Mark your calendars!

On Thursday, February 27, investigative reporters from Public Herald, Joshua Pribanic and Melissa Troutman, will screen their feature-length documentary concerning environmental and health impacts from shale gas extraction in PA since 2007. Triple Divide is a culmination of 12 months of investigations and includes expert testimony. Pribanic and Troutman will lead a discussion and answer questions following the film.

This event is free, and will be held starting at 7 PM at the Unitarian Church in Ithaca, 306 North Aurora Street. The film is co-sponsored by the FracTracker Alliance, the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network, and the Social Justice Council of the First Unitarian Society of Ithaca.

Triple Divide has been hailed as “the best documentary on fracking to date”.

“Neither partisan nor hyperbolic, Triple Divide is an honest look at an industry that deserves more scrutiny. The film explores and uncovers the haphazard way in which natural gas has been exploited in Pennsylvania, causing significant damage to formerly-pristine waterways. It clearly illustrates through painstaking investigative journalism how current safety measures and industry standards have proven entirely inadequate. I highly recommend this film to anyone who lives in the immediate area of hydraulic natural gas fracking, as well as those downstream from a drilling site.” – Andrew Riedy, Security Policy (Washington, D.C.)

Check out — http://tripledividefilm.org/ — for more info.

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• Info on how to submit a comment
• Form letter from the Sierra Club

Media & Messaging Training – Story Based Strategy

Do you want to bring the power of story into your strategy against fracking?

On Saturday, June 22nd – 10:00am to 4:00pm, Shaleshock will offer a Media & Strategic Messaging Workshop in Ithaca, NY. You and other members of your organization are invited to attend.

 This workshop presents tools for building power and strategy through the lens of story. We will also explore messaging tactics and develop skills with media & campaign outreach.

Register Here

This Workshop will be an an opportunity to:

• Develop or examine messaging strategy for your groups’ campaigns and actions
• Explore and unpack story-based strategy and narrative thinking
• Network and build relationships with fracktivist allies
• Create some new materials for your campaign (banners, signs, messaging)

When: Saturday, June 22. 10:00am to 4:00pm (Breakfast at 9:00 – 9:40 am)

Cost: Suggested Donation $10 – 30

Where: The Quaker Meeting House

120 Third Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607)592-5208

Accessibility: Snacks and lunch will be provided by La Cocina Latina catering. The space is wheelchair accessible. Also, children are welcome and there will be child-care available on-site.

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Future Shaleshock Trainings – Summer 2013

Workshops & Trainings provide a space for hands on development of skills and tools for movement building. If you’re interested in signing up to hear about future trainings, click here.

We really enjoyed the film and had some great discussion afterwards to come up with ideas for getting more renewable power in Somerville. It’s challenging in our extremely densely populated city of nearly 80K people to find the right conditions. Housing stock is so close together there may not be adequate sun and they are all old and not designed with solar in mind so that can be another issue for folks.

We were very inspired by all the great ideas in the film and hope we can get a much higher percentage of renewable power in the coming years!

Prepared with remarks about DIY filmmaking, Suzanne ended up fielding
very serious questions about the big picture for renewables. The audience really wanted to know how to move alternative energy ahead in their communities, and the Solarize Tompkins SE campaign seemed to be of great interest.

The program of films at this festival was marvelously impressive. It is inspiring to see such a far-reaching commitment among activists and artists to a sustainable future. Please support these films anyway you can with family, friends, and organizations because they are at the forefront of bringing real news to viewers.

An old friend of producer Suzanne McMannis was able to attend the Colorado Environmental Film Festival in February. The event is held not far from Denver, and a good-size crowd attended the Friday afternoon screening. Colorado has initiated a couple of terrific state programs promoting renewables, and it was inspiring for us to bring news of Tompkins County’s own robust commitment to alternative energy and document the support we enjoy from organizations such as NYSERDA. Yay, New York!

4/19/13, Olympia, WA: Olympia Film Society Environmental Film Festival
WEST COAST PREMIERE!
Friday, April 19, 9pm
Capitol Theater
206 5th Ave SE, Olympia, WA, 98501

Here’s what the Olympia Film Society has to say about the film…

Is it possible for an entire community to live ‘off the grid’? Well, it is achievable and it’s happening in Tompkins County, New York. In Empowered: Power From the People, the feat that this East Coast town has accomplished is examined to understand how they did it, and how it could be possible for us all. Through pointed interviews with residents and city leaders, this informative documentary takes us behind the scenes to reveal how a small town that lives under a blanket of clouds for most of the year has managed to shed its dependence on fossil fuels and local power companies by using sustainable energy methods from wind and solar power to bio-diesel and geothermal energies. Positive and motivational, Empowered: Power From the People paints an enlightening portrait of a town in the midst of an energy revolution.

Producer Suzanne McMannis, Director Shira Evergreen, Art Weaver of Renovus Energy (featured in the film), and Guillermo Metz, Coordinator of the Green Building and Renewable Energy Program with Cornell Cooperative Extension, were on Ithaca Community Radio 88.1 WRFI, on Tuesday morning, February 12th discussing Empowered, Renovus Energy, Solar Tour Dryden and Solarize Tompkins SE. You can listen to the show in two parts:
[audio:http://empoweredthemovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wrfi-morningshow-feb25-part1.mp3]
[audio:http://empoweredthemovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wrfi-morningshow-feb25-part2.mp3]