No False Solutions PA

Group Issues Position Statement on Hydrogen, Carbon Capture & Storage, Advanced Plastics Recycling, and Other False Solutions

January 8, 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – January 8, 2024

Contact: Karen Feridun, No False Solutions PA, 610-678-7726, nofalsesolutionspa@gmail.com

New Coalition Takes ‘Hard No’ Stance on False Climate Solutions

Group Issues Position Statement on Hydrogen, Carbon Capture & Storage, Advanced Plastics Recycling, and Other False Solutions

Pennsylvania: Today, advocates and activists are formalizing their ‘hard no’ position on hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, advanced plastics recycling, and other emerging technologies with the release of a position paper and launch of new No False Solutions PA coalition. 

Sandy Field and Karen Elias were the lead authors on the Statement Regarding Emerging Technologies that Represent False Solutions to the Climate Crisis. Field and Elias are both members of a False Solutions network that formed in 2020 when Governor Tom Wolf announced that Pennsylvania would be part of a Regional CO2 Transport Plan initiative led by the Great Plains Institute. They represent The Climate Reality Project’s Susquehanna Valley, PA chapter, and both are fighting the intrusion of False Solutions projects on the ground in central PA.

“What we are seeing in Pennsylvania is a concerted effort from the oil and gas industry to maintain business as usual by coming up with new ways to continue to use fracked gas. The industry makes these new projects sound like they are technological solutions to the climate crisis and the plastics crisis but, in reality, they are much more expensive, more polluting, and more risky than the existing renewable energy, storage, and plastics waste solutions that we know work. The health and environment of Pennsylvanian communities have been sacrificed for energy production by the fossil fuel industry for 150 years, Pennsylvanians deserve a better future,” said Sandy Field, one of the founding members of the No False Solutions PA Coalition and co-author of the group’s statement.

“Before undertaking this project, I had only a superficial understanding of the multiple challenges we are facing here in Pennsylvania.  As the evidence began to accrue, it became clear that these challenges are both long-standing, rooted in the commonwealth’s lengthy extraction history, and stubbornly resistant, given the addiction of the state’s economy to fossil fuels.  It’s my hope that this document will not only provide an overview of the many technological false solutions that continue to be proposed for Pennsylvania but will also give us the data that allow us to assert a hard No in response.  Saying Yes to our future means saying No to False Solutions,” said Karen Elias, one of the founding members of the No False Solutions PA Coalition and co-author of the group’s statement.

The document was compiled to educate and inform legislators and decision makers about emerging technologies that claim to be solutions to the climate crisis but in fact exacerbate the climate crisis, damage the environment, and/or harm public health and do not offer more effective or economically viable solutions than those offered by renewable energy and renewable energy storage technologies. This almost 50-page document provides a fully referenced resource that discusses each false solution in the context of Pennsylvania’s legacy of energy production, outlines the group’s concerns, and provides example projects.  

The document that includes graphics designed by coalition member Jason Hallmark will be delivered to the governor, legislature and regulators on Monday, January 8th, and will be shared with the Citizens’ Advisory Council on Tuesday, January 9th.   

“For too long, Pennsylvania’s government has been hitching our collective wagon to the two dying stars of fossil fuels and petrochemicals. Every one of the technologies our coalition opposes has been cynically promoted by those industries as a solution to the rapidly intensifying climate crisis, all in a self-serving attempt to ward off their own inevitable demise. As their efforts escalate with the help of our enabling government, so too must our efforts to stop the insanity. To that end, we decided it was time to coalesce around a clearly articulated statement of opposition,” said Karen Feridun, a No False Solutions PA founding member who started the False Solutions network in 2020.

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