Across the Northwest, people of faith have partnered with Tribes, impacted communities, healthcare professionals, and clean energy advocates to fight and stop polluting fossil fuels including coal, oil, and now fracked gas.
Fracked, not “natural,” gas is another polluting fossil fuel that harms our climate. This fossil fuel is mostly methane, a super potent greenhouse gas that traps 86 times more heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Methane pollutes the air at every step of the supply chain without even needing to be burned, hurting communities at fracking sites, along rail, truck, or shipping routes, and at refining locations. It provides no climate benefit and studies have shown it is just as polluting as coal.
In addition to being a step backward for clean energy, fracked gas pipelines, processing, and storage pose health and safety risks to local communities and waterways. Drilling for fracked gas pollutes water with dangerous chemicals, like benzene, that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and infertility. An added injustice is that low income families and communities of color are hit first and hardest by this polluted drinking water.
The fossil fuel industry is desperate to keep control, putting their profits over people as they keep pushing the dirty fossil fuels of the past. These out of state corporations are fearful because we have made the moral choice to shift to clean and plentiful energy that we can produce here at home, like wind and solar, which create good, long-term jobs that make all our communities stronger and healthier.
People of faith believe that renewables are the energy of today and tomorrow, fossil fuels like fracked gas are the energy of the past. After our hard-fought victories against coal and oil, we won’t let the fossil fuel industry reclaim its monopoly.
Earth Ministry/WAIPL is proud to be an active member of the growing Power Past Fracked Gas coalition.
Current Campaigns
Stop the GTN Xpress Gas Pipeline Expansion
Tacoma LNG – Following the Puyallup Tribe
Protecting Tacoma’s Tideflats
Religious Communities Say “We Can Do Better”
There are many ways to build a healthy community. Because of the danger of oil and fracked gas pollution locally and climate change globally, businesses are looking for alternatives to fossil fuels and their dirty pollution. Last year, many more jobs were created in renewable energy than in the fossil fuel industry. The technology to create clean energy is cheaper and more available each year.
We’re standing up because we have a moral obligation to care for our communities and creation. As one religious leader in Tacoma shared, “My faith teaches me to be trustworthy, and so I believe we must honor the Puyallup Tribe’s treaty rights. My faith teaches me to love neighbors, and so I believe we must protect the health of all people who live in the Tacoma area. My faith teaches me to care for creation, and so I believe we must find alternatives to dirty fossil fuels.”
Protecting our one and only planet by putting a pause on new and expanded fossil fuel projects is the best way to protect our communities from the twin threats of pollution and climate change. We are grateful that people of faith are bringing the moral voice to decisions made for the health of Puget Sound communities!
Fracked Gas News & Events
FERC Rejects Community Concerns; Approves GTN Xpress Pipeline Proposal
Washington Senator Maria Cantwell speaks out against GTN XPress
2023 All Our Relations Snake River Campaign
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Further Resources
Earth Ministry/WAIPL’s factsheet about fracked gas in Tacoma