PennEnvironment is starting a new social media campaign to fight natural gas in Pennsylvania called #MoratoriumMonday. We have to ask, will they encourage the same “make it up as you go” attitude to pass their agenda as they have throughout the last few years?

It appears PennEnvironment is at it again. Is that the same organization who has used images of wells in Pakistan to show the “devastation” here in Pennsylvania after severe flooding in 2011; the one who used images of “toxic pollution” in South Africa claiming it was America, then blamed it on their research group, The Frontier Group, then used the same research group to produce an agenda driven study? Yep, that’s the one.

PennEnvironment has also received grant money from the Heinz Endowments to fight Marcellus Shale development, of course, and we know their agenda.  Plus, their 990 tax return includes financial statements indicating:

The Penn Environment Research & Policy Center, in accordance with its bylaws, acceded to give discretionary voting control over composition of its board to the National Center for the Public Interest, Inc. (“NCFPI”). NCFPI is the collective governing body of the state Environment Groups, Public Interest Research Groups (“PIRGs”) and affiliated organizations. NCFPI’s purpose is to facilitate the sharing of ideas, resources, vision and accountability among the state Environment Groups, PIRGs and affiliated public interest organizations.

This is pretty fascinating, because PIRGs are essentially rainmaking organizations for trial lawyers, who are often behind groups of PennEnvironment’s nature, as we have explained earlier in discussing similar organizations.

And, now PennEnvironment has orchestrated a plan to use social media to further their agenda, a plan called #MoratoriumMonday.

Will PennEnvironment directly encourage individuals to make it up or just look the other way if they do? Obviously, neither is morally acceptable behavior, but that’s exactly what we expect to see from an organization who has already set the standard to suggest this sort of thing is okay if it furthers the agenda of the natural gas opposition.

Image from NoGreenSlime.com

What is #MoratoriumMonday? Here’s a PennEnvironment email soliciting participation:

This year we’re opening a new front in our online fight against fracking and it starts with #MoratoriumMonday.

What’s that mean? We’re going to dub this coming Monday, and the first Monday of every month of the year, #MoratoriumMonday.  On that day we’re going to release a social media firestorm with thousands of Pennsylvanians posting one reason why they support a moratorium on shale gas drilling with the hashtag #MoratoriumMonday.

Will you join our #MoratoriumMonday social media team and help us make our message unavoidable? Click here to join the fight and once you sign-up we’ll send you a short reminder by email with a link to click.

This is a new front for PennEnvironment’s fight against gas drilling and #MoratoriumMonday is just the beginning. In the coming months, we’ll rely on this new PennEnvironment social media team to help us get out the message about the dangers of gas drilling.

This time we’re asking you to post and tweet about getting 100,000 Pennsylvanians fighting to put our health and environment above the profits of the gas drillers.  Next, we may ask you to fight the industries attempt to discredit new studies about the dangers of shale gas drilling. Or, maybe we’ll need your help to get out the word about a new blowout at a gas drilling site. Or, hold legislators feet to the fire.

Each time our new social media team will be at the forefront of the online fight.  Will you help us kick it off with our #MoratoriumMonday campaign?

Yes, PennEnvironment, we will rise to your challenge and encourage others to do so as well. After all, even if PennEnvironment is a little late to the game, social media is where much of the discussion on natural gas is taking place. Facebook flourishes with groups for and against development, and the wide world of Twitter with its simple 140 character comments and hashtag topics is a great place to quickly share information.  We suggest to you, our readers, that you get on Twitter this Monday and tell the world why you support natural gas development in your community.

On #MoratoriumMonday, this Monday, the vast majority of those commenting won’t be from your community or anywhere close to natural gas development, but they’ll be flooding social media with reasons why you shouldn’t be able to develop your minerals on your property. Summarizing an excellent point made by Representative Garth Everett in reference to Act 13 legislation at a forum in Hughesville last night:

No one makes you sign a lease; no one should be able to keep you from signing one either.

We couldn’t agree more and that’s why we’re encouraging everyone who supports the development of natural gas, has benefited from it personally or knows someone who has, or wants to see natural gas used as a bridge fuel to our future of American energy independence to take advantage of the happenings on #MoratoriumMonday. Open a Twitter account if you don’t already have one, and give your reasons why you support the continued development of natural gas in Pennsylvania or wherever in America you hail from.

Here is how to open a Twitter account:  https://twitter.com/signup

Here is a sample Tweet:  I support #NaturalGas development.  No moratorium, please! #MoratoriumMonday

And, don’t forget to use the hashtag #MoratoriumMonday in whatever you post so it shows up right alongside all of the negative outside influence for the world to see. Don’t let these individuals who have been more vocal traditionally speak for you any longer.  Engage the Twitter world, this #MoratoriumMonday.