2024
FEBRUARY California’s Department of Conservation unveils a plan to phase out fracking.
MARCH New York State legislature passes a ban on fracking with carbon dioxide.
The Fight Continues
“We participated in the fight to ban fracking in San Benito County, our home county and where we were elementary school teachers for over 34 years. We didn’t want to see our beautiful county destroyed by fracking and were worried about the water use and contamination since we were going through a record drought.
Food & Water Watch joins more than 75,000 climate activists in New York City for the March to End Fossil Fuels in September 2023, the largest march calling for the end of fossil fuels to date. Photo by Ken Schles
The win against fracking in New York has propelled the anti-frack- ing movement and the broader climate movement to new fights and more victories. For Food & Water Watch, it was the biggest confirmation yet that our theory of change works; that building people power to pressure leaders can score monumental wins. These fights have only gotten more dire as the dangers of climate change and Big Oil and Gas continue to grow. The industry and its political allies continue to push drilling, dirty infrastructure, and fossil fuel exports while trying to convince the public that dirty energy schemes like carbon capture, factory farm gas, and hydrogen are clean energy solutions. But grassroots organizations across the country are fighting these projects against powerful interests and long odds. Togeth- er, we’re making huge progress — from stopping proposed gas- fired power plants, to holding petrochemical plants accountable,
So we started to organize with other neighbors and reached out to na- tional environmental groups for support to our fracking ban initiative. Food & Water Watch was the only organization that answered our call. With their support, we won the first fracking ban by voter initiative in California in 2014. Soon after, we heard about the New York fracking ban, and that gave us new hope that we could do the same here in California. That hope propelled us to a winning campaign to ban fracking and oil drilling in Monterey County, the third-largest oil-producing county in California.“ Larry and Margaret Rebecchi Anti-fracking activists in San Benito County, CA
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