We’ve seen this myth unravel again and again. Whether it’s Chesapeake Energy stiffing folks on royalties or local Pennsylvanians telling us there were a few jobs for them at first in the oil and gas fields being drilled in their own backyards but they quickly got phased out by guys from Texas, it’s clear fracking is not the local economic savior the industry makes it out to be.

The residents of Denton, Texas are seeing what fracked communities from Pennsylvania to Colorado are seeing. Adam Briggle says it all in our video of the week, “We get the off the book costs, the pollution, the spills, the noise, ozone and doctors bills, the truck traffic, lost property values and blowouts while the lion’s share of the wealth pours out of town.”

And they’re fed up. They’ve tried to regulate fracking to keep wells away from their homes and schools, but they’ve discovered what others across the country have. The only way to keep our communities safe is to ban fracking.

Frack Free Denton has gathered more than the required signatures to put their fracking ban initiative on the November ballot. A ban in Texas, an oil and gas state, would be an incredible victory for the entire anti-fracking movement.

Please watch and share this great short by Adam Briggle of the Denton Drilling Awareness Group that simply, but effectively lays out the facts and destroys the myth that fracking is helping the local community of Denton.

Lee Ziesche, Gasland Grassroots Coordinator

Siena is a 10 year old Fractivist from California.  She’s a strong, motivated young lady on a mission to ban fracking, at local, state and national levels.

To spread awareness about these issues, she has given Tedx speeches, lobbied State Legislators, given speeches to Democratic clubs throughout Southern California, and has spoken at Rallies at the Governor’s office, the Federal Courthouse, Cal State Long Beach, and the most recent nationwide Climate Action March – to encourage California Governor Brown, President Obama, and other elected officials about the urgent need to take action now before it is too late and any more irreversible damage is done.  She firmly believes that every single person can help to make a difference, given the right tools and information.

From Siena: “Everyone’s action today directly impacts tomorrow.  If you want your children and grandchildren to have clean water to drink, clean food to eat, and clean air to breathe – then FRACKING MUST BE BANNED NOW!”

California Fractivist, like Siena, are making their voices heard. Los Angles City Council unanimously voted to write a moratorium on fracking and thousands of Californians will come together on March 15th for a rally in Sacramento to tell Governor Jerry Brown to ban fracking.  As California faces a record drought, it’s more apparent than ever that fracking is not the answer. Please share this video and amplify Siena’s message to Governor Jerry Brown and President Barack Obama “No fracking in California! No fracking anywhere! “

We can only continue to share stories like these with your support. Please consider making a donation to the Gasland team today. 

While California faces crazy droughts, coal ash spills into North Carolina’s rivers and dangerous chemicals have poisoned water in West Virginia, the moratorium against toxic hydro-fracking goes into a fourth year in New York state.

Born and raised in Queens my water is still safe to drink. So who’s been fighting against multi-billion dollar gas companies since the beginning?

What if I told you there are separate countries, different languages, and war treaties that were debated upon more than a thousand years ago just 5 hours northwest of New York City? When it was revealed to me, it was a shock to my system.

In the United States, Native American nations have their own governments, own languages, religions, schools, casinos and hockey teams. Traveling to Syracuse, New York, we visited the Onondaga Nation, part of the Haundonsaune confederacy; an alliance of six nations of Native American people nearly a thousand years old. I met up with folks from the Oneida, Mohawk and Seneca tribes too, they all agree fracking is bad for the Earth.

I’ve lived in New York City my whole life among 8 million people, and I’ve learnt a few lessons from the Haundonsaune confederacy. We may be stuck between fluorescent lights, elevators, fake leafs in lobbies and dollar slices of Pizza, but we still share the same water, air and planet. That’s all free without charge. While indigenous peoples still exist after thousands of years, will the high-speed natural gas life do the same? I checked in with some organizers and native people of New York to find out. Stay following the Gasland blog for updates.

If you want to join in to stop fracking, check out Two Row Wampum Campaign and New Yorkers Against Fracking for the latest events in New York.

-Messiah Rhodes, Filmmaker

http://RhodesPictures.com

We can only continue to share stories like these with your support. Please consider donating $5 to the Gasland team today.  

What struck me most about this incredible reporting from the Center for Public Integrity, InsideClimate News, and The Weather Channel was the segment that begins with an interview with Neil Carman, formally with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. He said that he “dealt with over a thousand citizen complaints. I concluded that when citizens complained about air pollution, they were always right. There was a problem.”  

