Gasland Documentaries Drill into Fracking

By Anthony Vigna

For my out-of-classroom CEC requirement, I decided to watch both Gasland and Gasland 2 and write my reactions to both of them. Each film had hydraulic fracking as the primary topic, and exemplified the negative effects it has on the environment by documenting affected areas.

Basically, fracking takes a combination of over 600 different chemicals mixed with water and drills it into the ground. This causes a mini earthquake to form, freeing up the ground for natural gas extraction. While many people, including President Obama, assure the public that such a process is completely safe, both documentaries prove the fallacy of such a statement. Out of those 600 different chemicals, known carcinogens and toxins are used that are polluting the water in many homes around fracking areas. Approximately 40,000 gallons of these chemicals are utilized per fracturing, so its amazing that companies are allowed to get away with doing this.

Sure, fracking produces 300,000 barrels of natural gas a day, but it isn’t worth it due to the numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards at play. The documentaries look at many of the affected areas, which clearly show that the water is not safe to drink. In fact, if you put a flame next to a faucet of an affected house while the water is running, it will set on fire! The worst part is that companies are denying the negative factors of fracking. They insist that things like flammable water are natural, but when this is a common occurrence in areas that have fracking activity, it’s hard to believe such a sentiment.

You would think that there would be legislation that would be put in place to prevent something like this from happening, but companies that feed off non-renewable energy sources easily find ways to work around the law. The laws do exist, but they mean nothing to companies that want to start fracking. For example, the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, the Clean Water Act was created in 1972, and the Safe Drinking Water Act was put into effect in 1974. Yet, Dick Cheney was able to pass an energy bill through Congress in 2005 that exempted companies from all of those laws! As a result, mass drilling has begun, and it doesn’t look like it will stop anytime soon.

While the original Gasland was able to shed a lot of light on such a controversial practice, Gasland 2 shows that not much has changed over the years. Companies are still fracking, and even the Environmental Protection Agency seems to be powerless to stand against this continuing disaster. Perhaps the most shocking part of Gasland 2 occurred at the end, when Capitol Hill police arrested director Josh Fox for trying to film a public hearing about fracking for his documentary. If people are willing to break First Amendment policies to continue fracking, then the battle to end such a horrible practice will truly be an uphill battle. Hopefully, Gasland 2 will further spread the word about fracking and lead people to stop condoning such an awful, disgusting practice.

Ramapo River Watershed Conference 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 13, 2014

Contact:
Geoff Welch
(845) 712-5220
geoffwelch@gmail.com

Ramapo River Watershed Conference April 18 at Ramapo College

Mahwah, NJ – The 19th annual Ramapo River Watershed Conference will be held Friday, April 18, at Ramapo College of New Jersey from 10 am – 5 pm in the Trustees Pavilion, 505 Ramapo Valley Road, also known as Route 202. The event, presented by the Ramapo River Committee and the Institute for Environmental Studies at Ramapo College, will feature a variety of speakers on environmental topics pertaining to the Ramapo Valley region in New York and New Jersey.

The event is free but registration is requested at geoffwelch@gmail.com or (845) 712-5220.

This year’s conference will include presentations on watershed events since last Spring. These include: Update on the Ford Motor Company Paint Sludge Remediation in Torne Valley, Environmental Justice Impacts of the Ringwood Superfund Remediation of Ford Paint Sludge, Land Use and Stream Management Strategies for Reducing Flood Risks and Protecting Water Quality, The Blue Acres Program in New Jersey, USGS Gaging Station Program in the Ramapo River Watershed, and a number of other topics.

There will be coffee and bagels at 9:30 am before the event starts.

10:00 – Ramapough Indian Blessing: Vincent Mann, Sub Chief; Opening Remarks: Ramapo College Professor Howard Horowitz and Geoff Welch, Chairman of the Ramapo River Committee.

10:15 - Land Use and Stream Management Strategies for Reducing Flood Risks and Protecting Water Quality: Julie Moore, Water Resources Group Leader, Stone Environmental, Montpelier, Vermont

10:55 – The Blue Acres Program in New Jersey: Brandee Chapman, NJDEP

11:20 - The Darlington Schoolhouse Project: Ed Goodell, Executive Director, NY/NJ Trail Conference

11:50 - USGS Gaging Station Program in the Ramapo River Watershed: Chris L. Gazoorian - Hydrologist USGS NY Water Science Center, Troy, NY

 12:20 pm – 1:30 pm     LUNCH

1:30 pm -  A Snake, a Skink, and Me: a New Alchemical Vision for the Ramapo Watershed:  Kevin Dann, Independent Historian

