By Gregory Solman

In Fracknation, Irish investigative journalist Phelim McAleer finds a combustible metaphor for the contrived controversy of hydraulic fracturing in the footage of the Sautner family hustlers of Pennsylvania.

McAleer couldn’t politely interview the couple without Craig threatening a lawsuit (apparently emboldened by the radical National Resources Defense Council), and Julie threatening to pull a pistol on McAleer on a public road, where she voluntarily stopped to shout at him. (It’s rich to watch her sheepishly press a gun permit against the inside of her car window, demonstrating the Defense Technique When Not Being in the Least Threatened.) So McAleer pulls a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain a taping of the Sautners, apoplectic upon hearing the Environmental Protection Agency—such a right-wing frat under Lisa Jackson—confirm the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s finding that their water tests safe and clean.

McAleer notes the irony that not having contaminated water would be considered good news to all but those looking for an Erin Brockovich ending to their woes, real or imagined, or in ideological lockstep with what is now a full-fledged anti-fracking movement, replete with its own agitprop such as Josh Fox’s polemic GasLand and Gus Van Sant’s desperately “relevant” fiction, Promised Land. For the greenshirts, only bad news is good news: Recall that the same eco-special interests were all for using natural gas when it was an empty-handed gesture, when they thought we were almost out. (Their next suggestion: Francium power—but only if actually bottled in France, in IWW-run shops.)

In Fracknation, McAleer is mostly after the would-be Michael Moore, Fox, in whose disputatious documentary the Sautners display their dubiously adulterated water and others light their taps—and a large part of the impressionable public—on fire. But that’s a well-known, ancient phenomenon having nothing to do with fracking, and everything to do with methane naturally seeping wherever it can, as surely a few of Fox’s newfound celebrity friends must know from living near the La Brea Tar Pits, where the streets spontaneously combust from time to time. (Clearly, if the greenshirt “gascists” could redevelop Los Angeles, there’d be nothing within miles of mid-Wilshire—well, except maybe environmentally sensitive Ed Begley-esque manses—an area that would be turned into a no-man’s-land preserve to hasten the return of the kangaroo rat.)

When McAleer catches up to Fox—he, too, in the Moore mode—and accuses him of recklessly associating fire-water with fracking (which has never once been proven to have contaminated groundwater, occurring thousands of feet beneath the water table), Fox says, “Yes, but it’s not relevant.” And from his perspective—which smacks of Hillary Clinton’s on Benghazi—it isn’t. Despite Fox’s pose as a friendly naïve explorer in GasLand, reinforced by a lazy narrative drawl suggesting Bill Murray’s muttering groundskeeper in Caddyshack, his project aims to stop shale gas production, by any means necessary.

The moratorium on leasing that GasLand inspired animates McAleer to work the other side of the documentary-cliché fence, matching Fox’s often sincere-sounding fracking alarmists with a Depression-era revival of plaintive, tearful farmers fearful of losing their land because their gas leases have been shut off amid already hard times. Besides them, McAleer finds plenty of residents in Dimock, Pa., who don’t appreciate GasLand’s suggestion that their homesteads are toxic wastelands, inhabited by greedy despoilers and easy marks for Matt Damon.

McAleer systematically eviscerates GasLand’s false implications and sloppy inferences (finally, not even distinguishing between oil and gas production, and instantly trotting out a Halliburton/Cheney conspiracy, the not-so-secret handshake of Club 9/11 Truth). McAleer interviews specialists who assure us that the mathematical detection of seismic activity does not constitute an earthquake (and that the greenshirts’ beloved geothermal energy is worse). He unveils collusion between biased government officials, liberal media, non-governmental organizations and their Hollywood waterboys. He embarrasses Fox, a Columbia University grad, for his woeful ignorance of physics, engineering and chemistry.

Fracknation then travels to Europe to suggest that new-school communism under Vlad Putin has a hidden hand behind the anti-fracking agenda, so that Russia can continue to use a gas monopoly in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe as a political cudgel, turning it on or off as it pleases, and charging little old ladies in Poland half their pensions for gas and electricity, bringing to mind Dr. Zhivago’s arrests for foraging firewood. (He might have contrasted their plight with the thousands of Californians driving natural-gas Honda Civics—the cleanest cars on the planet, including electrics—for an unsubsidized $1.36 a gallon, thanks to fracking, what reasonable people call a win-win.)
Fracknation’s timing is good, though it’s unlikely to crack already ossified myths or affect fracking’s prospects, when even the use of that vulgar-sounding nickname is as devious as cubic zirconia ads referring to the genuine article as “mined diamonds.” Fracking friends and foes—and the movies they love—have formed skirmish lines almost identical to those of the climate-change controversy.

