[b]July 15, 2012 | Vote4Energy Rally Broome Tioga Sports Center, 50 Schaffer Road, Richford, NY 13835[/b]

On July 15 landowners and industry will be joining together for the largest  pro-natural gas rally in New York state. Landowners have spent four years waiting for Albany to allow the harvesting of our deeded rights. While we have been waiting, we have witnessed a fear mongering campaign that exceeds Y2K and the great Alar scare combined.  Yet, we’ve kept on correcting misinformation and fighting for the property rights we’ve been denied for what now seems like an eternity. We are finally at a precipice with talk of a decision on whether New York will allow permitting and how this will take place set to occur as soon as the end of the summer. It’s time for one last stand to show the legislatures and the DEC just how many lives their decisions will impact.

Fear Mongering at Its Finest

The fear and smear campaign was started in New York–I’ll admit it’s not our finest hour as New Yorkers. Since its inception, this campaign has managed to gain traction, spreading like a pandemic across the country and even internationally, causing panic in those that believe everything they read on the internet. Landowners  have stood on the side lines in astonishment of how fast fear and misinformation has spread, with media outlets choosing readership sales over fact checking and the capability for anyone with a computer to become an “expert.”  While we have been observing, our opportunity to lease our simple deeded rights has been put on hold.

We have seen propaganda instill fear into people that we thought were intelligent. We have seen a movement with privately  funded films supported by Hugo Chavez appointees capture the simple minds of the layperson. First it was “Your water will light on fire!” Then it was “Your water will be polluted,” and a brown jug was introduced to illustrate what will happen. Since then the argument has rolled to every aspect of life, threatening any and all problems one can dream up, including transgender mutations, sterilization and deformities in livestock.  Every new stretch has been dis-proven with facts and science, yet some people still follow.  Why?  Fear is a powerful tool and once one feels it, it’s hard to see reason.

Read more from Bryant La Tourette at http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/vote-4-energy-vote-4-new-yo...