June 2022 Networker Part 2: Fracking is Injustice

Fracking is Injustice Volume 27 (5) Table of Contents 1. A Letter from the Networker’s New Editor 2. Fracking is Injustice 3. SEHN In The News From the Networker’s New Editor Warm greetings to SEHN’s wonderful readership. I’m writing to tell you all that I’ve accepted the invitation to serve as new editor of the Networker. Carolyn Raffensperger, who has been editing our newsletter since its inception in the late 1990s, will be able to devote more time to her many other SEHN commitments. She won’t be far, and you will continue to hear her familiar voice in these pages! I’ll be working with the amazingly talented Mo Banks, who has designed this past year’s Networkers, continuing to explore new design and platform possibilities that will make the newsletter as readable and shareable as possible. I bring 15 years of experience editing a quarterly research newsletter, The Ribbon, from Cornell University’s Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors program, 1996-2010, overseeing each edition from conceptualization through production. I reviewed research conferences, presented our own work, conducted interviews, wrote original contributions, recruited guest authors, and periodically evaluated our reach and impact. (Look out for a Networker readership survey in the near future!) Our research and outreach program worked closely with community educators and breast cancer activists—their work, perspectives, research needs, and policy change demands were also highlighted. The Ribbon is archived on eCommons at Cornell. I love newsletters (really!) and hope the Networker will continue to bring you close to the concerns, commitments, accomplishments, and aspirations of SEHN’s staff, board, and the programs and coalitions in which SEHN plays a role. In the coming months we will bring you more news of the vibrant coalition work on carbon capture and storage that SEHN began out of urgent necessity one year ago, the reach and impact of the eighth edition fracking science Compendium⁠—one example of how we compile science and make it accessible—published in late April 2022, and many other ways in which SEHN staff and board members are using science and law to prevent, elucidate, and help repair environmental and climate injustices. We strive to ensure that we understand and respond to frontline community needs and that these communities feel our support and can easily access the knowledge and tools we gather and generate. We hope to report on many successes in doing so. I will try to ensure that SEHN’s vision⁠—“Fulfilling our responsibility to govern ourselves and our communities wisely, to create and sustain a just and healthy world now and for future generations”⁠—will continue to shine through these pages. Your feedback is welcome! Carmi Orenstein, MPH CHPNY Program Director, SEHN Email: carmi@sehn.org Fracking is Injustice The social media-based campaign for the eighth edition fracking science Compendium, from our program Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) with their partner Physicians for Social Responsibility, is reaching hundreds of thousands. Since the report’s release in late April 2022, we are generating slides with detailed, research-based captions, and launching them on social media approximately every other day. Our theme this edition is “Fracking is Injustice,” highlighting the many ways in which fracking and its infrastructure inflict harm on non-consenting, often non-white, vulnerable populations. The graphics are freely available for sharing and download, and can be used for educational presentations, in-person or online. By the campaign’s end, we will have produced about 30 slides and supporting caption texts, adding up to a complete program on the main themes of the Compendium’s findings. Here are some examples: Fracking is injustice. Evidence shows there is a link between fracking and cancer, especially in children. Fracking is injustice. Evidence shows that fracking activities have contaminated drinking water sources in low-income, rural communities. Fracking also threatens drinking water supplies through water depletion, especially in arid regions. Fracking is injustice. Evidence shows that fracking is consistently linked in multiple studies to increases in violent crimes that disproportionately harm women, with Indigenous women at particular risk. For the first time, there is a parallel Spanish-language version of the campaign (just getting started), with translator Nancy Piñeiro, her translation group Territorio de Ideas, and the Argentina-based energy sovereignty and justice organization, El Observatorio Petrolero Sur (OPSur). Here is an example of that work: El fracking es sinónimo de injusticia. El metano procedente del fracking acelera el cambio climático. Tres mil millones de personas sufren las consecuencias. The graphics can be found under “photos” on the Facebook page of Sandra Steingraber/CHPNY. Please contact us if you are interested in using these resources but are unable to access them this way. SEHN In The News In Chelsea, Cooling an Urban Heat Island One Block at a Time SEHN board member Madeleine Scammell, Associate Professor of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health, talks with WBUR about her work addressing urban pockets of extreme heat and the “Chelsea Cool Block” pilot program. Op-Ed: Closing the Plastic Tap SEHN board member and environmental sociologist, Rebecca Altman, is quoted in an Environmental Health News op-ed on the United Nation’s new plastic treaty: “Even high-income countries are ill-equipped to keep pace with the growing amount of waste. Recycling is often just ‘wish-cycling.’” New Report: In the Dark: How Social Media Companies’ Climate Disinformation Problem is Hidden from the Public SEHN board member Charlie Cray, Senior Strategist at Greenpeace USA, speaks about the new “scorecard” addressing social media companies’ failure at curbing the spread of climate change dis/misinformation, in a Friends of the Earth press release. DONATE TO SEHN TODAY

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