Film Preview: Gasland (Fracking)
It is happening all across America and now in Europe and Africa as well – rural landowners wake up one day to find a lucrative offer from a multinational energy conglomerate wanting to lease their property. The reason? In America, the company hopes to tap into a huge natural gas reservoir dubbed the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. Halliburton developed a way to get the gas out of the ground—a hydraulic drilling process called fracking—and suddenly America finds itself on the precipice of becoming an energy superpower.
But what comes out of the ground with that natural gas? How does it affect our air and drinking water? Gasland is a powerful personal documentary that confronts these questions with spirit, strength, and a sense of humour. When filmmaker Josh Fox receives his cash offer in the mail, he travels across 32 states to meet other rural residents on the front lines of fracking. He discovers toxic streams, ruined aquifers, dying livestock, brutal illnesses, and kitchen sinks that burst into flame. He learns that all water is connected and perhaps some things are more valuable than money.
Where America leads, Britain blindly follows, and the Westminster government is aggressively promoting fracking in the UK – to the extent that it is over-riding local democracy to do so. Scotland does not have any devolved powers over energy, so all it is able to do at the present time is to impose a moratorium, until all evidence has been scrutinised. Watch this film, and you will agree that the evidence is already there!
Watch the 3 minute trailer on You Tube by clicking this link.
Watch a 2 minute clip on You Tube of tap water going on fire by clicking this link or this link.
Watch the full 1 hour 43 minute film (2010) on You Tube by clicking this link.
Watch the full 1 hour 38 minute film (2013 update) on You Tube by clicking this link.
Yes Edinburgh West has a website, Facebook, Twitter, National Yes Registry and a Library of topics on Scottish Politics, including Fracking & UCG.