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Jon Bowermaster: We met maybe five years ago. He's been working on the issue of fracking since 2009. Then in 2012, we went to a concert-protest up in Albany, New York, in response to Governor [Andrew] Cuomo allowing fracking. We put together this weird collection of musicians, scientists, actors, actresses, and journalists and we staged a show at a big performance hall. Mark was a part of that event and that solidified our friendship. Right away we started talking and I've been working on coordinating the filming for almost three years. Mark kind of came in in the latter months to help me work on the script then did the narration.
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This is like the twentieth documentary I've made. I started out as a print journalist. I've written a dozen books and been published in a ton of magazines, but for the last 15 years I've been focused on films. In 2010 or so, in part because of the success of [Josh Fox's film] GasLand, when people thought of fracking they thought of going to rural parts of states. I wanted to show that this boom was so big that it was now affecting all socioeconomic classes, not just poor people, but high-end suburbs. So we went out to film across the country. In the end, we filmed in 20 states, we did about 135 interviews, and then boiled it down to this 96 minutes that we literally finished five weeks ago. We're now in the middle of a 40-city tour to get some buzz and get people talking about it, which is working.Why did you decide to release the film now?The film is targeted at President Obama because there are a few things he can do regarding fracking, drilling, and extreme energy extraction while he is still president. He is currently trying to build his environmental legacy and wants to go out on a green high. We're asking him, specifically, to ban drilling and fracking on public lands, which he could do with a signature.We would like him and his director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, to meet with some of the victims of fracking. I think if they really sat down with these people and heard how their lives have been interrupted, changed, hurt, etc., that it would influence their decision-making. The EPA has done several studies into the link between fracking and water contamination, and they've come up with proof that the two are linked but they just haven't pushed much beyond that. We want the president to push the EPA to make those [studies] more public and more definite.
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This is certainly climate injustice, but also environmental racism. A classic example of that is in California, where you saw images of the drilling that goes on right in the middle of downtown Los Angeles that mostly houses the Latino population. These people have been complaining for years about the horrific smells, how their kids have been sick, had respiratory problems, nosebleeds and nausea, but no one has listened.Why are politicians seemingly so disconnected from the harm befalling their constituents?
There were experts telling them that we [had] this newfound source of energy that will create jobs, be good for the environment, and it's going to lower our [fuel] costs. What politician wouldn't be for that?I would like to see some of the politicians who initially signed on to fracking say that they've given it a lot of serious consideration and [that] it just isn't right. Howard Zucker, the commissioner of health for New York state, said that he wouldn't allow his family to live next to a fracking well. Having someone who has read a lot about the flaws in the system saying that should be sufficient, and no one should have to live that way.
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I've made a couple films in Louisiana about a giant chemical company that had so badly poisoned a natural aquifer that it was making the neighbors of the plant sick. The chemical company figured out this was happening, but rather than saying, "Listen, we messed up." They just went around and said that they wanted to expand their company by buying the neighboring houses and moving the inhabitants to a suburb 15 miles away. They never admitted that they had badly contaminated the water, and had given many of these people cancer.What has to be done to pressure politicians into making sure they're protecting constituents from the effects of fracking and water poisoning?
There are two issues. One is to help the people who have already been harmed, which would mean talking to them. The next step is moving away from drilling and toward renewables. The oil and gas industry gets sizable subsidies from our tax dollars every year, even though [the companies] are incredibly profitable. Those kinds of subsidies should be taken away immediately and moved into any kind of renewable experiment. There are so many renewable resources that we are just now scratching the surface of that could use government investments.It seems to me that the whole conversation surrounding fracking and climate change has been put on the back burner—or even omitted—from the debate during this election cycle. Do you agree?
We're very happy that fracking has been discussed a couple times during a few of the Democratic debates, but in regard to whether or not it's taking a back burner, yeah, there is a lot going on. As Americans, we tend to get lulled into a sense of sleepiness when gas prices are low. When oil prices are high and it's costing people at the gas pump, then they get completely panicked. That's when they start buying small cars.
The American public is very slow to change, and we often only change when we are forced to. It may take a turn in the economy or a horrific natural disaster to force people to understand and realize that they're going to have to change their lives. We talk a lot about how it will require people to change in substantial ways. This is in the hopes that we get to 100 percent renewable by 2050. People are going to have drive smaller cars, have more mass transportation, smaller houses, and smaller jobs, because one of the biggest contributors to emissions in the atmosphere is flying. Are people willing to do those things voluntarily? Some are, some aren't.Follow Sarah Harvard on Twitter.