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Environment & Energy

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xchrom

(108,903 posts)
Sat Apr 27, 2013, 05:16 AM Apr 2013

In Gasland sequel, fracking saga’s pressure ratchets up [View all]

http://grist.org/climate-energy/in-gasland-sequel-fracking-sagas-pressure-ratchets-up/

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Josh Fox’s 2010 documentary Gasland alerted legions of people to the dangers of fracking and helped grow the movement against the drilling technique, which has created a natural-gas bonanza in many parts of the U.S. Now Fox is back with a sequel, Gasland Part II, that premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

The new film begins much like its predecessor: Shots of politicians alternate with shots of the forest, dripping wet with fresh rain. Fox introduces himself, his home, and his problem: A gas company wants to frack his land and the land around it. But the sequel tells a different kind of story from the first film, and Fox plays a different part.

When Fox first started this project five years ago, he was an avant-garde theater writer and director. After his family received an offer from a gas company to lease his land, he spun his own questions about fracking into a powerful investigative film. Now, three years after Gasland became a sensation, he’s one of the leading activists in the fight against fracking.

In the years between Fox’s two films, that fight has intensified. Big environmental groups (like the Sierra Club) that once worked with the natural gas industry started pushing back against fracking. The Obama administration strengthened its support for the development of natural gas resources. New York keeps delaying its decision on whether to allow fracking; Pennsylvania keeps letting the industry get away with doing pretty much whatever it wants. Whether to frack or not is no longer a good-faith policy debate. The two sides are engaged in “a war for who was going to tell this story,” as Fox puts it, and it’s escalating.
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k/r nt limpyhobbler Apr 2013 #1
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