Get on the fractivist bus!

Get on the fractivist bus
It is not too early to make plans to attend what is being billed as “the largest anti-fracking mobilization in our state’s history,” as Zack Malitz, the campaign manager of CREDO Action, put it in a recent email. Busloads of fractivists from all over California—Eureka, the Bay Area, the Central Valley and the Central Coast, Southern California and, notably, Chico—will descend upon the State Capitol in Sacramento on Saturday, March 15, at 1 p.m., for the huge Don’t Frack California event.

Malitz had this to say about Brown’s handling of California’s water crisis as it is relates to fracking: “[E]ven as Gov. Brown urges ordinary Californians to take shorter showers and flush the toilet less frequently, he’s poised to sign off on Big Oil’s plan to massively ramp up water-intensive, planet-warming fracking for dirty oil. …

“Gov. Brown can’t make it rain. But he can stop Big Oil from fracking California, endangering our scarce water resources and loading the dice for more extreme drought.”

Dave Garcia, the political chair of the Sierra Club’s Northern California Yahi chapter, is the bus captain for the Chico bus heading down to River City to let Gov. Jerry Brown know just how many Californians are against fracking in the Golden State.

“This is California’s worst historic drought and we can’t devote precious water to fracking,” Garcia (pictured) wrote in an email. “We need to protect our water, air, food and soil from the contamination of toxic carcinogenic frack fluids. Join in solidarity to tell Gov. Brown, ‘Don’t frack California!’”

Sign up at www.bit.ly/DFCAbuslink to be one of the 60 fractivists on the Chico bus, which will leave at 10 a.m. on March 15 from Butte College’s Chico Center, returning at 6:30 p.m. A $20 donation to help offset expenses is requested, but student scholarships are available (call Garcia at 218-5133 or email him at rangerdave@mynvw.com for details) and no one will be turned away for lack of funds as long as there is an available seat on the bus. Go to www.tinyurl.com/fractivistfb and to dontfrackcalifornia.org to learn more.

Catch up with Bioneers
The Chico Women’s Club (592 E. Third St.) is hosting two evenings of filmed presentations by speakers at last October’s annual National Bioneers Conference in San Rafael.

Tonight’s (Feb. 20) program features: the world-traveled performance poet duo Climbing PoeTree; Aleut elder Ilarion Merculieff, speaking on women and leadership; University of Utah faculty member Nalini Nadkarni’s “Between Earth and Sky: Trees as Silent Teachers in Strident Times”; Maya Salsedo (pictured) presenting “The Youth Food Bill of Rights”; and architect/designer/author Jason McLennan on “Living Buildings and a Regenerative World.”

On the Feb. 27 program: Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of anti-poverty organization Green for All, will present “Motherhood and Leadership”; professional surfer Kyle Thiermann offers “Surfing for Change”; Dekila Chungyalpa, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Sacred Earth program, presents “Faiths for Conservation: The Hope of a New Environmental Movement”; and Australian permaculture-design expert Darren Doherty weighs in with “Regrarianism: Re-booting Agriculture for the Next 10,000 Years.”

Suggested donation: $2 to $5; students free. Donations will be used toward scholarships to send students to future Bioneers conferences. Call 345-6324 for more information.