 2:00  - Update on the Ford Motor Company Paint Sludge Remediation in Torne Valley and Planting of a Ramapough Indian Medicine Garden: Walter “Chuck” Stead, Cornell Cooperative Extension Educator / Adjunct Professor, Ramapo College; Vincent Mann, Ramapough Sub Chief 

2:30 - Environmental Justice Impacts of the Ringwood Superfund Remediation: RISE, The 2014 Environmental Assessment Course, Michael Edelstein, Ramapo College Professor                           

3:00 - The First Marked Nature Trail in the Country, Established on a Tributary of the Ramapo River in Tuxedo in 1925 by The Museum of Natural History: Sue Scher, Professor of Social Work Emeritus, Ramapo College

3:30 - Down and Dirty Suburban Environmental Action, Moving Forward in Creating Ecologically Sustainable Suburban Communities: Eric J. Fuchs-Stengel, Executive Director, MEVO (Mahwah Environmental Volunteers Organization, Inc.)

4:00 - The Ramapo River Near Hillburn, A Wordmap by Howard Horowitz, Ramapo College

4:20 - 5:00 -  Reception            

Can Apocalyptic Fiction Save Us from Climate Change Disasters?

By Jonathan Mallon

A recent article on the New York Times website reports on the U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change latest report on how climate change is beginning to show various effects.  Scanning that article, and the press release that was hyperlinked, I was debating about writing an almost pessimistic, opinionated article on our lack of change and our government’s lack of environmental conservation and regulation. 

Then I found another article on the website regarding the environment, this time focusing on a class at the University of Oregon that focused on climate change in different media, both fiction and non-fiction. With the U.N panel’s report and that class, as well as apocalyptic media being a popular sub-genre, I feel that now’s the time for people to be more aware of the emerging effects of climate change. Maybe fictional stories relating to the issue will bring that increased awareness. (Note: I haven’t read or followed the novels and films presented in the article.)

The class, called “The Cultures of Climate Change,” touched on the many media of “cli-fi,” which is a “sub-genre of speculative fiction,” according to Richard Pérez-Peña’s article in the New York Times website.  Some of the works listed in the article that pertain to that sub-genre include “Solar” by Ian McEwan and “The Carbon Diaries 2015” by Saci Loyd, among others.

Pérez-Peña also wrote that cli-fi was nothing new, with works going back as far as 1962 with J.G Ballard’s “The Drowned Ones,” and he also listed the 1973 film “Soylent Green” in that category, saying it was “best remembered as a grisly vision of a world with too many people and too little food” and was “set in a hotter future.”

While the older literary works may have come at a time before and during the beginnings of environmental awareness and were probably disregarded more as apocalyptic fiction, the newer ones come out at a time when almost everyone knows something about climate change. The class’s professor, Stephanie LeMenager, explained in the article that these books weren’t only about the topic, but about ways to survive and live through it.

“The time isn’t to reflect on the end of the world, but on how to meet it,” she said in the article.  “We want to apply our humanities skills pragmatically to the problem.”

As a race, we may need that fiction to brace for the consequences of climate change. From what the U.N panel report said, as reported by Justin Gillis’ article in the New York Times (released on the same day as the other article), “water supplies are coming under stress,” “oceans are rising at a considerable pace that threatens coastal communities” and have grown more acidic, and the global food supply is in danger due to climate change’s effects, among other consequences to ocean ecology.

It’s unfortunate that not enough people have participated in efforts to curb the effects of climate change, but maybe these initial effects will give people a higher awareness of it.  It’s also good that there’s a market out there for people to not only be entertained about a world post-climate change, but that there is growing awareness to the problem.

My hope, in the end, is that people do something to support efforts to curb it now, rather than wait for worse effects to happen.  People can learn about it through the fiction and then take action, so that we can keep climate change effects a fiction rather than reality.

Issues of an Unknown World

By Brianne Bishop

Speaker, researcher, activist, writer Paul Rosolie is best known for his work in the Amazon as a modern day conservationist. His main focus is on the Amazon rainforest and protecting the abundance of plant and animal species contained in the Amazon. The Amazon is incredible for this reason and because it has the most abundant and diverse plant and animal species on the entire Earth, located in a central area. Rainforests account for only 6% of the world’s surface and are disappearing at an alarming speed. The destruction of rainforests can be blamed on humans with their destructive practices that affect the unique ecosystem.

It is evident Paul Rosolie is extremely passionate about what he does in the Amazon. This shows through his recent presentation at Ramapo College and his emphasis on how important it is to spread the awareness of issues arising in the Amazon Rainforest. He focuses specifically on the Las Piedras River. Las Piedras is surrounded by Manu National Park, Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, Alto Purus, Madidi National Park, which are all located in the Madre de Dios region of Peru.

