From Lee Ziesche, Grassroots Coordinator:

I wanted Josh’s Power Shift speech to be the first post of our Not From Gasland Journal for a few reasons.

After touring for months, I think this speech embodies a lot of what we experienced on the road. Josh talks about many of the people whose stories we shared through Gasland Part II screenings and others we met along the way.

I feel the speech sums up the true heart and guiding principles of the movement and where they should lead us going forward. 

Power Shift took place in Pittsburgh, the first city to ban fracking in the world. 6,000 young people, the future of the movement, in the city that showed us the way could not be more appropriate to set the stage for the story we want to tell. 

I’m from Pittsburgh. The woods, rivers and people of Western PA are a huge part of who I am and what keeps me motivated to fight. They are my story and that’s what this is about.  Our stories.

When I listen to and read Josh’s speech, I can feel the energy of the thousands of people in the room. His words and their spirit allows me to know, somewhere deep inside, without a doubt, that I will be a part of the story that will change the world. I hope it does the same for you. 

Thanks,
Lee

(Josh begins at 38:27)

TEXT OF JOSH’S SPEECH FROM POWER SHIFT:

Welcome to Fracksylvania

I want to tell you a little something about the song that I just played that I learned from Pete Seeger. I was introducing him. If you don’t know who he is you can Google him later. I was introducing him, 94-years old, one of the great authors of this movement, of this country, and he said, “You know that was the biggest hit song of 1814. A fellow sang that song in a bar and it was such a big hit he had to sing it twice.  And at 4 miles an hour, clip clop clip clop, all the way across the United States that song became the most popular song in our nation.  And one hundred years later it was adopted as our national anthem.” 

And if a bar song can become our national anthem, then really we’re all just making up the United States as we go along.  And anything is possible. 

You are writing the next great chapter of the United States of America. 

The movement to ban fracking has spread all over the world. In France we just won. We had the entire country of France ban fracking. The Netherlands just banned fracking. We have a movement to ban fracking in nine countries in Europe.  In South Africa.  In Australia.  New York State is still frack free.  There are five ballot initiatives in Colorado.  There’s one in Michigan. There’s a ban fracking movement in California.  But do you know where all of this started?  Do you know the first place in the world to ban fracking? 

That’s right. The great city of Pittsburgh.  

Doug Shields, the city council, it starts here. You’re on hallowed ground in Pittsburgh. 

When the natural gas industry came to my doorstep in the Upper Delaware in Pennsylvania, across the state, in the watershed, and I knew I was surrounded by people who had leased, this was probably the loneliest and scariest day of my life.

But I’m not so lonely anymore.

How does this happen? How does a room like this happen? 

I was down in Guy Arkansas, a place that had 1000 earthquakes in a year.  And I met this lady named Susan Frey, the earthquake lady. She had a plumb bob attached to the bottom of her coffee table.  Every time it moved she’d look up the earthquake on the website and sure enough there was one.  Most of the quakes were micro quakes.  But then a 4.7 knocked her husband off of his La Z Boy and put cracks in the walls of the local high school. And I imagine that as he hit the ground something happened.

Or Amee Ellsworth in Colorado, whose water was so flammable and contaminated with methane that she could light it on fire out of her sink.  She was showering in the dark because she was so afraid that a spark from her light bulb would blow her up in her shower. And I can imagine her standing there dripping, naked in the dark, terrified, something happened to her.

Or the Gee family, in Tioga County Pennsylvania. Five generations on the same land. Shell built a six well horizontal fracking pad 200 feet from their bedroom window.  Their pond was contaminated. Their water was flammable. They had to sell out and sign a non-disclosure agreement, selling their house of five generations to Shell.  And as they walked out on their first amendment rights, forced to walk out on their own first amendment rights to tell their story, away from their home and their right to tell their story, and left the house, closing the door realizing they didn’t have to lock it, I imagine something happened to the Gee Family.

Or Lois Frank, my good friend, the former chief of police of the Blood Tribe in Canada, who stood between her ancestral lands and invading fracking trucks. And as she was arrested, the former chief of police, just like so many were arrested in New Brunswick yesterday, I can imagine something happened.     

