Josh Fox, in route to save the world
from it’s self?
One of the greatest
advances, and the procedure that’s dominated the headlines in recent years, for
both good reasons and bad, is hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. In essence,
fracking is a way of releasing natural gas and oil that is tightly bound up in
shale rock, generally located thousands of feet below the earth’s surface; this
is accomplished by using immensely powerful water pumps exerting a pressure of
up to 20,000 pounds per sq. inch. Fracking
was actually pioneered in the US State of Kansas in the 1940’s; thanks to
numerous procedural improvements along with the rise in the cost of oil in
today’s marketplace, it has become economically viable. Natural gas and yes, Oil
previously thought unreachable is now within our grasp.
The fact
is without the above referenced technological advances my previous post titled “Where in the Hell is Coober Pedy; and why you should care?”
would be without value absent fracking. In other words that 20 Trillion Dollar
find would in all likelihood be worthless.
Even President Barack Obama
appears to endorse the process of fracking, although most “environmentalists” believe
his policies promoting the enforcement of existing regulatory laws / rules have
singlehandedly crippled America’s coal industry. In his June 25th
2013 speech regarding ‘climate change’ at Georgetown, he said: “Sometimes there
are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this: We should strengthen our
position as the top natural gas producer because, in the medium term at least,
it not only can provide safe, cheap
power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions.” Yep, The US president
certainly seems to get it, but sadly a lot of activists don’t.
Perhaps
the best evidence of this sad state of affairs is demonstrated by the
successful production of Gasland, a 2010 American documentary
written and directed by a fellow named Josh Fox. The film won a number of
awards in 2010, including: The Environmental Media Award for Best Documentary
Feature; the Sundance Film Festiva’ls Special Jury Prize; the Big Sky
Documentary Film Festival’s Artistic Vision award; the Thin Line Film Festival
Audience Award; the Yale Environmental Film Festival Grand Jury Prize; the Sarasota
Film Festival’s Special Jury Prize. Then, in 2011 the film won the Primetime
Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming and was nominated
for an Academy Award for the Best Documentary of 2011. The film focused on US communities
impacted by natural gas drilling by the method of horizontal drilling into
shale formations known as, you guessed it, fracking.
You’d think that with all
those awards, there would be more facts than fiction presented for your
consideration in a “documentary”. However critics are quick to say that Josh
Fox, who stars in his own film in the well known style of Michael Moore (Sicko, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit
9/11) presents a one-sided portrait of natural gas extraction. A natural gas industry website, ‘Energy in Depth’, called Gasland: “heavy on hyperbole, light on
facts.”
To most viewers
what the film allegedly uncovered is shocking, they include: Water that can be
lit on fire right out of the kitchen sink; residents of drilling areas who are
persistently ill throughout the US, all with the same mysterious symptoms; huge
pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation; well blowouts and huge
gas explosions that are consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory
agencies.
More than just a couple of claims I’d
agree are ‘light on the facts’ as was indicated by “Energy In Depth” . . . However according to the film (Gasland), there are several problems caused by fracking (I’d call them something else). To name a few: Falsehood #1: “You can light
your tap water on fire” . . . Fox made this claim famous in the Gasland film when he showed a resident
of Colorado striking a match as water was coming out of his tap, because
natural gas had dissolved in the water, it burst into flame . . . Turns out the natural gas in the water supply
was derived from natural sources. The
well water had penetrated several coal beds / seams (a very common source of methane) that had
released the methane gas into the well water.
Falsehood
#2: “Fracking fluid seeps into groundwater and poisons drinking
water.” . . . A study was released in
June of 2013 by researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and published
in the biweekly journal, “Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences”; yes the paper did find higher
concentrations of methane in water wells that were within a kilometer of gas
wells. However like earlier reports, it was determined that the two explanations for the higher levels of dissolved gas were faulty steel casings
and improper cement sealing of the wells; in other words, not fracking.
It’s made clear in the
early narration that the basis of the film, Gasland
(to view Youtube Trailer
Click Here) was initiated as a result of Fox’s reception of a letter in May
of 2008, from an un-named natural gas company offering to lease his family’s
land in Milanville, which is in the Damascus Township of Wayne County, Pennsylvania
for $100,000.00. Curiously, this claim
has been challenged by “Energy In Depth”, which has stated that the
lease to which Fox refers in the documentary was not offered in the first place
and in the second place $100,000.00 was not offered either.
So who is
Josh Fox and where has he been lately? A few years back, Mr. Fox completed his first feature film, Memorial Day. The film premiered at the CineVegas Film Festival in 2008 and was called “Unforgettable” by Variety; “uniquely fascinating” by Indiewire and reaped the reputation of
being “The most controversial film at the festival”. Time
Out NY has called Fox “one of downtown’s most audacious
auteurs”, citing his “brilliantly resourceful mastery of stagecraft.”
auteurs”, citing his “brilliantly resourceful mastery of stagecraft.”
He is the founder and Artistic
Director of International WOW Company.
Founded in 1996, International WOW has
premiered new works in 8 countries with a rotating network of over 100 actors,
dancers, musicians, with technical and visual artists spanning 30 countries on 5
continents. Through the International WOW
Company Josh has received a Drama Desk Nomination, an Otto Award, and five
grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the company holds five
prestigious MAP Fund Grants, an Asian Cultural Council Fellowship award among many
other honors.
So it’s
easy to determine, based on the film Gasland
and other facts of interest that Mr. Fox is a skilled manipulator of facts and a formidable
opponent with a substantial number of followers; which makes the future of fracking
more difficult. A sequel to Gasland
titled Gasland Part II premiered at
the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 21, 2013.
There are currently two
additional films / documentaries (FrackNation & Truthland) of
interest that have attained much less notoriety than has Gasland. Both have made a valiant
attempt to squelch the half truths and falsehoods reported by the highly
skilled efforts of Mr. Fox. FrackNation
(to see FrackNation movie clips, Click Here) is a feature documentary
created by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney of Ireland; the film looks at the
process of fracking for natural gas and seeks to address the concerns
surrounding the process that were highlighted in the anti-fracking film Gasland. The film interviews many
individuals directly affected by fracking, most of whom support the process. You may find it a somewhat bewildering to
learn that a small group of farmers, who were featured in FrackNation, were barred
from attending the premier of Gasland II
in April.
Truthland is a
similar effort; to watch the “trailer” or see the full length movie Click
Here.
Make no mistake: Any
industrial process can go awry, usually through the old faithful, human error.
And believe it or not, everyone involved in energy production are not saints: Dishonest
people, now and then may try short cuts that end up harming the innocent. When such
mistakes are made or short cuts taken, the guilty parties should be punished
and the victims compensated for their misfortunes.
Never the
less, it’s a mistake to assume such villains are the norm. There’s more than
500,000 gas wells currently operating in the United States alone; most of which
manage to avoid blowing up houses, nor do they poison drinking water; make it hard to
breathe or cause cancer.
The bottom line is that the
technique of fracking is very likely mankind’s last best chance to gradually wean ourselves
from petroleum based products like natural gas and crude oil. Perhaps this time by overcoming obstructionist
like Josh Fox and his many followers by continuously educating the general public on the falsehoods
offered up by such folk. Groups of that type just might be overpowered long enough for us to get it
right the second time.
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