The industry comes back saying that the data doesn’t show a threat to public health.

Then, Jim Morris, the reporter from the Center for Public Integrity, highlights that the proper data collection that would prove what residents believe is happening is indeed happening isn’t currently being done.

We’ve seen so many similar situations all across the country while investigating for Gasland and Gasland Part II. People know there’s something wrong. Their bodies are telling them something is not right.  Their families have lived on the same land for generations and they are seeing the changes. Every part of them, from their minds, to their eyes, to their guts from their burning throats, nose bleeds, and migraines, is screaming “something is wrong”

I trust these families. I trust them more than the industry. I trust them more than the politicians.

And I trust that you can make a difference. No news report or scientific study is going to make an impact unless you act.

Share this video and join our movement today by signing up and finding your local grassroots group at www.gaslandthemovie.com

And please tweet and post this remarkable new video and report. You can find it here: http://eagleford.publicintegrity.org/

-Lee Ziesche, Gasland Grassroots Coordinator

Last week  the Science, Space and Technology Committee, in a hearing titled  Examining the Science of EPA Overreach: A Case Study in Texas, denied the scientific evidence that proves unconventional drilling and fracking contaminated ground water in Parker County, Texas.

Sound familiar?

It should, because the same committee attacked the EPA and their scientific evidence that proved unconventional drilling and fracking contaminated ground water in Pavilion, Wyoming two years ago.

Our video of the week is a flashback to Josh’s appearance on Democracy Now! after he was arrested for trying to cover that congressional hearing two years ago.

It was strange to be in the exact same room that I’ve seen in footage of Josh getting arrested so many times.

But even more so, it was incredibly disheartening to be there last week with Steve and Shyla Lipsky, almost two years to the day that Josh got arrested, and see that so little has changed.

Josh Fox and Steve & Shyla Lipsky at congressional hearing

Two years ago, Josh was hopefully that the EPA would stand up for families in Pavilion, Wyoming and Dimock, Pennsylvania and stand up for the truth the science in those cases proved. Today, the EPA has walked away from those cases and the families in Parker County, Texas.

The EPA has abandoned them, but these families from Parker County, Pavilion and Dimock are not giving up on the truth and the justice they know should be promised to them in our country. Directly following the hearing, they met with members of congress and held a briefing to share what it’s been like for them to live in Gasland.

Steve and Shyla Lipsky meeting with congressional staff

Ray Kemble, Dimock, Pennsylvania resident, speaking at the EPA Fracking Investigations: A Community Perspective briefing

Because of them, I still have hope.

-Lee Ziesche, Gasland Grassroots Coordinator

After fighting shale gas development for almost 6 years in Pennsylvania, and seeing the government choose the side of oil and gas company profits over public safety, this decision is a landmark for all Pennsylvanians’ rights.

The tide of public opinion has turned against fracking, with almost 2/3 of Pennsylvanians in support of a moratorium. This decision says unequivocally putting fracking profits over people is unconstitutional.

Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director of Delaware Riverkeeper Network, speaking at a rally in Harrisburg, PA.

Not From Gasland Journal: Take that, you bullies!

While we are all fighting the stranglehold the oil and gas industry has on Gasland, more often than not it’s difficult to claim many advances.  But last week a truly historic decision was declared when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out Act 13, a law crafted by the industry and their cronies in Harrisburg and signed into law by Governor Corbett in February 2012.  Act 13 preempted municipal zoning and planning of oil and gas operations, established mandatory waivers of stream setbacks contained in state law, and took away the rights of local governments to protect the public trust.  

But immediately a fight ensued.  Never mind that everything in Pennsylvania seemed to be going the gas corporations’ way, that $23 Million has been spent by the gas industry to influence Pennsylvania (PA) politicians, that Governor Tom Corbett’s election campaign has received over $1.8 M, and that the industry was running roughshod in a gas extraction frenzy that leaves ruined communities, destroyed natural resources and polluted water supplies in its wake.  A legal challenge was essential because and it was a violation of the Constitution and if allowed to stand, the law was a death knell for Pennsylvania and its people.

Seven municipalities, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and Dr. Mehernosh Khan, a physician practicing in southwestern PA, challenged Act 13 as unconstitutional, relying heavily on Article 1, Section 27 of the PA Constitution, the Environmental Rights Amendment.  The municipalities are:  Township of Robinson, Washington County; Township of Nockamixon, Bucks County; Township of South Fayette, Allegheny County; Peters Township, Washington County; Township of Cecil, Washington County; Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County; and the Borough of Yardley, Bucks County.

