Peter Rothberg | The Nation

Josh Fox’s 2010 documentary Gasland is an extraordinarily important film. Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance, where it premiered, Gasland, virtually on its own, helped expose an imminent threat to our drinking water and local environments. Detailing the gripping and awful story of how fracking became the dominant technology in US gas production, the film does an excellent job explaining exactly what hydraulic fracturing is and why it’s such a mortal threat.

Sadly, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a far-from-uncritical backer of the practice, failed to heed the film’s essential message that there’s no such thing as safe fracking. His proposal to permit fracking in counties in the southwest portion of the state, bordering Pennsylvania—Broome, Chenango, Steuben and Tioga counties—and only then in towns which agree to allow fracking—while banning the practice outright in Catskill Park, in aquifer areas, and in national designated historic districts, sounds, at first blush, like a compromise, but it actually puts New York State’s poorest and most vulnerable communities in the most peril and gives the gas industry much of what it wants.

Fox’s follow-up to Gasland, The Sky Is Pink, directly takes on Cuomo and shows exactly why his proposal is so regressive and dangerous. Called the “best 18-minute video ever made,” by Greenpeace’s Kevin Grandia, the new mini-doc reveals a slew of industry documents detailing serious concerns about well safety and water contamination and accessibly unpacks the increasing body of research, from both academics and intergovernmental agencies, that convincingly demontrates that expanding the use of natural gas will do nothing to prevent climate change.

Most impressively, the film offers an easy primer for people who have no idea what fracking is, while still offering engaging material for those steeped in the issue, making the video an ideal organizing tool. See for yourself and then share this post with friends, family and your Facebook and Twitter communities.

What to do? A good first step is to implore your reps to support the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act. The legislation aims to repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing in the Safe Drinking Water Act. It would require the energy industry to disclose the chemicals it pumps underground in the hydraulic fracturing process, information that has been protected as trade secrets.

As the latest negotiation text circulated through the halls of Rio Centro yesterday, environmentalists’ moods quickly soured. Despite a late-night negotiating session, the revised text removes many of the important issues civil society has deemed essential.

Numerous NGOs quickly expressed their disappointment, including World Wildlife Foundation Director General Jim Leape, who called the text “a colossal failure of leadership and vision”, and assailed diplomats who “should be embarrassed at their inability to find common ground on such a crucial issue” and Greenpeace‘s Kumi Naidoo, who called Rio+20 an “an epic failure.”

In protest this morning, youth activists and civilian delegates at Rio+20 came together to publicly oppose and critique the official agenda, and to offer alternative directions. In a statement titled “The Future We Don’t Want,” young people and NGOs urge the government of Brazil, the UN Sustainable Development Conference Secretary General and all member states to stop negotiating their short-term national agendas and to urgently agree on transitional actions for global sustainable progress. (You can sign and share the statement here.)

Back in the US, as world leaders decamped to Rio for the Earth Summit, the group 350.org assembled a digital army to ask each and every member of Congress a simple question, “Do you support ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry?” Join this open-source campaign to end fossil fuel subsidies and contact your elected reps and find out where your Congressperson stands on the issue.

During the last few months, we've seen audiences voicing approval when presidential candidates advocate the use of waterboarding and capital punishment. We've seen the Obama administration leaking details of its “kill list” because campaign officials seemingly thought this portrait of the president as a killer-in-chief would help his re-election chances. And we've seen numerous polls asserting that most Americans believe that torture is always or sometimes justified if it leads terrorism suspects to give up information.

This public acceptance, and misunderstanding, of torture follows years of post-9/11 public statements and memoirs by top government officials arguing for the efficacy of torture techniques, frequent positive portrayals of torture as legitimate and productive in the media and Hollywood and ideas like that floated by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who famously proposed allowing US judges to issue "torture warrants" to prevent potentially catastrophic terrorist attacks.

Since its formation in 2006, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), has committed itself to challenging these views, and to ending torture sponsored or enabled by the United States.

This month, NRCAT is joining with a grand coalition of religious and human rights groups in a National Week of Action Against Torture, Guantanamo & the National Defense Authorization Act, including a national call-in (6/22), a march in Washington, DC (6/24), and local vigils and tweet-in days (6/26).

Friday, June 22 is National Call-in Day to Congress
Call your Representative to urge support for new legislation that would ban indefinite detention and military commissions from the United States. Take cues from this sample script when making your call.

Sunday, June 24 is the DC March Against Torture, Guantánamo & NDAA
From 1:00 pm to 2:30 people will gather at the Capitol Reflecting Pool for a keynote speech by Dr. Stephen Xenakis, MD (retired Brigadier General, US Army). Sign-up to join the march; Download the flier here; use this sample message to invite your contacts to join the proceedings.

Tuesday, June 26 is International Day in Support of Victims of Torture
There'll be a National Tweet-in Day to Congress & the White House and a Day of Vigils across the US.

More Ways to Help:
Join NRCAT’s letter-to-the-editor project and become part of a rapid response team.
Order, display and distribute NRCAT banners and bumper stickers.
Participate in the Reckoning with Torture collaborative film project.
Join inter-religious organizations in supporting the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign to end anti-Muslim bigotry.
Support NRCAT with a tax-deductible gift.
Organize screenings of “Hawo’s Dinner Party,” "Solitary Confinement: Torture in Your Backyard" and “Doctors of the Dark Side."

Thirty years ago today, more than 1 million people, including your seventh-grade blogger, rallied in New York City’s Central Park against nuclear arms and for an end to the arms race of the cold war. It was not only the largest antinuclear demonstration but the largest political demonstration of any kind in American history. This short video documents the march and the movement that inspired it.