Human billboard of pipeline protest in Annville, Lebanon County
Lebanon Pipeline Awareness member Jami Willard holds a CHISPA sign on East Main Street in Annville on July 20, 2018. (Photo: submitted)
(Annville) — The grassroots citizens’ group Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, Inc. has announced it will stage a weekly protest on Friday afternoons from 4-5:30 p.m. in downtown Annville to raise public awareness about the negative consequences of fracking, pipelines, fossil fuels, and global climate change, and to promote what it calls “a better path” of renewable energy and reduced consumption.
The initiative is called Project CHISPA (“spark” in Spanish), which stands for Challenge in the Streets to Pipelines in PA. The group has held two protest actions, on July 13 and July 20. The Annville Police Department has approved a public assembly permit for the weekly action.
“Our goal is to make a living human billboard each week that challenges passing motorists to take seriously the pernicious consequences of fracking, pipelines, and fossil fuels,” said LPA Vice President Michael Schroeder. “We want to disrupt conventional understandings about how we get and use our energy, and to make folks more aware of the long-term consequences of extracting and burning fossil fuels.”
Project CHISPA couples its message about the negative consequences of fossil fuels with an emphasis on the “clean energy revolution” happening now in Pennsylvania and around the world, its organizers say. Studies cited by the group show that Pennsylvania in 2017 saw more than twice as many jobs in clean energy (70,000, mainly in solar, wind, and geothermal) than in the extraction of fossil fuels (34,000; see https://www.e2.org/pennsylvania/).
Volunteer sign bearers are provided with high quality, easy-to-hold, hand-painted signs made of layers of cardboard. Examples of signs include “Fracking & Pipelines Poison & Kill,” “Fossil Fuels Cook Life on Earth,” and “There Is a Better Path.”
Sign bearers must register with LPA and strictly adhere to its policy of behaving peaceably and not impeding foot or motor traffic. For more information or to apply to become a volunteer sign bearer for Project CHISPA, email LebanonPipeline@gmail.com or mail a note to Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, 1594 Cumberland St., Suite 194, Lebanon, PA, 17042.
This story comes to us through a partnership between WITF and The Lebanon Daily News.
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