Unlike the surrounding areas, Las Piedras River is not protected and is not declared as a National Park and is experiencing unregulated and illegal logging. This section of river accounts for a large watershed that feeds into multiple rivers and if these waters are polluted, each surrounding area will have to deal with polluted waters. This poses a damaging threat to the Amazonian rainforest.

Not only have loggers been affecting the dynamics of the rainforest, but poachers also have a negative impact. Poachers are legally only allowed to gather 60 kg of bushmeat, yet the hunters often exceed this restriction as it is not closely monitored. Humans are also converting rainforest land into large farms that are cleared in order to raise cattle or grow soy. Gold mining is also a problem in the Amazon, specifically in the Madre de Dios region. Dangerous chemicals such as mercury pollute the water sources due to the gold extraction process, ultimately resulting in complete destruction of the landscape. Accessible manmade roads cutting through natural rainforest areas that are improving human access have made all of this possible.

As a Ramapo College Environmental Studies major graduate, Paul Rosolie serves as an inspiration to many students, including myself. He knew his passions early on and made a dream for himself. Since then he has been following his dream, achieving goals and then some, as well as being able to spread his passions and knowledge. He has been escaping to Peru every second he can get very early on in his life. Rosolie has made a career for himself doing what he loves most, connecting with and being with nature.

Visit his website www.paulrosolie.com and watch some of his one of a kind live video footage of life in the Amazon. Rosolie obtains footage of areas that are rarely seen by mankind. He ventures miles away from main roads, the last village, and any type of contact with human life, miles into the lively and luscious Amazonian rainforest.

He has stories and visuals to share to us through his new book titled Mother of God. Although I have not yet read his book, it has received recognition from big names such as Jane Goodall, Bear Grylls, and Bill McKibben along with praise from The Wall Street Journal. He also runs expeditions in the Amazon and is looking to set up a study abroad program for students in the summer of 2015. Keep an eye out for this amazing opportunity!

How Paul Rosolie Convinced Me to Care About the Amazon

By Anthony Vigna

Paul Rosolie, avid naturalist and author of Mother of God, spoke at Ramapo College recently about protecting the land that he loves: the Amazon. Now, as a junior here at Ramapo, I’m well aware that the Amazon needs to be protected from potential destruction. There are plenty of logical reasons to want to protect the world’s greatest rainforest, such as protection of wildlife and preservation of a natural environment. However, I’ve never really given this subject much more thought. So, when Rosolie came back to his alma mater to discuss his experiences in the Amazon, I discovered a deeper emotional attachment to the area.

Perhaps the biggest eye opener was the YouTube video he created, titled An Unseen World. In the video, Rosolie drops multiple cameras in the colpas, which is an area of salt licks that attracts wild animals. The footage was filmed in a short period of time, yet it captured 30 different species in the area, including tapirs, ocelots, giant armadillos, jaguars, spider monkeys, and red brocket deer.  What’s incredible about this footage is that it only shows a small area of the rainforest. If such a tiny place has so much life, then imagine how much life exists in the entirety of the rainforest!

Rosolie then talked about the experiences he had discovering new species. In one of his stories, he explained that he was relaxing on top of a tree to admire the beauty of the rainforest when a group of ants climbed next to him. Instinctively, he flicked an ant off the tree and saw that it glided back onto the tree! Thinking that his eyes deceived him, he flicked another ant off the tree and saw it do the same exact thing, proving that he discovered a species of flying ants!

In another story, he discussed the time he discovered a giant anaconda that was about 50 feet long! When he saw it, he jumped on top of it and rode it for as long as he could. Rosolie’s crazy actions helped make the rainforest more appealing to me, since I love having a sense of adventure and exploring the environment as well. So, when Rosolie conveyed his experiences at Ramapo, I started to feel a deeper connection to the rainforest and a stronger sense to protect the Amazon.

It’s one thing to say that the Amazon is brimming with life, and it’s another thing to actually see it with your own eyes. Rosolie’s presentation helped me understand that, which has helped me care about the Amazon more than ever. Once you see the amount of life that exists there and the number of unique species that inhabit the area, I guarantee that you’ll care about the Amazon exponentially more than you once did. If you want to see just a snapshot of what I am referring to, watch An Unseen World and see the beauty of life and nature at work.

For more information:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eflt7otpeoQ

Paul Rosolie: From College Student to Inspiration

By Kristen Andrada

“I couldn’t come to class because I had a fever from the jungle.”