Anti- Fracking rally in Harrisburg, PA

On July 26, 2012 the Commonwealth Court declared the statewide zoning provisions in Act 13 unconstitutional, null, void and unenforceable.  The Court also struck down the provision of the law that required DEP to grant waivers to the setback requirements in Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Act.  Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Dr. Kahn lost standing.  The Commonwealth appealed.  On October 17, 2012 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard arguments that Pennsylvania’s Act 13 is unconstitutional, unjustly supersedes all local ordinances related to oil and gas operations, extinguishes municipal zoning of these operations, and exposes the public and the environment to pollution and degradation from these activities.  The Court deliberated for more than a year.

On December 19, 2013 the PA Supreme Court ruled that Act 13 violates the Pennsylvania Constitution.  In doing so, the Court struck down the shale gas industry’s effort to force every municipality in the state to allow gas drilling and related industrial operations in every zoning district, rejected one-size-fits-all zoning, the removal of public trust obligations of government officials to local citizens, and the waivers for stream setbacks as unconstitutional.  Chief Justice Castille authored the historic majority opinion.  Justices Todd, McCaffrey and Baer agreed on the unconstitutionality of the provisions, resulting in a 4 to 2 decision.

Justices Castille, Todd, and McCaffrey held that the provisions violate Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution – the Environmental Rights Amendment.  Chief Justice Castille stated that “we agree with the citizens that, as an exercise of the police power, Sections 3215(b)(4) and (d), 3303, and 3304 are incompatible with the Commonwealth’s duty as trustee of Pennsylvania’s public natural resources.” The three Justices recognized that the Plaintiffs sought to “vindicate fundamental constitutional rights that, they say, have been compromised by a legislative determination that violates a public trust.”

In reviewing Section 3303, the three Justices affirmatively noted that the public trust obligations imposed by Section 27 run to all levels of government in the Commonwealth, including municipalities.  As a constitutional obligation to local citizens, the Justices expressly recognized that no statute can remove such an obligation from municipalities, and likewise cannot remove the “implicitly necessary authority to carry into effect its constitutional duties.”  The Court understood that local citizens made investments in their communities based on expectations created by local ordinances, including local ordinances that sought to protect local public trust resources.  To the Court, Section 3303 effectively “commands municipalities to ignore their obligations under Article I, Section 27 and further directs municipalities to take affirmative action to undo existing protections of the environment in their localities” to the detriment of local citizens.

In discussing Section 3304’s uniform zoning provisions, Justices Castille, Todd, and McCaffrey agreed that the provisions “sanctioned a direct and harmful degradation of the environmental quality of life in these communities and zoning districts.”  They also concluded that the Act forced some citizens to bear “heavier environmental and habitability burdens than others” in violation of Section 27’s mandate that public trust resources be managed for the benefit of all the people.  Further, the three Justices found similar constitutional infirmities in Section 3304 as they found in Section 3303, in that Section 3304 “removes local government’s necessary and reasonable authority to carry out its trustee obligations” because it “prohibit[ed] the enactment of ordinances tailored to local conditions.”

As for Section 3215(b)(4), which established mandatory waivers of stream setbacks, the three Justices found this provision equally infirm.  Based on the Commonwealth’s argument as to Section 3215(b)(4), the Justices struck the entirety of Section 3215(b).  The Justices agreed with the Commonwealth that the waivers provision in Section 3215(b)(4) could not be read independent of the rest of Section 3215(b).  In reviewing the entirety of Section 3215(b), the Justices disapprovingly noted that “Section 3215(b) appears to provide for nothing more than a set of voluntary setbacks or, as an alternative, the opportunity for a permit applicant to negotiate with the Department of Environmental Protection the terms or conditions of its oil or natural gas well permit,” finding it “remarkabl[e]” that the DEP had the burden of proving protective conditions to be necessary.  Further, because Section 3215(d) did not require the DEP to act on local concerns raised in comments to the DEP, “Section 3215 fosters decisions regarding the environment and habitability that are non-responsive to local concerns” to the detriment of public trust beneficiaries – Pennsylvania citizens.

