YOKO ONO & SEAN LENNON JOINS STAR-STUDDED CAST FIGHTING AGAINST HYDRAULIC NATURAL GAS DRILLING IN UPSTATE NEW YORK

John Lennon's son Sean Lennon, actress Debra Winger, songstress Natalie Merchant and "The Avengers" actor Mark Ruffalo have also spoken out in opposition to the extraction process criticized for potentially contaminating water supplies and damaging the environment.

Yoko Ono speaks in opposition of hydrofracking at a news conference in Albany on Friday. Envrionmental, health and community groups opposed to shale gas drilling say they collected more than 200,000 comments during an instense 30-day statewide campaign. 

ALBANY — Hydrofracking is not the most glamorous of issues but the gritty subject is bringing a lot of glitz to the state Capitol.

Yoko Ono, the widow of ex-Beatle John Lennon, and son Sean Lennon became the latest celebrities to visit Albany Friday to press for a ban on the controversial natural gas drilling.

“Fracking kills,” Ono said at a press conference with other drilling opponents. “And it doesn’t just kill us, it kills the land, nature and eventually the whole world.”

Ono, who owns a farm in the Catskills, added that to allow hydrofracking would be to “commit suicide all together.”

Ono and Lennon’s appearance — their first ever at the Capitol — came just days after actress Debra Winger and singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant took part in an anti-fracking protests outside of Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State Address.

Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, the widow and son of late ex-Beatles frontman John Lennon, launch Artists Against Fracking, a coalition of artists, musicians, filmmakers and public figures opposed to hydraulic fracking. 

“The Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo has also been an outspoken critic of hydrofracking and has made multiple appearances in Albany to lobby lawmakers against drilling.

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Gas industry officials accused Ono and the other celebrities of using their fame to spread bad information. They insisted hydrofracking is safe and can provide a much-needed economic boost to struggling regions of upstate New York.

“Actors by nature are narcissists, and so it is no surprise that they ‘imagine’ themselves as scientists, engineers, farmers and economists,” said Karen Moreau of the state Petroleum Council.

“They are also hypocrites of the first order,” Moreau said. “Wealthy urbanites who live in expensive energy consuming mansions, happy to burn natural gas in their gourmet eight-burner cooktops and to enjoy the benefits of low-cost heat and electricity as a result of ‘fracked’ gas.”

State environmental officials have proposed allowing hydrofracking in limited areas outside the New York City watershed, but have been working for more than a year to finalize regulations governing the process.

Ono and Lennon joined with other environmental advocates Friday to deliver more than 200,000 written comments objecting to the latest draft of those regulations.
They also delivered a letter to Cuomo's office asking for a meeting with the governor and urging him to ban hydrofracking. Cuomo was not in Albany at the time.

“When John (Lennon) said ‘give me some truth,’ what he was saying was yes, we have to know the truth otherwise we won't survive,” Ono said. “So lets give us the truth.”
Sean Lennon said he was convinced his father would have supported their cause.
“I know that he cared a lot about the nature because he bought the farm where I grew up in the Catskills,” said Sean Lennon. “That house was my dad's house and still is, so I am sure he would have been on our side.”
Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation, said the agency would review and respond “as appropriate” to the comments submitted Friday.

That Hippie Penny Lane