With drilling and fracking in 34 states, frac sand mining in a half dozen others, tar sands development in the west, oil shale in California and North Dakota, deep water drilling in the gulf and super storms in the east, Mountaintop removal for coal destroying Appalachia, the keystone pipeline proposed to run down the center of this country like a scar that won’t heal- we are all members of front line communities.  We are all in the target zone.  That’s our story.  That is what is happening to us. That’s why we’re here.  

So.  President Obama.  What happened to you?  We delivered you 650,000 signatures on a petition to ban fracking on public lands.  What happened to you, that your response was silence?  

It was a grassroots movement that elected you president. How can you be ignoring the largest grassroots movement for environmental justice and democratic reform in decades?

This is on you.  

We don’t just need you to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. We don’t just need you to ban fracking on public lands. We need you go out there and campaign for us as we campaigned for you. 

I know there can be no democracy without freedom from fossil fuels. I’ll say it again. There can be no democracy without freedom from fossil fuels.

I know I have a coal-fired power plant vibrating in my pocket
The text message reads:
LOL I just blew up your favorite mountain
I have a fracked gas well at home in my kitchen
I vote for okra, for brook trout I caught behind my house
But if I don’t storm the streets my recipe doesn’t include democracy
I have an oil spill on every station in my car radio
And I have trails of exhaled carbon floating in supermarket aisles
toppling over with 3,000-mile tomatoes
and 6,000-mile kiwis
Every meal I eat has a frequent flyer account
And every buzz, click, whirr and chime on one or another object
clinging to me is my consent.

But I have to remain optimistic. 

I know we can run the world on renewable energy. 

I met with French wine makers in Ardeche, the origin of that ban fracking movement in France. They won. They said we’re fighting off fracking to defend our wine. We have to be optimistic. We make wine. It’s our job to make people happy.

And as a filmmaker, I feel the same way. And as a participant in this movement, I feel the same way.

We are creating change right now. We are creating a change in the climate right now. The change in the political climate. The change in the climate of how it feels when we come together as communities. The change in what it means when we believe in ourselves. That’s climate change I can believe in.

We have to have values going forward even as things change.

We must remain human, as Tim DeChristopher said last Power Shift, as the climate changes.

So what do we have to do now?

We have to do what feels right.
Look, I’m not an organizer. I can’t organize a sock drawer.  I don’t even have a sock drawer. Some of you know what I’m talking about.
But I can make a film.  I can do that.  So that’s what I did.
And you have to enter this movement in whatever creative way your individuality summons you to.

But that’s not all.

You have to be a foot soldier. You have to show up. When Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein told me come and show up in front of the White House and get arrested to stop the Keystone XL, I showed up. 

And when the great organizers of this movement call upon us to stand in Illinois, to stand in front of the drilling rigs before they roll in, when we pledge to defend that home state of Obama and make it an issue for him, we have to show up.

When our democratic candidates in the state of Pennsylvania, we have 6,000 gas wells in Pennsylvania and 1,000 families petition to the DEP with water contamination, and not a single democratic candidate running right now for governor supports what 62% of Pennsylvanians support, which is a moratorium on all gas drilling and fracking in the state of Pennsylvania, when those democratic candidates don’t stand up for the majority of the people, when the organizers call upon you to bird-dog those candidates, those men and women seeking to represent Pennsylvania, you bird-dog them until they support the moratorium.   

Because if we are not in the streets, we aren’t anything.

I know movies don’t change the world. Our own individuality is a small part of this. Organizing changes the world. Showing up changes the world.

If we can find a way to take those great collective actions, I know that you will write a great story. You will write a great song, like the girl right before me. I know that you’re going to write a great history and change the world. 

Thank you.

END TEXT

We’ll be posting a couple times a week here, sharing posts from folks we met on the road, updates from the subjects of Gasland and Gasland Part II and a lot of pictures and stories of things we experienced on the road. 

But we also want to hear from you. Send me an email at screenings@gaslandthemovie.com if you want to us to share your story. 

