Mark Ruffalo calls on Obama to ban fracking ahead of UN climate summit

Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo called on US president Barack Obama to ban fracking and make the US the renewable energy capital of the world on Tuesday.

Ruffalo made the plea in a press call hosted by Food & Water Watch, which released a report on Tuesday tying the controversial practice of fracking to climate change. The report comes days ahead of next week’s UN climate summit in New York.

“By stopping this fracking, it doesn’t mean that we have to go backwards – we don’t have to take an economic hit or lose jobs,” Ruffalo said. “It means moving forward with clean energy, the power of the 21st century.”

Food & Water Watch’s report summarizes recent findings about the environmental and social impact of fracking. It also condemned the relationship between the US government and oil and gas industry: “This creates an inertia that imperils current and future generations, and endangers our economy, as we face the consequences of global warming and the legacy of the industry’s pollution”

It also warns of the effects of unregulated disposal of waste caused by fracking, the pollutants pumped into the air during the fracking process and its effect on local communities.

Dr Sandra Steingraber, a science advisor for the organization, said “methane is the new carbon dioxide,” because of the potent greenhouse gas’ impact on the atmosphere.

On Monday, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that the natural gas boom has contaminated water in Texas and Pennsylvania, though it was careful to distinguish the cause as a result of defective gas well production, not directly a result of fracking.

“Everything that comes before fracking and everything that comes after fracking is an opportunity for methane to be emitted into the atmosphere as a potent greenhouse gas,” said Dr Tony Ingraffea, scientist and engineer at Cornell University.

Ingraffea said that the group considers fracking to be everything from the bulldozer that first clears land for drilling until the extracted methane is eventually used. “Everything that comes before fracking and everything that comes after fracking is an opportunity for methane to be emitted into the atmosphere as a potent greenhouse gas,” Ingraffea said.

The group joined other scientists and activists to launch the #DontFrackOurClimate social campaign, which is timed ahead of the People’s Climate March on Sunday, which is meant to draw politicians’ attention to climate change ahead of the UN summit.