So we’re going nowhere from here. But it’s heartening to see someone take on a few of the anecdotal, unscientific and politically motivated accusations against the practice, before they, too, become immune to counter evidence.

The frack list (neuropathy, fish kills, cancer, dead bunny rabbits, migraines, animal hair loss, neighborhoods erupting in flames) is already reminiscent of the hysterical global-warming compilations which currently run from “acne” to “yellow fever”—until “aardvark population decline” and “yam rust” are added by someone, anyone, somewhere. The same camps have enlisted the same recruits, including anti-capitalists out to control the economy by fiat, communist style; enrich themselves, like Qatar’s over-compensated useful idiot, Al Gore; or just feel morally superior to others and, in the sweetly juvenile manner of the Mars Attacks! teen hero, suggest, to a mariachi version of the national anthem, that “maybe, instead of houses, we could live in tepees, ’cause it’s better, in a lot of ways.”

Documentary ‘Fracknation’ debates ‘Gasland,’ ‘Promised Land’ and the greenshirts—and wins.

By Gregory Solman

Josh Fox

Hurricane Sandy hit New York just a month ago and yesterday, Josh Fox (Academy Award- nominated director of 2010′s Gasland) released his short documentary, Occupy Sandy, in the same fast, unconventional way that the Occupy Sandy relief effort popped up after the storm.

People were led via text message to the site of the film’s “guerrilla movie premiere,” which was ultimately revealed less than half an hour before the film began. Fox was still making edits on the latest version.

On the wall of a Mobil gas station, The Illuminator (the mobile projector that has been called Occupy’s “bat signal”) projected the film, as audience members, including people from affected communities, munched on popcorn.

NY Press pulled Fox aside after the movie to talk about the state government’s attitude towards climate change, the role of Occupy Sandy, and plans to re-purpose more gas stations into movie theaters.

NY PRESS: So Sandy hit just about a month ago and you already have this film out. When did you know you were making this film?

JOSH FOX: Oh, like a week ago. I mean, this was something very fast. It’s not polished.  It’s sort of like, we need to get the word out that this incredible disaster relief effort has come out of the Occupy Movement and what amazing work that they’re doing. And I had an afternoon – like a very rare Sunday afternoon off. And I was sitting in my studio in Brooklyn and I was like, “You know what, I’ve heard a lot about this, let me just walk  in there with a camera.’

I walked in the door and was just blown away by what they were doing. I said, ‘I have to go with them on some of these runs.’ I went to Sheepsheadbay, went to the Rockaways, and just met extraordinary people. And also just for myself, to see the damage… it is unforgettable. And to know that this is climate change in real and human terms.

Occupy Sandy is a disaster relief organization of the moment, but it’s also about the root causes of the disaster. You don’t go ahead and say, ‘Oh this is just a thing where we deliver food and water and heaters.’ This is about, ‘No, we have to address climate change.’

That’s why I come to a Mobil Station and show it on the wall. Go directly to the fossil fuel industry and say, ‘If it’s business as usual for you guys, we’re going to see New York flooded again and again and again. And it’s time for you guys to realize that you’re putting us all in peril.’

So what do you think needs to happen to go from Governor Cuomo recognizing that climate change is happening to having something actually be done about it?

Well, I really think this is a moment of change for the government. I mean, obviously, Governor Cuomo stepped out amidst this wall of climate silence right before the presidential election and broke the silence.

And now I think he and everyone else need to understand two very basic things. One, renewable energy can run the world. On existing technology. We have enough wind and sun to power everything that we need in this United States. And two, that it’s an economic engine that people can participate in at every level – at the corporate level, at the personal level, and it needs to be encouraged through leveling the playing field at the government level.

So, this is where we have to be, what we have to do. When we have hurricanes that are supercharged by global warming, we have to plan for a different way of organizing our economy.

