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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. America is on the verge of energy independence through "natural" gas exploration, thanks to Halliburton and a host of other brave entrepreneurs. So why is Josh Fox not grateful? Fearful that his beloved backyard river is in peril of being polluted, Fox sets out on a fact-finding mission across the country. What he finds is that "fracking," the practice of using a chemical stew to assist in the drilling process, is laying waste to our groundwater and land. The director/crusader on a mission has become a familiar sight in contemporary documentary. But somehow Fox breaks through this cliché with an astonishing mix of shoe-leather journalism and the idiosyncratic experimentalism of his theater background. A modern Paul Revere hell-bent on saving us from ourselves, Fox's achievement promises a hip new era of urgent advocacy films. In 2009, filmmaker Josh Fox learned his home in the Delaware River Basin was on top of the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation containing natural gas that stretches across New York, Pennsylvania and huge stretches of the Northeast. He was offered $100,000 to lease his land for a new method of drilling developed by Halliburton and soon discovered this was only a part of a 34-state drilling campaign, the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history. Part mystery, part travelogue, and part banjo showdown, "Gasland" documents Josh's cross-country odyssey to find out if the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing - or fracking - is actually safe. As he interviews people who live on or around current fracking sites, Josh learns of things gone horribly wrong, from illness to hair loss to flammable water, and his inquiries lead him ever deeper into a web of secrets, lies, conspiracy, and contamination - a web that potentially stretches to threaten the New York Watershed. Unearthing a shocking story about a practice that is understudied and inadequately regulated, "Gasland" races to find answer about fracking before it's far too late. no reviews | add a review
In 2009, Delaware River Basin native Josh Fox was presented with an interesting proposal: lease his family lands to a natural gas company for a new method of drilling called hydraulic fracturing, and get a check for $100,000. He wouldn't have to do anything but sit back and collect the money. Curious about the process, Fox embarks on an exploration of other areas where natural gas drilling was already in progress, to observe firsthand any potential downsides. In Dimock, Pennsylvania, a town surrounded by fracking activity, he hears stories of wells exploding, black water, flammable drinking water, headaches, pains, long-term sickness. Fox goes on to tour 25 states, cataloging an endless string of frustrated and sick Americans whose land has become toxic and explaining the legislation pushed through by former vice president Dick Cheney, exempting energy companies from key environmental acts--exemptions that make fracking invisible to any regulation or monitoring. Fox becomes an advocate for the cause of the people whose complaints are ignored by the natural gas corporations and the American government. The film documents the pitfalls and perils--borne of avarice of the most bloodless, ruthless kind--of the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in American history, with the potential to poison millions. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresNo genres Melvil Decimal System (DDC)622.18285Technology Engineering and allied operations Mining Engineering and Mines and Mineral Resources Prospecting & Treasure HuntingLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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An eerie film technique, evocative and successful. ( )