Clik here to view.
Gasland, screened on HBO this summer and making the rounds at festivals and in small screenings, shines a very bright spotlight on a government-abetted boom in natural gas drilling—and its dire environmental consequences. That boom is being led by a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in which chemical-laden water is pressure-pumped deep underground to free up hidden pockets of gas.
Fox's point? A new Wild West of natural gas drilling—far from the promised panacea for our energy problems—is actually a sinister threat to our streams and water supplies.
The idea came after an energy company offered a princely sum of cash to lease his family's land for a well. Fox figured there was a catch, and wound up embarking on a month-long cross-country roadtrip. He interviewed dozens of people living in the shadow of gas wells—some who could torch their tap water!—and came out with a pretty damning film.
It's so damning (stock prices fell briefly for some of the firms in the film), that the energy industry got a PR team to craft a point-by-point rebuttal on a glossy Web site. Of course, Fox has his own rebuttal to the rebuttal. But the images in the film really do speak for themselves.
I was particularly interested in asking Fox about the industry's response, what it was like making the movie, and what kinds of action he thinks we need to take next. The questions and answers come after the jump.
