After viewing this documentary, I was mortified and ashamed of what our species is capable of. If you think this is a free country... THINK AGAIN! The Bush/Cheney administration did everything in their power to take away as many freedoms as possible so doors could be opened to allow THE CORPORATE "BEING" to have free reign on getting at any type of resource no matter who or what was in the way. I know it's hard to believe that they would go so far as to ruin our planet if only to make another buck. But with every dollar they get a nickel’s worth of power. The Power to Destroy. If you haven't seen Avatar I recommend you rent it. It is a chilling glimpse into the future of what can happen to Mother Earth when all her natural resources are depleted. Think it a fairytale? Another... THINK AGAIN! Watch the trailer of Gasland below and The Daily Show featuring the filmmaker of Gasland, Josh Fox. Stay enlightened, information may be the only weapon we have to help save our planet against The Corporate World who will kill every living creature upon it, if they are allowed. thinkingblue
A Colossal Fracking Mess
The dirty truth behind the new natural gas. Related: A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.
Early on a spring morning in the town of Damascus, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the fog on the Delaware River rises to form a mist that hangs above the tree-covered hills on either side. A buzzard swoops in from the northern hills to join a flock ensconced in an evergreen on the river’s southern bank.
Stretching some 400 miles, the Delaware is one of the cleanest free-flowing rivers in the United States, home to some of the best fly-fishing in the country. More than 15 million people, including residents of New York City and Philadelphia, get their water from its pristine watershed. To regard its unspoiled beauty on a spring morning, you might be led to believe that the river is safely off limits from the destructive effects of industrialization. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. The Delaware is now the most endangered river in the country, according to the conservation group American Rivers.
That’s because large swaths of land—private and public—in the watershed have been leased to energy companies eager to drill for natural gas here using a controversial, poorly understood technique called hydraulic fracturing. "Fracking," as it’s colloquially known, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Sixty miles west of Damascus, the town of Dimock, population 1,400, makes all too clear the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing. You don’t need to drive around Dimock long to notice how the rolling hills and farmland of this Appalachian town are scarred by barren, square-shaped clearings, jagged, newly constructed roads with 18-wheelers driving up and down them, and colorful freight containers labeled "residual waste." Although there is a moratorium on drilling new wells for the time being, you can still see the occasional active drill site, manned by figures in hazmat suits and surrounded by klieg lights, trailers, and pits of toxic wastewater, the derricks towering over barns, horses, and cows in their shadows.
The real shock that Dimock has undergone, however, is in the aquifer that residents rely on for their fresh water. Dimock is now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.
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Josh Fox was a guest on The Daily Show Monday night,coinciding with the HBO release of his new documentary, Gasland. He talks with Jon Stewart about the film, which exposes the toxic chemicals being leeched into water supplies as a consequence of the new natural gas drilling method sweeping the nation, hydraulic fracturing. Some water supplies are so drastically affected by the chemicals that residents are actually able to light their tap water on fire.
Fox explains that we are currently in the biggest natural gas drilling boom in history to which Stewart sardonically replies, "Well, it's natural gas, so it's actually the healthy gas. They actually sell it in whole foods. It's so tasty, this gas."
Fox further talks about the natural gas drilling industry's deceptive tactics to buy the rights to drill on peoples' property and their PR effort to smear the information in his film. He describes the industry's exemption from certain regulations through the "Halliburton loophole", to which Stewart remarks, "That sounds like the worst sex position ever."
WATCH Josh Fox on The Daily Show: