For the past few years, Food and Water Watch (F&WW) has held a “Global Frackdown” – a gathering allegedly around the globe for activists demanding a world without fracking.  But as Energy In Depth has noted each year, the attendance has been pretty embarrassing.

This year, F&WW has apparently given up on hosting a global rally and simply held a single protest in front of the White House to mark their “Global Frackdown to Paris” ahead of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, which is scheduled to begin at the end of November.

While the group claimed that 100 people would show up, EID was onsite to count only a little over 20 protesters.

Between the broken microphone and a disruption by a man holding up signs protesting government surveillance who decided to join the anti-fracking protest midway, the activists explained that they were gathering to send a letter to President Obama “demanding that he ban fracking and move toward a clean energy future” to stop climate change.

That wasn’t the only stunt pulled by activists this week. Twelve hours earlier on Monday night a nationally televised NFL game between the Panthers and the Colts was interrupted when anti-fracking activists from We Are Cove Point rappelled from the press box with a banner protesting Bank of America’s involvement in a natural gas export facility, putting the people below them in danger.

Photo Credit: Associated Press

Meanwhile, it’s groups like Food and Water Watch and We Are Cove Point who are denying the science.  Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), (which activists have called the “gold standard” for years) has said the “rapid development of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, which has increased and diversified the gas supply…is an important reason for a reduction of GHG emissions in the United States.”

According to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), since 2005, natural gas has prevented more than one billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from being emitted from the nation’s power plants.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency has (IEA) reported that the “decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in the United States in recent years has been one of the bright spots in the global picture. One of the key reasons has been the increased availability of natural gas, linked to the shale gas revolution.”

At the Paris Climate Conference, the United States can tout being the only country in the world to achieve such drastic emissions reductions, thanks to fracking and natural gas – yet anti-fracking groups, who claim climate change poses the “largest environmental threat ever known by humankind,” want to stop all that progress. Could that be why no one is showing up to their rallies?