Justice Baer concurred in finding Act 13 unconstitutional, agreeing with the Commonwealth Court’s reasoning.  Justice Baer stated that the provisions “force municipalities to enact zoning ordinances, which violate the substantive due process rights of their citizenries.”  He further noted “Pennsylvania’s extreme diversity” in municipality size and topography and that zoning ordinances must “give consideration to the character of the municipality,” among other factors, which Act 13 did not.  In recognizing what Act 13 meant for local municipalities, Justice Baer stated, “As Challengers point out, Act 13 makes it easier for Chevron to establish a drilling rig in the middle of a corn field than a church to build a small ten-pew worship space in the same field.”

Shale Gas Outrage outside of Governor Corbett's office

In a reversal of the findings of the Commonwealth Court, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Dr. Khan satisfies standing requirements. The court noted that “existing jurisprudence permits pre-enforcement review of statutory provisions in cases in which petitioners must choose between equally unappealing options and where the third option, here refusing to provide medical services to a patient, is equally undesirable.” Opinion at 25. In other words, provisions of Act 13 put Dr. Khan in the untenable and objectionable position of choosing between violating Act 13’s confidentiality agreement and “violating his legal and ethical obligations to treat a patient by accepted standards, or not taking a case and refusing a patient medical care.” Id. Therefore, Dr. Khan’s interests were indeed “substantial and direct…not remote,” and conferred standing. Opinion at 26. The Court remanded Dr. Kahn’s case to the Commonwealth Court for further proceedings.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court also reversed Commonwealth Court’s finding that the Delaware Riverkeeper Network lacked standing in this case. Specifically, the court found that DRN’s members engendered “a substantial and direct interest in the outcome of the litigation premised upon the serious risk of alteration in the physical nature of their respective political subdivisions and the components of their surrounding environment. This interest is not remote.” Opinion at 21-22. Further, the court also found that Maya van Rossum, as the Executive Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, also has standing in her official capacity to represent the membership’s interests.” Opinion at 22. The ruling therefore sets important precedent for what immediate interest or harm environmental organizations and their members need to demonstrate in order to properly establish standing.

The Supreme Court ruling is looking like a turning point, a watershed moment, for Pennsylvania.  The Petitioners knew they would win if the law was still held sacred by the state’s highest Court.  But how big the win is exceeds expectations.  The Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA) now has new life and the application of that life has the potential to renew the potency of what should be the bottom line in environmental decision making.  That foundation is the health of our communities and the environment that sustains us and future generations.  By recognizing the power of ERA, the Court upholds the right of citizens and reaffirms the responsibility of our elected officials to protect the public trust, to fight for people and our natural world to be the priority, not greedy corporations and their shills.

It is inspiring to read that the Court stated, ““As the citizens illustrate, development of the natural gas industry in the Commonwealth unquestionably has and will have a lasting, and undeniably detrimental, impact on the quality of these core aspects [life, health, and liberty: surface and ground water, ambient air, etc.] of Pennsylvania’s environment, which are part of the public trust.” Opinion at 117.

Additionally, the Court stated, “By any responsible account, the exploitation of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce a detrimental effect on the environment, on the people, their children, and future generations, and potentially on the public purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental effects of coal extraction.” Opinion at 118.

Delaware River screening of Gasland

These findings apply beyond Pennsylvania and support the truth we all know about Gasland.  That the highest Court in the most recently intensely drilled state in the Nation has declared gas extraction operations to be undeniably harmful to the environment and a threat to future generations and potentially the public purse, puts wind under our sails everywhere we are struggling to take back what the industry has stolen.

The Decision and concurring opinion can be found at: http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/resources/Reports/Opinion%20J-127A-D-2012oajc.pdf

Submitted by Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum, Attorneys Jordan Yeager and Lauren Williams and Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

After over 45 Gasland Part II screenings across the globe, we’ve seen a lot of awesome activist t-shirts. 

I love them because they always reflect the distinct characteristic of the place we’re at and the people organizing there. One of my favorites is a t-shirt organizers from Denton, Texas made.

Organizers from Denton, Texas

It has a football player dodging through drilling rigs and says ‘Don’t Frack the Home Team’ on the back. But that’s exactly what is happening in Denton, where a drilling rig is right near the Apogee Stadium, where the University of North Texas plays.

And it’s not just the football field. In 2010, a drilling company drilled three wells right next to homes, a hospital, and a public park with a playground, forcing people to come together to form the Denton Drilling Awareness Group which has been fighting for more robust ordinances to protect health, safety, public welfare, and community integrity ever since.

