Hardcore Fractivists Prepare to Raise the Stakes

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

October 24, 2012 | 2:00 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Environmentalists protest the industry's Shale Gas Insight conference in downtown Philadelphia, September, 2012.

Last summer we reported on a group of anti-drilling environmentalists who climbed trees in the Moshannon State Forest to protest gas drilling operations by EQT energy. The activists built barricades, and shut down operations for several hours. The incident ended relatively peacefully. But it may have just been a practice run.
E&E News published a piece today about activists training in Ohio to do more direct action against gas drilling sites.

Leading the drive is Earth First, an environmental movement that specializes in sit-ins, blockades, trespassing and other civil disobedience they collectively refer to as “direct action.” But others call the approach “environmental extremism,” even “ecoterrorism” — strong charges that land the activists on watch lists throughout the country.
Indeed, the movement’s motto is “No compromise in defense of Mother Earth.” But Earth Firsters at a private climbing training camp outside Athens, Ohio, last month stressed that although their methods are dynamic and, yes, radical, they are not violent.

Earth First developed their tree-sitting direct action tactics while battling logging in California and the Pacific Northwest in the 1980’s. And drilling companies closely monitor activists. Last year, we wrote about executives from Anadarko Petroleum referring to anti-drilling activities as an “insurgency,” and Range Resources using psy-ops to monitor anti-drilling activity.