On this day we have to remember those who died  and those who lost everything.

But more than just remembrance, we have to realize what it means.
We have to end our dependency on fossil fuels.
Unless we shift to renewables, events like Sandy will become more and more common
and our civilization will rush into one state of emergency after another.

Please take a look at my short film, made a few weeks after Sandy hit last year
and take a moment to contemplate.  The film features Bill McKibben, Occupy Sandy volunteers and
many brave and inspiring victims of the storm.

OCCUPY SANDY from JFOX on Vimeo.

But don’t just click and move on.  Take action now.

Sign up for our alerts to fight fracking.

Of course, we’re known for our feature films like GASLAND I and II but our short projects, which are always independent and not funded by a major studio, are sometimes just as important.  We will continue to make new work and share it with you here on our blog. We will also feature blogposts from folks around the world that are fighting against fracking that we think will inspire you.

Our blog and short works need funding. Please donate so that we can continue to make short films like Occupy Sandy in the future.

We are striving to continue to bring you this reporting

Thanks,
Josh

Please check out my new short film The Sky Is Pink

Also, please see below the recent Op-Ed written by me and Barbara Arindell for the Albany Times-Union:

Recently, politicians and publications have conditionally endorsed so-called “safe fracking” as a part of the nation’s energy mix. But safe fracking is an impossibility, and the industry’s claims for it are knowingly based on false premises.

Chief among them is the notion that a “leakproof well” is possible. We’ve heard time again that strict regulation is the key to moving forward on fracking, and that new regulations should make sure that industry constructs leakproof wells that do not pollute the water table. There is no such thing as a leakproof gas well. The gas industry knows this; in fact, it has known it for decades.

The part of the gas well that they’re relying on to protect groundwater is simply cement: about a 1-inch-thick layer between the steel casing and the surrounding rock. Cement is permeable before it sets, subject to cracking afterward and can never be made leakproof. A 1-inch layer could never be adequate when groundwater is at risk.

The gas industry’s own documents and case studies show that about 6 percent of cement jobs fail immediately upon installation, and recent experience in the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale has borne this out over and over again.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has tracked gas leaking from wells across the state. They found 6.2 percent of new gas wells were leaking in 2010, 6.2 percent in 2011 and 7.2 percent so far in 2012.

When the cement fails, it opens a pathway for gas and other toxins involved in the drilling and fracking process to migrate into groundwater and to the surface.

Cementing failure was what caused the blowout of the Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico, the ongoing enormous gas leak in the North Sea and contamination of groundwater onshore from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. Over the nearly four years the “Gasland” film team spent researching the issue on the ground, there was nowhere in the hundreds of cities and towns in 20 states we visited that didn’t have a significant groundwater contamination problem resulting from drilling and fracking.

The gas industry has been studying the ongoing problem for decades, and knows it full well. In a report entitled “Well Integrity Failure Presentation,” drilling service company Archer reports that nearly 20 percent of all oil and gas wells are leaking worldwide. A 2003 joint industry publication from Schlumberger, the world’s No. 1 fracking company, and oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips, cites astronomical failure rates of 60 percent over a 30-year span. Industry reports on the problem point to its persistence and the impossibility of completely preventing it.

This is technically impossible. In most cases the industry only acts to try to repair leaky wells after groundwater has been contaminated. Its track record for fixing leaks is plagued by bad planning, technical problems and mishaps. To imagine gas companies voluntarily committing to an eternity of costly maintenance on wells failing at ever-increasing rates is beyond credulity.

Nor have regulators addressed the problem with any realism. The argument that regulation can lead to “safe fracking” is senseless. To frack a well, you have to cement it, and cement inevitably fails. “Safe fracking” is a contradiction in terms.

Leaking oil and gas wells are more than statistics. Failure rates mean thousands across the nation have enough contaminants in their water and land to render them unfit for residential or agricultural use. They’re left with homes they are forced to abandon, and compromised health.