DAG organizers at the Gasland Part II screening in Fort Worth, Texas

We’ve seen this all over the country. Rigs, condensate tanks and compressor stations right in people’s backyards, putting dangerous toxins just a stone’s throw or soft breeze away from families.

Below is a post from Adam Briggle, of the DAG,  reposted from his blog Drilling Denton that will show you just how close to home drilling in Denton is.

Frack to the Future: Why Are Drilling Rigs so Close to Homes in Denton?

Denton’s new drilling ordinance established a 1,200 foot setback between gas wells and protected uses like homes. But the future of fracking in Denton is going to be a story about gas wells much, much closer to homes than that. 

We first got a glimpse of our future in April, just a few months after the ordinance was passed, when a development was approved that would put homes less than 250 feet from gas wells.

Now the picture is becoming even clearer. EagleRidge is drilling two wells simultaneously off of Vintage and S. Bonnie Brae. There are some homes just 100 feet from the pad sites. Many more homes are just 500 feet, or less, away. The diesel engines on site are pumping out black smoke.

I took this picture down there as the school bus was dropping off children. You can see one of the wells (south side)  – there was another one, even closer, behind me as I took the picture. The future of fracking in Denton is going to look like this: polluting industries plopped right next to houses. And all the activity we are seeing now is just the appetizer for the rush that is going to happen when we really start exporting natural gas and prices spike. 

Here is the Railroad Commission GIS image for the wells. 

And just tonight, the Planning and Zoning Commission approved another project that will bring homes 100 feet from a gas well.

You might wonder how this could be when the new ordinance seems to make this illegal. The answer is that the 1,200 foot setback in the ordinance does not apply to situations where new homes are built around existing gas well pad sites. I don’t quite know why this is. It has something to do with vested rights…but it also just seems to be a terrible oversight in the ordinance. DAG recommended fixing this problem. But that idea didn’t get any play.

Most of the pad sites that will ever be in Denton are already platted and at least partly developed. And most of them are south and west of town where lots of our population growth is likely to occur. So, we are going to see more and more situations where homes are in very close proximity to pad sites where new wells will be added and old wells will be reworked and refracked for years to come. And none of this will be covered by our so-called current ordinance. 

We have learned that fracking and neighborhoods do not mix. But we are going to keep on mixing them. 

Some will say that this is acceptable, because those homebuyers are making an informed decision to move next to a gas well. But they are not. They don’t know it is coming. I have heard from several folks in the neighborhood where I took this picture, and they tell me that this came as a surprise. Some say they wouldn’t have bought homes there if they knew this was going to happen.

Oh, and readers of this blog won’t be shocked to learn that the people in this neighborhood do not own any of the mineral rights and, thus, are not making a dime from the drilling. Records from the Denton Central Appraisal District show that the mineral ownership of these wells is split between five owners in Dallas, Austin, Abilene, and Lewisville.

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. 

I’m calling on Governor Hickenlooper to immediately enact a statewide ban on all extractive mining operations/Fracking until such time all completed wells in Colorado are just inspected in accordance with flood plain regulations. Current setbacks from water ways have unequivocally proven they do not prevent adverse impacts. This oversight must be immediately addressed on every oil & gas well pad in the state. The horrific environmental and human health catastrophe from the spills & releases from subsurface flow lines, crud oil and  liquid waste tanks must be immediately evaluated and mitigated. There is also a high probability of well casing failures due to the waters seeping down around the annuli and must be an immediate issue of concern.

Pipes were shown broken with what appeared to be bubbling methane releases in numerous areas. The waters are certain to contain BTEX and other dangerous chemicals. Organic farms have been affected by these very waters. Cattle have been pushed up onto small areas with no safe water to drink.

The areas along the South Platte River are destroyed beyond measure and the GOGCC and the industry should be fully held accountable for failing to prevent adverse impacts to the environment and human health.

An immediate statewide moratorium is a sound decision considering the current state rules and regulations are highly inadequate.

–

Shane Davis
@fractivist
Regional Campaign Director – GASLAND

I’ve heard Josh talk about how scary and lonely it felt when the gas industry first came knocking on his door on more than one occasion.

But then a strong, passionate community rose up, and he realized that he wasn’t alone.

We’re all in this together. Our hearts all sink when we see families like the Fentons and Lipskys suffering because of drilling. Our spirits all rise when we see areas like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Longmont, Colorado achieve a ban. And our eyes have all been glued to the battle going on in Balcombe, UK because their fight is our fight.

