Gasland, Parts 1 and 2

This is a picture of Josh Fox; he looks like a hippy or flower child sitting by the river with his banjo. He has more fervor than most of the '70s activists had. He is a man of determination, skill perseverence. He produced, narrated, wrote Gasland parts 1 and 2, trying to tell us what is happening throughout, not only American, but the world as natural gas companies fracture the earth beneath out continent, pouring hundreds of chemicals into our aquifers, sickening people, animals and polluting the food we grow, all in pursuit of cheap fuel .... at the expense of the ecology, the health of millions and the beauty of the country.

Much has now been written about fracking -- search for it, read about it. I am too distraut to write about it.  I have seen both Josh's films in the last six weeks and I am unable to express my horror at what is not only happening to the ecology but also to a government that once did not bow to  the greed of corporations -- indeed did not believe corporations are "people" -- special people, who don't have to pay taxes in the same way other people do, corporations that can buy Congressmen with their huge contribution which, unlike other people they don't have to disclose. Corporations who have hired the best PR firms to brain the American people about the need for natural gas and it's "safety" the way we were taught to love Coke, cars, television and tranquilizers.

In the sequel, Josh Fox shows how fracking is being done in nearly every continent in the world; that utter disregard for human and ecological safety means they are even fracking at the Saint Andreas fault, and many other earthquake prone sites. Last week's NYTimes Book Review featured Al Gore reviewing Elizabeth Kolbert's book The Sixth Extinction. I'm not sure if Kolbert talks about fracking, but she is not the first to see that extinctions are happening throughout the animal and vegetable ecosystems. We are aiming to make ourselves extinct as well -- when our water becomes so pulluted we sicken, when the methane (which fracking dumps into the atmosphere at a greater rate than any other pollutant) utterly changes our climate -- and we are seeing that throughout the world -- we are headed toward chaos. 

Fox's documentaries and all the rest I know are simply too horrible to think about very long. Many people refuse to believe the well known facts; that's one way to live with what's happening. I believe the horror of what is happening even if I am able to life out the rest of my life with comfort and reasonably good health, as i expect will be the case, I am hurting about what is happening and I feel utterly unable to do anything but write and talk about it, And that's not enough to make a difference,