I caught director Josh Fox on Morning Joe this morning promoting his new HBO documentary, GASLAND -- a look at the environmentally unsound method of natural gas extraction known as hydraulic fracturing. The film will premiere on HBO Monday night, June 21st at 9PM. Take a look at the trailer (or read the synopsis):
Natural gas has been billed by its advocates as the cleaner, safer alternative to oil. But just like BP's uplifting "Beyond Petroleum" commercials (which irritated me even before the Gulf Oil Spill), it seems that the unsafe practices are once again hidden behind a thin varnish of trendy spokespeople, hip visuals and breezy music:
Increasing natural gas production as a means to going green has always seemed to me like a stop-gap measure anyway... what is the point of restructuring our energy economy to transition to another fossil fuel? Even if it is more abundant and somewhat cleaner than oil, it just doesn't make much sense to me, because fossil fuel resources are inherently finite, which means eventually we will have to make another change. It's understandable that people are anxious about making big changes in our energy economy, but to me it's sort of like taking off a band-aid: it hurts less if you do it all at once.
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