“The Sky is Pink” (on Mars)…
“The Sky is Pink” (2012) is a short documentary film by Josh Fox made as a follow-up to his controversial 2010 film “Gasland”1 about the current rush of oil and gas corporations to use public lands to extract natural gas. The process is called ‘hydraulic fracturing’ or ‘fracking’. It was developed by (guess who?) the Halliburton Corporation.
It is a très bad idea. The petroleum consortiums are going all out to convince voters to vote2,3 for the party that ‘supports’ domestic oil and gas production… using the standard raft of half-truths, misinformation and out-and-out lies. I’ll give you a hint: the ‘party’ in question is NOT the Democrats. You may have seen some of those 30 sec. “… and I’m an energy voter” spots currently slathered all over television… While not coming right out and saying “Vote Republican!”, the intent is crystal clear. They have also spent millions to discredit Josh Fox and “Gasland”… while Mr. Fox may have got a few fiddling details wrong, the vast bulk of information in the film is spot on4.
I was a bit surprised to hear of David Letterman’s (apparently) off-the-cuff rant5 against fracking this week. More people should follow his example to get their collective thumbs out of their collective asses and drink more vodka! 
‘Fracking’ is a ridiculously dangerous thing to do and should not be permitted ANYWHERE. You can’t ‘uncontaminate’ an aquifer! Once ruined, it’s RUINED, and plants, animals, people and everything up and down the food chain are put at great risk. The corporations involved display a stunning lack of concern and continue to count their ‘filthy lucre’ while dismantling the EPA. Check the links and watch the films and judge for yourself.
1 YouTube: Gasland (2010) (complete film)
2 “I Vote” advert (the American Petroleum Institute)
3 America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA)
4 Map of ‘fraccidents’ in the U.S.
5 David Letterman on-air rant on fracking: 18 July 2012. (The Late Show).
If THIS is how we intend to “protect America’s energy security” to avoid paying for foreign gas and oil, then I say we should just go ahead and belly up to the OPEC bar. Is $10/gallon gas in the offing? Maybe. But better that by FAR than ruining America’s water supply. The bottom line is we have to get OFF FOSSIL FUELS… even if that means being dragged ‘kicking and screaming’ into the future.
Ideally, I would recommend watching “GasLand” before seeing “The Sky Is Pink” (in the order they were made and released), but I was afraid a full-length film at the top of the post might put you all off. I first saw ‘GasLand’ on HBO last year and was shocked (but not really surprised).
The insidious methods of Big Oil are pretty frightening. They’ve managed a WAIVER from the Clean Water Act (!!) to continue their practices. In the cases where guilt is inescapable, they pay off the victims… on the condition that they sign non-disclosure agreements, effectively muzzling the victims and thus avoiding civil/criminal liability.
This SHOULD be a loud-and-clear wakeup call (among many) to ALL Americans that we are simply exhausting the Earth’s ability to satisfy our gluttony for petroleum. Now we’re going after the ‘scraps’ (but very lucrative scraps). The problem here is that it’s not isolated in oil and gas fields, but in people’s back yards. It is abundantly clear such operations are NOT SAFE.
You can’t drink gasoline.
Comment on July 23, 2012 @ 7:44 am
“You can’t drink gasoline.”
Precisely – but as long as water is cheaper than gasoline people don’t seem to care. But when water rationing was put in place here during the drought people screamed because they said they had to let all the plants die, but they still illegally washed their cars and hosed down their driveways. Maybe there should be a limit on how many cars anyone could own and more than just the price of gas to pay for vehicles like Hummers – say an abuse tax.
Comment on July 23, 2012 @ 11:23 am