Yet we’ve almost totally failed to assess health impacts of fracking. The one study we know of is a preliminary one done in Colorado by the Colorado School of Public Health. It found a likelihood of moderate to severe health affects from drilling and fracking. Members of the New York state Legislature have joined with environmental groups to demand a full public health impact assessment before fracking is authorized here.

A health assessment is minimum due diligence when our water supply and public health hang in the balance. It’s not only the gas wells that have integrity problems; it is the oil and gas industry itself. We can believe in their self-interested assertions of leakproof wells about as much as we can expect pigs to fly. On both fronts, the only course is to rely on objective evidence.

Josh Fox and Barbara Arindell

Dear Friends:

The Delaware is the river that runs through the heart of the film GASLAND. We’ve kept drilling and fracking out of the river basin for the past three and a half years. Now the Delaware River faces its most grave and urgent threat.

Please see this video that Matt Sanchez and I just created to highlight the critical importance of the upcoming vote on October 21st in Trenton NJ:

This is an urgent call to the fans of GASLAND and to the anti-fracking movement across the nation:

Please act now to Save the Delaware River.

On October 21st, the Delaware River Basin Comission will vote on a plan to allow over 20,000 gas wells in the Delaware River Basin. We need calls to come from all over the nation and we need people from all over the region to come out in protest on October 21st.

The Delaware River Basin Commission is an intergovernmental body that is comprised of five voting members, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, Governor Christie of New Jersey, Governor Corbett of Pennsylvania, Governor Markell of Delaware, and the Obama Administration represented by the Army Corps of Engineers. For the Delaware River to be opened up to drilling, three out of the five have to vote yes on the draft regulations plan. We need them all to reject the proposal and reject gas drilling and fracking.

There has never been a more urgent moment in the Northeast in the battle against fracking. The Delaware is the primary drinking water source for 15.6 Million people and is a national treasure.

Here are 4 ways that you can participate:

1) Call the the Governors from the member states and President Obama TODAY and tell them, “Hello, I am calling you to express my serious concerns about hydrofracking. Please Don’t Drill the Delaware!”

Governor Christie’s office – 609-292-6000
Governor Cuomo’s office – 518-474-8390
Gov Corbett’s office – 717-787-2500
Gov Markell’s Wilmington Office – 302-577-3210
And the white house comment line is 202-456-1111
2) Come to the DRBC meeting in person!

When: October 21, 8 am

Where: Patriots Theater at the War Memorial, 1 Memorial Drive Trenton, N.J. Map HERE.

There are over 20 buses traveling in from all over the region. Click HERE for bus sign up.

3) Delaware Riverkeeper will be hosting a Peaceful Non-Violent Direct Action Training on October 20th. For more information, sign up HERE.

4) If you work with an organization fighting to keep our water safe from hydraulic fracturing, please send this alert to those in your membership, and post it on facebook.

We will continue to send updates in the coming weeks.

For more information go to www.savethedelawareriver.com or visit www.delawareriverkeeper.org

With your help, we can stop the poisoning of our historic rivers and move to renewable and sustainable energy solutions.

Thanks for all you do! Together we can turn the tide.

Josh and the Gasland Team

So many of us were working incredibly hard to stop the Keystone XL pipeline and we won this round.  I got arrested in front of the White House.   Almost all of my friends got arrested in front of the White House.  My mom got arrested in front of the White House.  And we stopped the pipeline for now.  We did it.  We owe a huge thanks to Bill McKibben and TarSandsAction and all of their brilliant organizers.

Now we can do the same to stop fracking in the Delaware River basin.

We’re not just going to sit back and enjoy victory are we?

We are going to keep up the momentum and get ready for November 21st!

I was on Democracy Now! today – take a moment to check out the video from that appearance:

We’ve come a long way in the fight against fracking.  The flaming faucets in GASLAND has been seen by upwards of 40 million people in 20 countries.  Our awareness campaign has worked.  A recent study shows that 4 out of 5 Americans say that they are concerned about the effect of fracking on drinking water.

Our most important stand is less than two weeks away.

On November 21st the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will vote to approve a plan that will allow for 20,000 or more fracked gas wells in the Delaware River Basin.  We need you to come out and protest the vote in huge numbers.