A friend of mine recently hosted a home screening of the documentary\u00a0Gasland 2<\/em>\u00a0by Josh Fox. The film exposes the environmental and health dangers of \u201cfracking,\u201d a technology used to extract unconventional natural gas trapped below shale and coal bed rock formations. Although vilified by the gas and oil industry, Fox\u2019s first documentary Gasland<\/em>\u00a0was nominated for an academy award and won a special jury prize at the Sundance film festival.<\/p>\n Both Gasland<\/em>\u00a0documentaries reveal information about fracking rarely covered in corporate owned media. If you are at all concerned about global warming, the environment, or the growing influence of corporations in government, Gasland 2<\/em> is a must see film. You will come away convinced that fracking is dangerous and needs to be stopped. There\u2019s hope. The entire state of New York has banned fracking\u2014at least temporarily. When citizens mobilize and push back hard, democracy works. You can catch Gasland 2 on HBO and watch the first Gasland on Netflix.<\/p>\n But, be forewarned. In 2010, the Guardian<\/em><\/a> reported that the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security placed Actor Mark Ruffalo on a US terror list because he organized screenings of the first Gasland documentary and openly campaigned against fracking. Yes, you too could be named a terrorist for organizing viewings of Gasland 2<\/em>, for calling for the end of fracking, for campaigning against Monsanto and its bee-killing pesticides, or demonstrating against the extension of the Keystone pipeline. In a corporate controlled government, if you are an activist or a journalist who questions or protests corporate or government activities, you exercise your first amendment rights at your own risk.<\/p>\n Obama\u2019s speech on climate change<\/strong><\/p>\n In his recent speech on climate change, Obama brilliantly managed to push fracking without using the word fracking. He simply repeated the industry’s carefully parsed talking points.<\/p>\n Now, even as we\u2019re producing more domestic oil, we\u2019re also producing more cleaner-burning natural gas than any other country on Earth. And again, sometimes there are disputes about natural gas, but let me say this: We should strengthen our position as the top natural gas producer, because in the medium term, at least, it not only can provide safe, cheap power, but it can also help reduce our carbon emissions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obama goes on to say:<\/p>\n Burning natural gas is about one-half as carbon-intensive as coal, which can make it a critical \u2018bridge fuel\u2019 for many countries as the world transitions to even cleaner sources of energy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Firedoglake comments:<\/p>\n That premise is false. When measured in its entire life cycle\u2014as\u00a0Cornell University\u00a0researchers\u00a0found\u00a0\u2014fracked gas is actually dirtier than coal<\/a>\u00a0and therefore is a\u00a0bridge to nowhere<\/a>\u00a0other than extreme climate disruption. That\u2019s due to fugitive methane emissions, conveniently left out of the climate plan:\u00a0methane is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n New Yorkers Against Fracking explains:<\/a><\/p>\n Studies show that the process of drilling, fracking, processing and transporting natural gas releases a tremendous amount of methane into the air. Methane is 70-100 times more potent of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. Some recently published studies on methane emissions show that burning natural gas may be even worse, in terms of the overall greenhouse gas footprint, than burning coal for electricity and burning fuel oil to heat homes or run industrial boilers. A massive expansion of fracking threatens to undo any gains from other parts of [Obama\u2019s] plan and may make matters even worse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Wherever it occurs, fracking puts communities at great risk of serious water diversion, depletion, and contamination. Families who live near fracking operations have experienced serious unexplained illnesses, had their drinking water polluted with toxic chemicals and their property values plummet to zero. Recent studies have linked fracking to an increase in earthquakes.<\/a><\/p>\n As documented in Gasland 2,<\/em> the Obama administration has directly interfered and frustrated the efforts of career workers at the EPA. It has prevented the EPA from releasing negative studies on fracking and water contamination, and prevented the agency from helping people sue for compensation from the industry when their homes and communities have been destroyed.<\/p>\n The federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 contained an exemption for gas drilling and extraction from requirements in the underground injection control (UIC) program of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Other exemptions are also present in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The Obama administration supports those exemptions.\u00a0Thanks to intensive lobbying by the industry, fracking is exempt from many state water use regulations that limit large water withdrawals despite the fact that each fracking well can use up to five million gallons of locally sourced water.<\/p>\n At the behest of the oil and gas industry, President Obama has been aggressively pushing to expand fracking on 700 million acres of federal public land some of which is near national parks. He has already leased 38 million acres of federal lands, on which over three thousand new wells have been drilled, most of which have been, or will be, fracked.<\/p>\n