Josh Fox's 'Gasland II' - another game-changer movie

ITHACA, New York, USA - Admiral Fox and I journeyed to the Cornell campus Friday night for a showing of Gasland II, Josh Fox's followup film to his amazing first film Gasland. That movie was so powerful that it gave the natural gas industry such gas, it is still sputtering.

Gasland II's Josh Fox

In fact, while Gasland II was being shown in Ithaca, the natural gas industry was showing its own pr-firm pro-hydrofracking film at another New York location.

It's doubtful that the audience there was as enthusiastic as the 300 or so people who packed Statler Auditorium at Cornell. The film was interrupted frequently by applause - and more than a few gasps.

The film will premiere on HBO July 8. And it's a must-see movie for people already opposed to hydrofracking for natural gas as well as anyone still sitting on the fence. Josh suggested that perhaps some Gasland II parties might be in order when HBO releases the film - parties that would include doubters as well as the faithful.

It would be hard to watch this film - a compendium of images of science, pathos, humanity and corporate greed - and not come away feeling, well, I am still sorting all that out the morning after.

We had hoped to actually meet Josh - and we did, sort of.

Sylvia, Josh Fox and me

At one point he jumped down off the stage and stood for a photo - a photo he was sending to President Barack Obama via Twitter. He is flanked by Admiral Fox and I in the photo.

It's a little grainy, but lately I've noticed I look a lot better in soft focus anyway.

The evening gave me even more encouragement to finish editing The Fracking War. It also gave me several ideas for additions to the book and even some new chapters.

The climate change we are already witnessing is being exacerbated by all the methane gas escaping from  all the gas wells being drilled. It has taken an already nearly out-of-control freight train and added ice to slippery tracks.

If the methane emissions aren't controlled, well-known Cornell Professor Robert Howarth said, it's game over for the planet.

The event was partly to help promote the film and also as a fundraiser for Gas Free Seneca (link to GAS FREE SENECA website), the group fighting to stop the Inergy Corporation from storing propane and natural gas in salt caverns adjacent to - and under - Seneca Lake.

Here's a photo of the crowd last night, sending a message to the president and to NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Josh Fox with the banjo, Adm. Fox to the left, me on the right

The Gas Bag strategies for defusing hydrofracking opposition

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - A website called Energy in Depth started popping up in my emails about hydrofracking recently. Usually the emails were because someone was commenting about some outrageous opinion columns printed on the site purporting to be news.

I won't provide the link here because the people that run it likely use the number of hits to show their bosses how much traffic they generate as they ask for more money.

A new way to heat homes - light the faucets on fire

EID is a gas industry mouthpiece which pretends that it is presenting the news and facts about natural gas exploration and drilling but in fact spends most of its time ridiculing anyone who criticizes any aspect of the gas industry.

EID is supported by the oil industry, too. They are all sleeping the same rather rumpled, toxic bed.

The stories/columns are quite sophomoric and make wild claims about the wonderfulness of natural gas, dismissing any assertions that there have been toxic spills or water pollution or nasty incidents of any kind.

But in the past few days, I allowed myself to get sucked into reading some of the posts and responding a few times.

Then I realized that is a major part of the EID strategy: Get concerned citizens busy replying to stories posted by the morons who write for the website. (My apologies to morons everywhere for that crack. These people aren't stupid, just mean-spirited.) If the fracking opponents are spending time  posting on the website, responding to some snotty, inaccurate or lie-filled post, they are not writing letters to legislators, researching the ongoing chemical spills or talking to their neighbors about the dangers of hydrofracking.

Tom Shepstone, gas industry flack

Tom Shepstone, the man in charge of the public relations site (and other efforts to discredit anyone asking questions) is a gas industry consultant and told me - in a comment on the EID website - that my assertion that they were trying to suck off activists' time was ludicrous.

I don't think so. I think Shepstone and his klan of gas baggers is all about trying to get the opponents of hydrofracking from focusing on fighting in ways that matter such as trying to stop the gas companies from continuing to buy politicians while they blithely pollute the groundwater.

So, adios EID. Rest in peace, preferably near a concrete hydrofracking pad or adjacent to one of those naturally occurring methane puddles which are growing in such great numbers where hydrofracking is taking place.