Your film Gasland obviously had a considerably larger release and started a national conversation about hydraulic fracturing and agitated a lot of people in the natural gas industry. Do you have any plans to make a longer movie about this?

Well, we’re making Gasland 2, which does address issues of climate change. Fracking and natural gas is one of the worst fuels, in terms of its greenhouse emissions profile – both carbon and methane. And for this governor and the mayor of this city to be acknowledging publicly that climate change is a huge problem and, at the same time, still considering a huge drilling campaign throughout all of New York state, is a contradiction in terms.

Hopefully, when they realize, ‘Oh, we’re really at risk here,’ [they'll say], ‘We have to move towards renewable energy and completely abolish the thought of more fossil fuel production in NY state.’

There are two main points that you made in the movie: one, that people need to be held accountable for what happened, and two, that government agencies and established, large non-profits are not the ones that stepped in, but rather Occupy. Do you think that those organizations are really equipped or flexible enough to do what Occupy did?

Well, I don’t think it’s about saying anything bad about FEMA or the City at all. I think what this is saying is, acknowledge the brilliant work that’s being done person to person. The brilliant new model that’s being created here of mutual aid, not charity.

Mutual aid is people giving to people. Charity is rich people giving to poor people. This is coming from within those communities and I think it’s an acknowledgment of how we have to engage a whole new structure.

You know, Occupy Wall Street was dealing with a disaster also – the disaster of the banking collapse and the housing collapse. This is their environmental disaster relief. And I think what we’re finding here is we’re building a new community and a new way of talking about politics.

Would you ever do this kind of guerrilla release again?

Absolutely. Sure, I think once we’ve started to convert the gas stations and the other infrastructure in the fossil fuel industry to movie theaters and other things that people like, it’ll be easier.

OCCUPY SANDY from JFOX on Vimeo.

Josh Fox

By Mayara Guimaraes

Josh Fox has been loudly proclaiming the dangers of hydrofracking with his words and films ever since a gas company sought to lease his family’s land in Pennsylvania several years ago. After he conducted some research into the controversial process, he declined the $100,000 offer and set out to educate others on what he had discovered. The result was his Academy Award-nominated documentary, Gasland.

Now at work on Gasland 2 and petitioning local governments to prohibit fracking, Fox spoke to Our Town about the latest developments in New York State and why he thinks Gov. Andrew Cuomo is about to make a catastrophic mistake.

Our Town: Do you think that by sharing hydrofracking regulations with the gas industry before they were released to the public, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) gave the industry an advantage?

Fox: I think that this shows the deep and very cozy relationship between the gas industry and the agency that is supposed to be regulating on behalf of the people. What is even more shocking is that they were answering questions about the regulations, back and forth with the gas industry, but they weren’t answering the people’s questions. We submitted a list of 25 very technical questions, very similar questions to the ones sent by the gas industry, and we received absolutely no response. This could become a moment where people will say the gas industry has bought out our democracy. Why is that the industry gets to write the rules?

How is the fracking debate here in New York different than in other states?
New York had the benefit of taking a looking at what happened in Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania—they had the benefit of knowledge. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell and Gov. Corbett rolled out the red carpet for the gas industry. The people did not know what fracking was, and as a result Pennsylvania is being trashed. It is a devastating situation. We have nightmare after nightmare in environmental disasters unfolding in Pennsylvania, and it is the same in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas. But New York had the benefit of looking at this and getting really well organized.

What are some things that the average New Yorker doesn’t know about fracking but should?
In general, we are used to turning the light switch on and off and not thinking where the energy comes from. That has to change. The fossil fuel industry started to run out of the easily obtainable oil, coal and gas. Now, a sane person would look at that and think, well, let’s start changing to renewable energy. That is not what the fossil fuel industry did. They decided to go to the extreme type of energy—extremely dangerous, extremely hard to get, involving extreme amounts of energy used to get the energy. What I am talking about is fracking, nonstop removal for coal or deepwater drilling on the Gulf of Mexico, which is unpredictable, as we all saw two years ago with the oil spill that they had. Right now, the clean water supply of New York City is on the hook.