Tomorrow we’ll screen for the European Parliament, and it’s never been more clear to us how connected we all are. Walking down the street of Brussels we fortuitously bumped into activist from Bulgaria and New York. Talking to them, the similarities between the movements going on across the globe reveals a connectivity that transcends borders.

Below is a post we wanted to share from Frack Off, a group of activist on the front lines of the fight in Balcombe. They’ve shown an amazing amount of strength and tenacity that we can all learn from and take to heart in our own towns and cities because as they so perfectly stated, their’s is just one battle in a global struggle.

-Lee Ziesche, Gasland Grassroots Coordinator

The sleepy village of Balcombe in West Sussex has until recently not been a place you would associate with industrial development. The surrounding countryside is among the most picturesque you will see out of the train window on the line between London and the seaside town of Brighton. This has all changed since fracking company, Cuadrilla Resources, infamous for the earthquakes it caused when it fracked the first and so far only shale gas well in the UK, set its sights on the village. Cuadrilla wants to drill a shale oil exploration well in Balcombe, targeting a similar formation to the Bakken Shale in North Dakota, but at a much shallower depth.

When local residents realised what was happening the company mobilised its PR machine to win them over. However a public meeting in the village in January 2012 saw Cuadrilla’s management besieged by 300 angry locals, and the company have since avoided similar events. The company has pressed on and with all bureaucratic options for resistance exhausted, a call-out was made for people to gather outside the site when the first equipment arrived. So began the community blockade that has so far lasted over a month. People and groups from across Sussex and the UK have rallied round in support and it is now settling down into a war of attrition, similar to that which ultimately defeated plans for a massive road building program which threatened to carve up the countryside in the early 1990s.

While Cuadrilla have not published any estimates of how much shale oil there might be, a recent report by the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) suggests there could be up to 700 million barrels in the Weald Basin, mostly in Sussex. Given the typical low total production of a shale oil well this would require around 5,000 wells to be drilled. In the Bakken these wells are now being drilled at density of 4 per square mile, with 1.8 mile long horizontals fractured in up to 40 stages along their length. but rather than a population density of 11 people per square mile in North Dakota, there are 1,100 per square mile in Sussex.

Across the UK a similar wave of unconventional oil and gas extraction is being planned, both Shale an Coal Bed Methane (CBM). As easier to extract fossil fuel resources are depleted by unsustainable levels of energy consumption the system is resorting ever more extreme methods to feed itself. As extraction effort grows the pollution, social disruption and the fraction of the economy that must be devoted to energy extraction are also increasing. Licences are also being given away for Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), an insane technique which involves setting fire to coal seams underground and piping the resulting gases to the surface.

Globally the picture is equally bleak, with extreme energy threatening to spread across the planet. Spare a thought for farmers in West Bengal, India already under massive stress from climate change and globalisation, where a huge wave of CBM wells are now planned. These unconventional fossil fuels are also extra carbon which we cannot possibly afford to burn and avert catastrophic climate change. This fight is not about any one technology or country, but about the whole future direction of human society. Will we descend into a extreme energy nightmare where we live, and die, in the shadow of vast energy extraction projects which mainly exist to feed themselves. Or can communities across the planet revolt against the horrific future that is planned from them and take a different course.

-Frack Off UK

From day one, it’s been people like you at the heart of this movement. You’ve become the inspiration that keeps us going and the reason GASLAND Part II exists.

But we’re not done yet. Before we begin our tour this summer, and bring GASLAND Part II to communities across the country, we need your help with two things.

1. Can you reach out to five friends and ask them to join us?

2. Fill out this form and let us know who you are. This movement has grown exponentially since we started, and we need to know which organizations and communities are with us.

Gasland inspired the world to take a closer look at the dangers of fracking, but it’s been supporters like you who have kept it at the forefront of the national debate.

In GASLAND Part II, we have undertaken an unflinching, fearless investigation of the toxic influences polluting our democracy. GASLAND Part II delves even deeper into the corrupt and poisonous world of hydraulic fracturing, exposing the forces desperately working to keep us addicted to the shrinking resources of the fossil fuel industries.

Ultimately, GASLAND Part II calls us to action, demanding that We The People do “The most we can do”, and that we command our elected officials to pursue a future we can all live in.

You can answer that call right now.

Ask five friends to join us today. We’ll keep them updated on screenings and ways to get involved.

And if you’ve been involved all along, fill out this form so we know where we stand and how best to support the incredible movement you’ve built.

Love,
Josh and The GASLAND Team

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