These were the words that Professor Wayne Hayes told me when he talked about the student who came to class two weeks after the semester started. I was doing an internship with Professor Hayes last semester and at the time I wasn’t sure what career aspirations I had and he inspired me with Paul Rosolie’s dream to work in the Amazon. Ever since, I’ve been waiting for his book to come out and I follow all of his updates and videos on the Amazon. I was excited to hear that he was coming back to Ramapo College to talk about his journey in the Amazon and that his visit marked one of his first book launches.

Mother of God is a title that you wouldn’t think would be fit for a book on the Amazon, but Paul chose that title because the phrase comes from the Peruvians who call the Peruvian Amazon “Mother of God.” In the West Amazon, the forest starts in the Andes and the snowmelt provides the rainforest a great supply of water. In this region, he wrote, “the diversity of earth that starts here is the Mother of God.”

It was most certainly interesting to hear Paul’s story on the professor who was the only person who let him in class after two weeks of absence—because I immediately knew who and what the story was about. What I didn’t know was what the disease was that he contracted and it was in fact a disease that he got from one of the cities in the Amazon, and he chose to stay in the Amazon longer to care for a young anteater.

While I was also with Hayes, he had me do a little research on Paul’s work and his work area as well. Paul works within the Madre de Dios region in a spot along the Las Piedras river in Peru. He explores the jungle and conducts studies with the local Peruvians and volunteers from across the globe to keep track of the species in that region and promote ecotourism to raise awareness of the illegal activities including logging, mining, and poaching. He also wants to raise awareness of the unsustainable farm activities that cut down forests that could never re-grow as rainforest canopy because the soils wash away from short-term agriculture.

Paul and the Tamandua Expeditions team hope to have the Madre de Dios region be recognized and protected by the Peruvian government like the other regions that are national parks surrounding it.

Toward the question period at the end of his lecture, Professor Hayes congratulated Paul and thanked him for coming back to Ramapo. He then turned to the audience and spoke to the students who were unsure of their passions and encouraged them to use Paul as an inspiration. It reminded me of his talk to me about my uncertainties and after hearing his comments, I wondered if he used Paul’s example to inspire other students too.

Andrew Faust: Environmental "Expert Practitioner"

By Kristen Andrada

 On February 6, Ramapo’s Environmental Writing class attended the “Lesson of Sustainability: The Expert Practitioner’s Series” in Friend’s Hall. There’s a different speaker each week and for the second week in the program, Andrew Faust came in to speak about permaculture design. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation: he’s great at conveying his message to the audience and from the way he speaks it’s almost like he’s speaking another language just by the vocabulary he uses, even though you can clearly hear that he’s speaking English – that’s how smart this guy is.

Most of the issues and ideas that he mentioned were already things that I had learned in many of the environmental classes that I’ve taken at Ramapo, but these topics were things that Mr. Faust practiced and experienced. He introduced new ideas and ways to tackle an issue and his leadership and cooperation with his peers, community, and his students are beyond inspiring to me.  He is basically a connoisseur in many aspects in the environmental field including agriculture, environmental policy, geography, energy, urban design… he’s worthy of the title “expert practitioner.”

You probably figured out that I admire this guy. All right, I’ll get into the details of what I particularly liked in Mr. Faust’s presentation.

I like to write down notes of anything: classes, meetings, speakers, etc. The first thing I wrote down for this presentation (besides the title with his name and date) was “For-Profit Organization.” It’s news to me because I see non-profit organizations and businesses as two entirely separate entities. I never heard of anything like for-profit organizations until now. Initially hearing the name I was against it because almost all my life I was taught or I was given this idea that doing anything for profit was bad.

For some environmental people, when they hear the words “profit” or “business,” they usually think “bad,” “selfish,” or even “anti-environmental” because let’s face it, countless businesses and companies have violated and degraded environmental landscape and took advantage of inhabitants in the world’s ecosystem for a long time. We try to stay away from involving ourselves with business or some sort of organization whose priority is to make money. But after some explanation, I’m entirely for it.

Non-profits have been around because people found that they want to do something ethical and they take whatever money they take and give it to a cause. Mr. Faust basically asks why can’t we take it to the next level? We notice that “going green” and the environmental movement are starting to trend everywhere; not just at home but at school, stores, recreational centers, and more so businesses, green washed or not. To encourage that, we should evolve our non-profits to for-profits so we can develop an “ethically minded business culture.” He stresses that America won’t see significant changes in society if businesses aren’t on board in the environmental movement. 

In summary, we must be ecologically literate and act ethically.