To stop a proposed fracked gas pipeline in the Valley, activists will march about 40 miles over three days starting January 16. The march is in honor of Martin Luther King, whose federal holiday is January 18. The marchers will pass through the Massachusetts towns of Northfield, Erving, Montague, Greenfield, Deerfield, Conway, Ashfield, and Plainfield.
Fracked gas causes climate change, which the world's leading scientists say is a major threat to earth's ability to support human life.
Fracked gas is used to generate electricity and heat buildings. Assuming they are equally well insulated, it's much more efficient to heat multi-family homes than single-family homes. In New York City, millionaires live in multi-family homes, also known as apartment buildings.
Protecting farmland and forestland from development encourages people to live in multi-family homes near Amtrak stations and on roads where local busses pass frequently, and bicycle paths and sidewalks exist. The USA is losing an average of 6,000 acres of open space every day, according to www.tpl.org/ourland.
Land trusts in the Valley are saving farmland and forestland. Links to their web sites are at www.FindALandTrust.org.
“People who live in cities use only about half as much electricity as people who don’t,” according to this 2004 New Yorker magazine article:
www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/handy/ESP171/Readings2/Green_Manhattan.pdf
The public is invited to take part in any or all of the march. A car and driver will be available for people who get tired of walking. Long-distance marchers will receive food and a place to sleep. For more information call Hattie at (978) 790-3074.
"I will be one of the people lending driver support on two of the days," Rosemary Wessel told the Valley Post on December 29. "I will be speaking on the 17th at the evening stopping point in Conway." Her bio and contact info are at:
www.nofrackedgasinmass.org/about-us
More information about the pipeline and the movement to stop it is at:
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