Pledge to Resist Fracking: Writer-Biologist Sandra Steingraber Issues a Call for Action and a Warning to the Gas Industry

I choose to belong to a vision of an unfractured New York that turns its back on 19th century thinking and death-dealing fossil fuels and leads the world in the creation of a clean energy economy.

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Many people helped write the Pledge to Resist Fracking in New York State, and it’s gone through many iterations. I was tasked with writing the first draft, and I’ve never had a more weighty writing assignment. This pledge is a solemn commitment that calls us to peaceful, non-violent protest—as our conscience leads us—in the case that Governor Cuomo approves fracking for any part of New York State. As a writer who believes in the power of words, it is my fervent hope that these words will reveal the depth and breadth of the opposition to fracking in New York State and lead Governor Cuomo to the exit door. I hope the Pledge can change the course of providence itself and we will never have to activate it.

I don’t want anyone to get hurt. I don’t want to fill jail cells with good people. I don’t even like confrontation.

But if we do have to activate this pledge, and if it turns out that I can be a better parent inside of jail than outside, I will be that parent. If we have to lay our bodies down, I promise I will be there with you.

You can find the pledge here.

Sandra Steingraber is the author of "Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment" and "Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood." She is the founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking.