EW YORK, NY - AUGUST 29: (L-R) Actor Mark Ruffalo, , professor of engineering at Cornell University, Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, Sean Lennon, and Yoko Ono pose for a picture at the Artists Against Fracking Coalition Event at Paley Center For Media on August 29, 2012 in New York City.
Yoko Ono, her son Sean Lennon, and more than 180 other artists have come together to lend their star power to the anti-fracking cause.
Earlier this week, they announced the formation of Artists Against Fracking at a Manhattan news conference. Ono and Lennon said they wrote a letter to New York Governor Cuomo asking him not to allow the controversial hydraulic fracturing in upstate New York’s Marcellus Shale because it could contaminate the state’s watersheds — including New York City’s water supply.
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Stars who are a part of this coalition include former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Lady Gaga, Jimmy Fallon, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anne Hathaway, Julianne Moore, Uma Thurman, Hugh Jackman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Zooey Deschanel.
Mark Ruffalo and Olivia Wilde tweeted their support for Artists Against Fracking.
[tweet https://twitter.com/Mruff221/status/240868893244145664%5D
[tweet https://twitter.com/oliviawilde/status/240462903793307649%5D
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In his August 27th New York Times editorial, Sean Lennon wrote a personal account of the time he spent as a child on his family’s idyllic farm in the Catskills, “skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk.” He says he and his mother started researching hydro-fracking a few months ago when gas companies came to town looking to build hydro-fracking infrastructure. He writes:
Though my father died when I was 5, I have always felt lucky to live on land he loved dearly; land in an area that is now on the verge of being destroyed.
All this high-profile celebrity support for the anti-fracking cause has put the gas companies on the defensive. Today we noticed this promoted tweet from the American Natural Gas Alliance regarding Sean Lennon’s August 27th New York Times op-ed against fracking.
[tweet https://twitter.com/ANGAus/status/240574442688880640]
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The American Natural Gas Alliance released a statement a couple of days ago asking Sean Lennon to get his facts straight:
Many of us at ANGA are huge fans of the Beatles and the Lennon legacy and so it gives us no pleasure to say that in describing his world of honeybees and raspberries Sean echoes his father’s more imaginative periods and does not seem inclined toward a serious discussion about natural gas…
Sean claims natural gas could somehow “render the climate unlivable” and “raise the price of food and make coastlines unstable for generations.” Natural gas can do all that? Are the New York Times editorial page fact checkers all at the beach this week?
(MORE: Fracked: Why Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon is in Hot Water)
There’s a July 4th letter on Yoko Ono’s website addressed to Cuomo, though the New York Times points out that it’s unclear whether the Governor received this letter. “Right now, some people are trying to make easy money, and meanwhile ruin this country’s future, by a thing called ‘fracking,’” Ono wrote.
On Access Hollywood yesterday, Sean Lennon said Yoko’s involvement with Artists Against Fracking is an example of how she turns “negative energy” into “positive creative force.”
The two also performed their anti-fracking protest song on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on July 9th:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzZ_Fix5K6I]
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