Can UAE-Backed Film Shut Down U.S. Fracking Boom?

IBD EDITORIALS ^ | December 21, 2012

[raptor22]

Energy: As the U.S. changes the balance of power by exporting some of its abundant natural gas resources, a Hollywood propaganda film debuts claiming the technology making it possible will poison America's small towns.

'Promised Land," a film that does nothing to alter Hollywood's stereotype of businessmen, particularly energy industry executives, as greedy plunderers of the planet, opens this week in selected theatres.

The anti-fracking film is based on a not-true story about well contamination in a small Pennsylvania town with a healthy dose of junk science.

As documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer, who is working on his own documentary, "FrackNation", has pointed out, the inspiration for the film was a spate of news reports about alleged ground water contamination from fracking wells in Dimock, Pa. "Promised Land" is set in rural Pennsylvania.

At one point, Hollywood celebrities even brought water to 11 families who claimed fracking had destroyed their water and their lives.

The only problem, notes McAleer, is the claims were debunked by both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Protection Agency, both of which found no evidence of contamination. But why spoil a good story with the facts?

The film about the alleged dangers of hydraulic fracturing, the scientific name for the process that uses fluids injected under pressure to shatter porous shale rock to release trapped oil and natural gas, comes amid a natural gas boom that has caused natural gas supplies to surge, promising both true energy independence and the prospect of the U.S. as a major energy exporter.

[Ditto]

I figured the movie was based on junk science,

If it's Hollywood and about science, it is by definition, junk science.

but didn’t know about the Arab oil money backing it.

If it's Hollywood and money from somewhere involved, you can bet your life they will dutifully say whatever the money wants them to say.

Those Malibu beach houses ain't cheep. Someone has to pay for them. ;~((

[lentulusgracchus]

Evidence: The current occupant of the White Hut.. duly elected by voter fraud and mob rule by mobsters(unions).. that is himself a pathological liar.. and probably worse...

I'll take "probably worse" for a thousand, Alex.

[lentulusgracchus]

Those Malibu beach houses ain't cheep. Someone has to pay for them.

Look on the bright side. Science and natural history agree that sometime in the next 500-1000 years, Southern California will be visited by a tsunami on the order of 1100' high traveling at 600 mph.

That would carry up to about the sundeck on Sylvester Stallone's house in the Beverly Hills.

My recommended point of observation would be about halfway up Mt. San Gorgonio. Good view, if it's a clear day, of Compton and La-La Land going away. More upside: The Valley probably wouldn't see as much water, and Jay Leno could probably do his show that night with dry feet. Which you'll be able to watch in your equally-dry, comfy room in the Burbank Holiday Inn.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks raptor22.

The anti-fracking film is based on a not-true story about well contamination in a small Pennsylvania town with a healthy dose of junk science. As documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer... has pointed out, the inspiration for the film was a spate of news reports about alleged ground water contamination from fracking wells in Dimock, Pa... the claims were debunked by both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Protection Agency, both of which found no evidence of contamination. But why spoil a good story with the facts?

[jonrick46]

I suggest we boycott the fracking movie.

[Dusty Road]

You forgot one of the biggest hazards of that time, our consumption of wood. Heating, cooking and building all involved wood, when the wood ran out you moved to where there was more wood. Look at pictures in the late 1800 and early 1900’s of those that lived in the midwest and how barren the landscapes were. My grandparent came out of Kansas during that period and wood was used like money.

[RedMonqey]

Look at pictures in the late 1800 and early 1900’s of those that lived in the midwest and how barren the landscapes were.

True..What shocked me was seeing pictures of that period in my home state of Tennessee.

Tennessee, if you haven't driven through is known for it's rolling hills covered with trees.

Well, it wasn't back then.

Timber was cut for building northeast cities, railroads and iron smelting.

Most of the states's parks are "second growth" forests from abandoned logging company lands that were considered worthless because it was so badly eroded..

There's probaly less than 5% virgin forests and that may be overstating it.

I was floored when I learned this!!!

[Nateman]

True. I don’t watch movies very often but if it is going to offend the left I do. (Atlas shrugs, hating Brietbart,The Passion etc.)