The Unfractured Future

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

“Half an action is no action at all…

There is no way to undo the harm that hydrofracking will cause.”

              --Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation

WESPAC members Scott Halfmann and Tracy Basile took a course in nonprofit filmmaking at the Jacob Burns Film Center’s Media Arts Lab. The result is “The Unfractured Future,” a short video about the natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) that threatens our water and our future.

You can watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdwCKzqVRdQ

In New York State this method of deep horizontal drilling that uses massive amounts of water and toxic chemicals has yet to begin, but time is running out. New York is currently in the final phase of review of a draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS) which could lead to hydraulic fracturing for natural gas throughout much of the state.

Our video tells a side of the story rarely heard in mainstream media. It includes indigenous perspectives, giving voice to the powerful words of Oren Lyons, faithkeeper of the Onondaga Nation; Professor Robin Kimmerer, a member of the Potawatomi Nation and an ecologist at SUNY-ESF (Environmental Sciences and Forestry); and Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a Lakota radio show host and journalist in New York City. It cuts through layers of policy and politics, making the complicated simple and clear: New Yorkers can lead the nation in banning fracking.   

Members of the Haudenosaunee (made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations) Environmental Task Force (HETF) are very concerned about hydrofracking in New York State. HETF often speaks out to native and non-native audiences on the issue of hydrofracking. The perspective of this group composed of environmental leaders from the Six Nations on the kind of relationship they have with the natural world is enlightening.

We seek to host an educational one-day forum and festival in the summer 2012 at a local farm in Westchester County. This effort would be a Saturday all-day event and would bring together the local food movement with the anti-fracking movement, as well as reach many Lower Hudson Valley residents whose concern about hydrofracking and interest in building a green economy is growing. It would showcase local food booths selling artisanal cheeses, breads, vegetables, local honey, maple syrup, etc. and feature speakers, such as those in our film, include film screenings of related videos, and have live music featuring the band Ghosthorse, whose music plays throughout our film.

We already have a team of Pace students helping us plan a community forum in Pleasantville on April 10th that will bring together all the local anti-fracking forces and help build for this farm festival.

2pm to 2:30pm - facilitated discussion on how we can all better coordinate our work and become more effective in our efforts to ban fracking and support renewables.

We are doing this to protect hundreds of species of plant and animal life as well as the quality of human life from the tremendous damage that fracking creates in the natural world.  We want to ban fracking in New York State and beyond.  As Indigenous elders have told us, we are responsible for leaving a planet that is healthy for at least the next seven generations.