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“Welcome to nogreenslime.com, where the distortions, half-truths and
lies by groups claiming a number of environmental impacts from natural gas
development are exposed and rebutted with slime-busting facts.”


     This is the opening line of a website I discovered one day on a
trip to visit some relatives. My family and I were headed to Pittsburgh, PA
traveling along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, when I noticed an interesting
billboard. The billboard had green slime all over it and said, “You’ve been
SLIMED! Distortion, half-truths, lies!” I was curious to see what it was getting
at when I saw that there was another billboard after it urging me to check it
out at nogreenslime.com. Naturally I had to look it up and see what these
billboards were all about. To my surprise it was a website on climate change. As
I read through the information presented on the website I was surprised at the
content. When I first opened the site and saw climate change I thought for sure
it was going to be about the changes we need to be making and the proof that
climate change exists, but it was not. Instead this website is dedicated to
revealing the “lies” of environmental activists. They claim the website is designed to point out the deliberate misinforming of the environmental
activists, but at the same time not attacking the legitimate concerns. 
             
     As I went through this website I found it comical. The creators have five
major points they make about how the drilling, oil, and natural gas industry is
doing important things for the world. But even with my somewhat limited
knowledge of climate change I can rebut all of these statements with facts that
I have learned over the past few years. Anyone who knows even a little bit about
of climate change should be able to see right through their, “no green slime”
act. Also the main supporter/creator is the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association. With most of the supporters being associations of oil, gas and
petroleum, this should tell you what kind of bias you will encounter on the
site. The site says it wants to bring the truth out, but it doesn’t have any
facts or statistics about the reality of climate change. They have no scientific
evidence proving its existence or non-existence. So before they can discredit
anyone else, they need to have the real truth out. Also, having this slogan
makes them seem a bit wishy-washy with their views on climate change. 

     Having this website displayed for anyone to see concerns me because it
can easily persuade someone with no knowledge to think that all environmental
activists are liars and don’t have legitimate claims. It can also further
someone’s doubting opinion of climate change if they are on the fence about it.
Both of these outcomes really hurt the efforts to show the general public that
climate change is real, that there are facts proving its existence, and that we
need to be doing something about it. Another thing that concerns me is that one
of their supporters is the PA Department of Environmental Protection. I believe
this type of association should not support this kind of propaganda because it
will have negative effects on the battle of climate change. 

I would not have a negative opinion of this website if it stated all of the facts, good and bad, and kept to their logo by telling the whole truth. What do you think about this website and its claims? 
http://www.nogreenslime.com

 
-Melinda Kitts
Junior Forensic Chemistry Student at York College of PA