I belong to Food and Water Watch. I have going to ban fracking events and speaking against fracking at city councils, for a few years. I pass out papers informing the public about the dangers of fracking and refer them to watch "Gasland: Can you Light your Water on fire?" and You Tube videos about fracking: Fracking Hell: The Untold Story from Link TV and on You Tube. Fracking also brings up radiation, besides poisoning the water and air with chemicals. This will cause food and water shortages globally. The cement in many of the fracking wells on farms have failed and poisoned aquifers. The wars of the world will be fought over water and food. My relatives live in Penn. and Youngstown Ohio, where the fracking has contaminated the water. My uncle Steve, owned a farm in West Virginia and leased it to the gas drillers. When the least was up, he could not get them to leave his property. He fought them in court for many years. He could not afford to fight them, but did until his death 2 years ago. He tried to get his property back and failed.

Commissioner Rowland has dismissed 2 1/2 years of work in developing a regulation that protects the health , welfare and property rights and property values of all Elbert County residents. Send him a message that he works for us, not his personal ideology.

Say no to allowing the Keystone Pipeline being built across the United States from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. The risks of oil leaks, pollution and public safety are too high of a cost. The oil industry can not be trusted to guarantee the public's safety. The more than a dozens of accidents involving pipelines, oil rigs, train derailments, and shipping have demonstrated the lack of concern on their part in the name of commerce and profits.

This is an urgent issue because 350,000 acres of Nevada land has been sold with more due to be auctioned and fracking is set to begin this year. In states where hydraulic fracturing is occurring such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wyoming, and Texas, evidence of cancer, asthma, neurological issues, and death as a result of contamination have been documented. Some of those studying these risks are scientists and professors at Cornell, UC Berkley, Yale, Harvard, and Penn State (to name a few). Another critical risk is to our food supply. Livestock deaths from fracking fluids seeping into pastures pose serious risks to our food supply: 1) the cattle can directly enter our food supply by being sent to slaughter 2) they can be ground up into feedstock and fed to pigs and chickens which then enter our food supply. Another issue is contaminated crops through seepage of fracking fluids onto farmlands. There are numerous pathways of contamination that puts public health at risk. If we fail to allow time for research, the costs associated with these could far exceed any projected revenue from drilling. Nevada wants a moratorium in order to allow science time to study the potential risks of hydraulic fracturing. Esta cuestión es urgente porque se han vendido unos 350,000 acres en Nevada y hay otros que están a punto de ser subastados, y se proyecta que fracturación hidráulica va a comenzar este año. En los estados en que se está practicando la fracturación hidráulica, como Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wyoming y Texas, hay evidencia documentada de cáncer, asma, problemas neurológicos y muerte producida por la contaminación. Entre los que están estudiando estos riesgos hay científicos y profesores de Cornell, UC Berkeley, Yale, Harvard y Penn State (entre otras universidades).

When President Obama gave his landmark speech in June calling on America to address the causes and impacts of climate change, business station CNBC was the only cable news network that refused to run even one second of the speech. Sadly, this is just the latest example of the network’s egregious climate reporting. A recent Media Matters report found that over half of CNBC’s climate science coverage since 2013 has cast doubt on the scientific consensus that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels is causing climate change. When viewers called CNBC out over Twitter for presenting false information, Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen responded with Islamaphobic statements, calling the tweets a “global warming jihad launched against me by the Eco Taliban”. What’s more, he responded on air, saying: “You haven’t read my Twitter feed, I’ll tell you that much […] there’s a lot of things happening the enviro-socialists are–man, it is a cult. It is a bona fide cult." Calling groups that acknowledge climate change part of a cult -organizations isn't just absurd, it’s really bad business advice. This is the kind of climate coverage we expect from Fox News, not a subsidiary of NBC. As a major business network under the banner of NBC Universal, CNBC has a responsibility to report on how climate change will impact its viewers, particularly from a financial perspective, not give voice to disproven conspiracy theories. When the recession hit, CNBC came under fire for making excuses for Wall Street. Now they’re denying climate change. We can’t afford to have CNBC go down the same path as Fox News, compromising their integrity to appeal to right wing viewers. Right now, because CNBC’s ratings are declining, CNBC management will be looking to make changes to get their ratings and advertisers back. If we make a strong push for responsible journalism and accurate climate reporting, our efforts could help turn things around at CNBC. Please add your voice.

