Day 3: Wednesday, February 29 2012 (Leap Day!)
Morning:
The day began with rain and ended with a movie.
After waking up to a constant rain we headed out to Marvin Gaye Park (http://www.nrpa.org/marvingayepark2009/)
where we walked to the Recreation Center, a mile walk in constant rain. While at the Recreation Center we dried off ourselves as much as possible before grabbing garbage bags and garbage picker-upper tools and went out to the park and picked up trash in the rain. The shear volume of trash in this small area of DC was amazing. All along the stream that ran through the park, the largest tributary to the Anacostia River, was filled with Styrofoam cups, bottles, plastic, wrappers, cigarettes etc. We only made a small dent in the large scheme of the park. After a good 10 minutes, we all went back inside the Recreation Center and again attempted to dry ourselves before walking another mile to the metro station at the other end of the park. While walking through the rest of the park in the rain, freezing, not able to feel my toes, soaked through and shivering, I noticed how relatively clean the park was compared to the Area of Anacostia that we had walked through the day before. I had thought we were going to deal with this (http://www.fosc.org/LitterPhoto1.htm) but instead, we found this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78113078@N00/3049391272/) obviously less green and sunny in the picture.
However miserable the group was to be wet, cold, tired, and hating the wasted time, the experience of seeing just how big of an environmental impact littering is and how cleaning up the park has lead to a better community and a safer natural area.
Afternoon:
After drying off and complaining about the rain, the group headed to a meeting with the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/) a very conservative foundation who's 5 pillars are:
free enterprise
limited government
individual freedom
traditional American values
a strong national defense
We met with Robert Gordon, Senior Advisor for Strategic Outreach, who gave us a lecture on how government was too involved in everyday life and was a bureaucracy. He went on to state that the best energy resource was Human Creativity and that when we do run out of things, humans have the ability to create a new and adapt. Rude at times, Mr. Gordon asked us what we knew about our energy resources and went on to state that energy use is good and that environmentalist were wrong about consuming energy to be a bad thing. He also implied that global warming was a myth by the liberal media to scare the people. The conversation soon turned to a debate over government issued regulation vs. private sector relegation and the free market. Much was what was said had to do with ideology rather than scientific fact and alternatives to fossil fuel resources. The argument was raised by our group about investment of money either through citizens or the government to invest in green and safe alternatives such as wind and solar rather than fracking/drilling since drilling has been seen to cause health and environmental safety problems, the response was one again of small government, libertarian, republican, conservative ideology and a pandering to high schoolers. After the meeting, the group regrouped and discussed what went down in the meeting. Much was said about the treatment/respect for our ideas and that Mr. Gordon's goal seemed to be to try and change out beliefs in government than in getting answers to energy policy. All of us found the meeting not too successful and resentful at times. The adjective to describe it was a 'sigh' of frustration.
Evening:
After having dinner in China Town, the group headed back to watch the movie 'GASLAND' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8) a documentary directed by Josh Fox in 2010.
The documentary showed a grim, terrifying example of the gas industries monopoly in many states all over the country and the health and toxic results. Throughout the movie the group reacted to the horrifying result of drilling and fracking and the minimal regulation the Natural Gas Industry follows state-to-state. Its main message was: What happens in your back yard affects my backyard. The drilling that has and continues to occur in 32 states. The top ones being:
Alaska
Arkansas
Louisiana
Colorado
Kansas
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Texas
Utah
Wyoming.
Pennsylvania
Ohio
For New York the risk of contamination of unfiltered reservoirs, Catskill and Delaware Water shed, which provide safe and clean drinking water for over 6 million people including New York City, Philadelphia, much of New Jersey and Delaware. Not only would water supply be contaminated for these citizens but the toxins most likely to occur in the fluids used in the fracking process would lead to harmful defects and health hazards for not only New York but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and other New England states.
From the movie, for some it changed minds to stop the use of natural gas completely and for others it was another medium of information that exaggerated and scared you without giving an answer to what an alternative would be to Natural Gas since so much of it is used all over the country.
The movie ended but the conversation continues as we all gathered out thoughts as to how and what to do about fracking when lobbying our representatives the next day. Should we push for more regulation? Should be say to ban it all together in the state of New York? If banning natural gas, what was our alternative energy source?
All in all the day had been emotionally and physically draining but it was LEAP DAY and thus the day did not count. Happy Leap Day!
Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
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