In our first video from filmmaker Josh Fox, he explains how he came to take on hydraulic fracturing and the natural gas industry, culminating in his 2010 Oscar-nominated documentary, Gasland:
Last week, Sarah Laskow summarized the evolution of both the anti-fracking movement and Josh’s involvement in it:
When Fox first started this project five years ago, he was an avant-garde theater writer and director. After his family received an offer from a gas company to lease his land, he spun his own questions about fracking into a powerful investigative film. Now, three years after Gasland became a sensation, he’s one of the leading activists in the fight against fracking.
In the years between Fox’s two films, that fight has intensified. Big environmental groups (like the Sierra Club) that once worked with the natural gas industry started pushing back against fracking. The Obama administration strengthened its support for the development of natural gas resources. New York keeps delaying its decision on whether to allow fracking; Pennsylvania keeps letting the industry get away with doing pretty much whatever it wants. Whether to frack or not is no longer a good-faith policy debate. The two sides are engaged in “a war for who was going to tell this story,” as Fox puts it, and it’s escalating.
Gasland Part II just premiered at Tribeca and will air on HBO this summer. Ask Anything archive here.
The Dish 