Mark Ruffalo (Yuuge Bernie Supporter) Calls out CA Gov Jerry Brown on Fracking

[amborin]

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/02/mark-ruffalo-governor-jerry-brown-fracking

the Hollywood United initiative Ruffalo launched this past November in response to what the organization calls California governor Jerry Brown’s aggressive support of oil and gas extraction in the state. The intense means of extraction, known as fracking, is believed to induce earthquakes, compound global warming, pollute the environment, and to have wasted water during California’s most recent drought, the worst in 1,200 years.

After the tour, Ruffalo and Lear met with reporters and members of nearby communities affected by urban drilling. The Spotlight star chose a poignant setting for the meeting—a children’s soccer field situated directly beside Inglewood Oil Field, one of the largest urban oil fields in the country and one of the most threatening, considering that reportedly over a million people live within five miles of the site. Ruffalo spoke to frustrated Angelenos whose children are suffering health issues—including bloody noses, rashes, fatigue, and migraine headaches—believed to be caused by the air pollution and toxic waste created by high-intensity oil-extraction techniques.

A change to L.A.’s oil and gas industry made news recently after California’s Porter Ranch methane-gas leak, which displaced over 2,200 families, grew to become the biggest leak in U.S. history—what some reports have called the worst environmental disaster since BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“Over 112 days, the leak poured 100,000 tons of methane—a greenhouse gas more harmful than carbon dioxide,” according to the first study of the leak by a team of researchers from U.C. Irvine, U.C. Davis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other sources, cited by Wired.

But Governor Brown, whose sister is a paid board member of the gas company that owns the well in the Porter Ranch leak, did not issue a state of emergency until January, even though complaints began in October of last year.

(A press representative from Governor Brown's office said, “[T]here is absolutely no link between the Governor’s sister and her service on a Board with the timing of the state’s action on Aliso Canyon.” He added, “The administration was onsite and exercising its full regulatory and oversight authority from day one. The emergency declaration enshrined and expanded upon that action.”)

“What you have here is a crisis of confidence of the people and the government,” Ruffalo told reporters. “The government is supposed to protect the people . . . but it turned its back and ignored them. It doesn’t even matter if what the leadership is doing is right or wrong at this moment. What matters is what people think about the leadership based on the response they are getting to the problems they are facing—existential problems really—their kids are sick. That is what this is about.”

Ruffalo.... actor also executive-produced a 20-minute documentary called Dear Governor Brown, which he premiered last November to members of the entertainment industry.

In the same month, the Associated Press reported that the governor used state experts to study the potential for oil development on his own 2,700-acre private property in northern California—which Breitbart declared an “impeachable offense.” The AP pointed to Brown’s unprecedented methods as an example of “the complex way that the governor, an internationally known advocate of renewable energy, approaches oil and gas issues in his own state.”

In December, the governor joined world leaders at the U.N.’s Paris climate-change summit, where he was heralded as an eco advocate, at one point telling French graduate students, “We have to be able to imagine the horrors that might unfold, and then take steps to prevent it.” The summer before, Brown called upon Republicans to detail their plans to address climate change.

Yet, as Ruffalo claimed on Thursday, “This governor is adding 300 new wells a month to California’s drilling. He is the most drilling-friendly governor in the United States at this moment.” (California’s Department of Conservation points out that, in addition to adding new wells, the Governor also elected to abandon over 1,380 wells in 2015.)

“If Governor Brown is going to walk around saying that he is a climate-change hero, then by God, we are going to hold him to his word. . . . If you are going to go around the world and tell other nations that they have to keep 70 percent, 80 percent of their carbon in the ground, then you have to in California. I know it’s not easy to do. . . . But until we start taking our foot out of the past, we can’t step into the future.”

[Meteor Man]

1. Fracking is out of control

Primarily in low income areas. Porter Ranch is an obscene moral stain on Gov. Brown and Sacramento Dems.

And from a couple of years ago:

Gov. Jerry Brown's prison reforms haven't lived up to his billing

California's reputation as a progressive state is unmerited in many ways.


http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-ff-pol-brown-prisons-20140622-story.html

Thx for the update.

[jillan]

2. It makes perfect sense now that he endorsed her.

They can frack happily ever after.

[RandySF]

3. .

[JRLeft]

4. I like Jerry Brown but when he is wrong he should be called out.

You're one of those people who view politics as a sport instead of a system that impacts our lives.

Something is seriously wrong with that world view.

Never criticize our teammates even if they're wrong.

[arikara]

5. That's the best you got?

Because that's not a defense or even a response to the issue, its just a stupid meme.