A scene from Gasland

What do you think of the possibility that Cuomo will only allow fracking in a few counties that are in favor of the gas industry?
There is nothing in this proposal from Cuomo that says it will stop the industry from working all over the state. The truth is that this is just a way to open the door and pass regulation; once these regulations are passed, the gas industry is just going to say, ‘Well, there is no such a thing as regulations that only are valid in parts of the state.’ And they will have a point. There is something called unequal protection under the law. There is no way to protect some people and not protect others under the same law. We went to Gov. Cuomo and told him not to do this—not to experiment with poor counties that are less politically represented and are desperate because of economic problems.

The one thing that the governor has done right so far is to not move forward with this proposal. I think that he has shown healthy skepticism. This is going to be disastrous for his legacy. We know by looking at the gas industry documents that these wells are going to leak. We know that there is a statistical probability of blowouts, of contamination incidents.

What can you tell us about your upcoming documentary, Gasland 2?
The film is an investigation about the level of the relationship between the government and the gas industry. There is a level of communication and collaboration between the government and the industry that is outsizing the citizen right now. Right now we are seeing a different type of contamination caused by fracking; it is not the water or the air, it is the contamination of our democracy.

Finnegan: What actually is hydraulic fracturing?

Josh Fox: Hydraulic fracturing is a new method for drilling for natural gas. The reason why this is happening now is that the U.S. Congress in 2005 passed a law exempting this form of drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Hydraulic fracturing injects millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals into rock formations at such high pressure that it breaks apart the rocks, and the gas that’s trapped inside these rocks frees up.

The problem is that it is an underground injection of an enormous amount of chemical material that creates a lot of hazardous waste, and what’s been happening is that both the gas and the chemicals are turning up in people’s aquifers, and their private water wells, and it poses a great threat to the New York City watershed because they’re proposing to drill there.

It seems like this is dangerous for the environment and bad for people. So what is the fight in support of this?

You would think that the drilling is so problematic—and it’s been documented so many times as a heavy-duty industrialization process that this would be ruled out—but that would be underestimating the power of Haliburton and Chesapeake and Exxon. They have billions of dollars and considerable influence in Albany and in Washington, and everybody in New York City and New York State should be involved in getting them out of here, because it’s going to be very very difficult to do that.

New York City residents definitely need to wake up to the fact that they have the best tap water in the world, the largest unfiltered drinking source in the world, and they have to work to protect it, or else they could end up with these Haliburton chemicals coming out of the tap all over the city. It would be enormously costly, very very problematic for health, and virtually impossible to control.

Could there ever be an industry incentive for these companies to develop alternate methods?

People have to start realizing that we have to move beyond fossil fuels, and that that’s everybody’s responsibility. The truth here is that you cannot rely on the government in this instance. Where it really comes from, and where change really comes from in the United States is when people take to the streets, get upset, march, go crazy and do all those things that people did in the civil rights movement.

You’ve been pushing for the passage of the FRAC [Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals] Act, which would require disclosure of chemical compounds used in fracking and end the exemption from the Safe Water Drinking Act. Would that be enough?

No. There should be a moratorium, nationwide. The truth is that we don’t need this energy. There are a lot of other ways to go about getting energy for the United States that do not include the systematic contamination of the water supply, the systematic destruction of land and property value, the incredible amount of greenhouse emissions that go on with this form of energy development. It is simply a show of power on behalf of those gas companies that they are allowed to do this at all.

Natural gas is often touted as the cleaner alternative to coal—is it really a better option?

Fracking for natural gas has a much higher emissions profile than was previously suspected. Methane itself is a greenhouse gas, it’s far more potent than CO2. It escapes throughout the process, at every stage of the process, the drilling, the pipelines, the fracking, the tanks. And that means that the emissions of raw methane that isn’t being burned, when you take together the whole life cycle, it shows that fracking for natural gas is actually worse than coal, worse than our worst fossil fuel. Because of all this new information that’s coming out, both from the EPA and from Cornell University and other places, natural gas has to be viewed as the worst fossil fuel option.

What is the biggest thing that New York City residents should be aware of?

To continue the campaign for this New York moratorium is the number one priority. Get involved with the local Sierra Club, get involved in the local Frack Action group or with United for Action, NY H20. There are so many amazing grassroots organizations on the ground in New York City. If they want to continue to have their tap water, they’re going to have to volunteer some time.