*Note: Ken Lacoste is now acting First Warden. Names and titles can not be changed once signatures have been accumulated, and this petition has been in place with titles from 2013. Plastic pollution is categorized as one of the greatest threats to our marine environment, notably called a global environmental catastrophe . Plastic bags, straws, cups, wrappers, utensils and more scatter the beaches and float in the waters never to biodegrade or disappear. It is estimated that 6 million pieces of trash enter the ocean every day. This trash affects over 600 species that depend on the ocean for survival . Plankton, urchins, crabs, shrimp, mollusks, sea birds, marine mammals, fish, sea turtles, sharks and many more have been victims of entanglement or plastic ingestion, leading to death. Further, plastics contain persistent organic pollutants, toxic chemicals that affect both animal and human health. These chemicals have been shown to negatively affect animals who have unknowingly consumed ocean plastic, making its way up the food chain, and perhaps to your dinner plate. We can help solve this problem by eliminating unnecessary plastic from our daily lives such as plastic bags, water bottles, straws, disposable cutlery, cups, plates and more. Block Island is a pristine island 13 miles off the coast of Rhode Island, and we have a duty to protect this island and it's surrounding waters. Plastic bags are pervasive and detrimental to our environment. Hundreds of other cities around the world have banned plastic bags, including Barrington, the first city in Rhode Island to pass a plastic bag ban. If Block Island does the same, they could set an example for other island and coastal communities striving to make a positive environmental impact. In a trip to the western coast of Australia, I visited a small coastal community called Exmouth. The local grocery store noted that plastic bags were banned in the community. You either brought your own bag or bought a reusable one at checkout - the town's primary care was their environment and conserving the ocean around them. Block Island should have the same concern. I urge you to stand with me to ban plastic bags on Block Island. It's time to take a stand to protect our environment and keep our ocean and beaches clean. The ocean is in hurting, and we can make a difference by reducing and eliminating our plastic waste. Next step is plastic cups and straws, but for now, lets BLOCK THE BAG!

Stop Governor O'Malley and John H. Quigley's plans to move forward with fracking in Maryland. After a bill that would have created a ban on fracking got thrown out by the Maryland Legislators earlier this year, Gov. O'Malley has begun a partnership with Quigley to help develop fracking regulations in MD. Please come forward to ensure the health of our land, water, children, and communities, now and in the future, not be compromised by fracking practices. Join the movement for a ban on fracking in the state of MD and let us stand for no less. We cannot let our government continue to put the people of their own communities in this kind of danger with long term devastating consequences to the air we breathe, water we drink, our land, and our health. Please lets come together in this crucial issue. Plans to issue drilling permits are already in the works-- we have no time to loose. Lets stand 1 million strong and be heard!

To convince Congress, New York State and New York City to enact an investment tax credit to allow individuals and corporations to invest in a Natural Resilience Fund to help fund the gap for existing and proposed climate resilience efforts in New York City and State.

Just when you thought another give away to the gas drillers couldn’t be possible, pro-drilling cronies in the U.S. Congress find a way – this time truncating the level of environmental review and resulting protections given to interstate pipelines, and providing automatic approvals when short time limits are not met. Pipelines are an indelible cut across the landscape -- through the power of eminent domain for private properties and political persuasion for public lands, they secure the right to cut our forests, pollute our water, contaminate our air, exacerbate climate change, damage jobs, and make our communities less safe. They need to be subject to the same laws as everyone else.

Prevention is easier than mitigation. There is a proposed LNG pipeline slated to begin construction here in 2014, which would put our waterways in jeopardy. We are trying to block it.

My three year old daughter and I live just across the Columbia River from the Port of Vancouver. On Monday July 22nd, the Port Commission will be considering a proposal from the Tesoro oil giant to build an oil export facility in the Port of Vancouver that would potentially ship up to 360,000 barrels of crude oil every day along the Columbia River. This oil would release more than 56 million metric tons of carbon pollution every year — as much as the annual emissions of 12 million cars. And it would put the Vancouver metro area at risk for environmental contamination, disastrous oil spills, and health problems like asthma and other respiratory diseases. This oil export terminal would be a major a step backwards for the entire Pacific Northwest. Tesoro’s proposal could put as many as 1,400 trains per year — four full trains of oil every day — on route through Vancouver neighborhoods. These trains would carry the same kind of oil that tragically exploded, devastating the community, after a train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Quebec just weeks ago. We cannot take this risk for our communities in the Pacific Northwest. As parents, grandparents, and families, we expect our leaders to promote energy that is kid safe and climate safe. To turn the tide on climate change, we need to make a rapid transition to clean, renewable energy. Tesoro’s proposed export would facility incentivize more extraction of dirty fossil fuels, only deepening our oil dependence at home and abroad. We need to focus on energy projects that don’t make our kids sick or threaten our communities by worsening climate change. Thank you for taking action! Corinne Ball, Climate Parents

A greedy developer, Carlos Beruff, wants to destroy a critical shoreline area in Manatee County, Florida. Long Bar Pointe provides refuge for countless manatees, dolphins, seahorses, fish, and other species. Sarasota and Manatee county residents benefit greatly from its fisheries and natural beauty. Beruff wants to displace it with a massive condo / hotel / shopping complex. It will destroy fishing, tourism and recreation jobs, and kill irreplaceable wildlife. The Manatee County Commissioners should vote NO on Beruff's plan - even if he has tried to buy them off with huge campaign contributions. The Commissioners will be considering Beruff's proposal at a public hearing on Aug 6. We need to have a massive petition to deliver then. So sign this NOW and then send to your friends!