free, the state is still complicit in the practice. After all, most of the electricity we use here comes from natural gas. So every time we turn on a light (or type a blog post) we can be sure it’s because somebody somewhere in the country is having their land fracked. By the way, the effect of fracking on one American community is the subject of the new feature film Promised Land, starring Matt Damon. To see a two-minute trailer, just click here.

As well as ensuring that we stay frack-free, there is something we can do right here in Massachusetts to stop fracking elsewhere in the United States. By using our market power, we can force energy companies to certify that the natural-gas they burned to generate electricity they are selling us did not pollute anybody’s drinking water. That is the idea behind a bill the Sierra Club promoted in the last legislative session, with the support of the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s state convention.

If you would like to learn more about this bill and other legislative proposals to speed up the switch from fossil fuels to renewables, please come along to the next meeting of the Pioneer Valley GRP, which is at the forefront of the fight to Beat Back Fracking. The meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 21, 7:00 p.m. in Agawam Public Library.

Pioneer Valley GRP October Meeting

Here's the agenda for the next meeting of Pioneer Valley Green-Rainbow Party, scheduled for Thursday, October 18, 2012, 7:00 p.m. at Treehouse, Easthampton.

1.         Introductions

2.         Additional agenda items

3.         Minutes of last meeting

4.         GRP Fundamental Platform

                        Action: Suggest ideas to platform committee

5.         Budget for All ballot question

                        Action: Volunteers                                       

6.         Organizing a public meeting on fracking

                        Action: Volunteers

7.         Emergency response committees: update regarding local vacancies

8.         GRP Farmers: update from convenors

9.         Scott Laugenour 4^th Berkshire campaign update

                        Action: Volunteers to canvass and make calls

10.       Facebook and e-communication update

11.       Any other business

12.       Close: 8:30 p.m.

□          Next meeting 7:20 p.m., Thursday, December 6^th

            Unitarian Universalist Society, 220 Main Street, Northampton

Guest Book Review: Public Meltdown

By Ben Plotzker, Guest Reviewer

Public Meltdown: The Story of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, by Richard Watts.

The science behind nuclear energy is one thing, but the management of a nuclear plant is another. This book outlines the management of a nuclear power plant owner in the United States. 

You will learn so much from this book. It is very important to understand what is allowing my night light to be on or my laptop to charge. There are usually mixed sources of sources for electricity, but which sources are more controversial?

In 2010, Vermont legislators voted to shutter a nuclear power plant, putting the state at odds with the federal government and the plant’s owner—the Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation.  Public Meltdown explores the debate that roiled Vermont, including the lawsuits and court action that followed. The story starts out with the early days of the plant back in the 1970’s and how it developed since then. The intriguing use of more than 1,000 news articles, approaches the highly controversial issue with non-bias towards nuclear energy. It is hard to find a book out there that does so like Public Meltdown. As an American citizen that consumes electricity from nuclear means, every person should read this and understand what is going on with that nuclear power plant. Energy is a big issue in the future of the U.S. and the rest of the world, so the question about using nuclear is still in debate.

In rich, well-researched detail, Dr. Watts tells a story that spotlights the role of state governments, citizens and activists in decisions about the nation’s aging nuclear power fleet.  A story that continues today as both Entergy, the nation’s second largest nuclear operator, and the state of Vermont have appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals.Entergy owns 10 plants in the U.S., so it should be known by all U.S. citizens how this controversial energy production is handled in our borders. Nuclear plants are usually very quietly controlled, but all people should know who is patrolling and how they are doing so.

The book details a series of missteps by the Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation which owns Vermont Yankee, from inadequate follow-up after one of the plant’s cooling towers collapsed to misleading statements to state regulators about tritium leaks from underground pipes.Each chapter outlines the important aspects of Entergy’s fight to keep the plant open, even though many speed bumps arise. This non fiction book has some cliffhangers of its own because of how history played out. 

Anyone interested in energy issues or state’s rights is highly recommended to read this book.The noticeable characteristics that put this book aside from any other nuclear energy book is the absence of pro or anti-nuclear positions, no focus on scientific aspects of the plant, just the public’s view of Entergy, and that this is the only book that highlights one nuclear plant’s journey through history. 

The book can be found on Amazon. Look up Public Meltdown: The Story of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Written by Richard Watts.

More info at www.publicmeltdown.org. 

Great response in Great Barrington

Something is hatching in the 4th Berkshire District, where Scott Laugenour is the GRP candidate for State Representative. Scott and I hit the sidewalks earlier today in Great Barrington and met with a response that was, indeed, great. 

Ready to hatch?

As usual, most of the doors I knocked belonged to people who were not home (or simply hiding from me) but of those who were at home and planning to vote for a particular state rep in November most said they were voting for Scott. With more than four months until election day and little media attention, I found the level of name recognition and early commitment very encouraging.


Going door-to-door and focusing on core GRP themes like Medicare for All, green jobs, renewable energy, and transparency in government, Scott is running a strong grassroots campaign.


When you have a couple of hours to invest in party-building this summer, please spend them campaigning with Scott in the Berkshires. I'm eager to get back out there soon, and hope you can join me. In the meantime, check out Scott's website www.scottlaugenour.org.

Scott campaigning (photo by Susan Geller)