When the experts are shills, your best option is to become the expert
Did I read this right? An ‘under cover agent’ has infiltrated Barton Moss and Gasland was directed by some deluded attention seeker?
Well, that put the cat amongst the pigeons. This sounds like some divisive technique, putting doubt in people’s minds, foolishly hoping that they’ll go: “Arghh, better leave camp at once!” or “All this is too confusing, I give up”.
These types of revelation can shake our views… or not as the case may be. It depends on the way these views were acquired; whether some research went into it… or not and if these are views of importance to the beholder… or not.
Unknown
Troll?
The issue of fracking is something I have been looking into for some time now and‘Gasland’ could have been one of the first documentaries I would have watched on this subject. Therefore, I likely would not have had such a good understanding of fracking as I have on this subject now. Thereafter, from video to video, the picture becomes clearer and although this by no means consists of thorough research nor makes me an expert, at least to some extent I informed myself and have done my own research.
Upon further investigation of the industry’s key players and the facilitating politicians, some of whom are financially profiteering from insider dealings, it does make you wonder about their ‘good’ intentions!
Reading more research papers, and finding out about the chemicals involved, makes the fracking process pretty early on a very bad idea, regardless of whether an ‘under cover agent’ has infiltrated Barton Moss - if we are to believe the allegations on Facebook.
Equally, if after a second viewing of ‘Gasland’, you realised that Josh Fox’s patronising voice really gets on your nerves but your views are still as strong, you’ve cracked it and all this intrigue and drama is irrelevant
What matters is and always will be the cause, and the facts behind that cause.
Unknown
Showdown
That other Facebook post was having a dig at ‘Gasland’ and this prompted me to watch ‘FrackNation’, a 2013 ‘crowd-funded’ documentary created by Phelim McAleer, which aims to address the misinformation that has afflicted the fracking industry. Seriously? Rather than being balanced, I found it to be at the opposite end of the scale to ‘Gasland’, as it was to be expected.
Phelim McAleer’s motivation for this documentary came after he found out that the water in the region where ‘Gasland’ had been filmed was flammable long before fracking began, as far back as the early 1940’s. When Phelim confronted Josh Fox, on camera, as to why he had felt it necessary not to mention that piece of information in ‘Gasland’, Josh Fox went on the defensive and that was the of the end of their love story. I think this question deserved an answer. I am sure there must be a reasonable explanation for that.
So why did Josh Fox not want to discuss this with him?
Surely, not everybody would have to be affected in the same way, at the same time, and it doesn’t make water contamination any less of a real issue even if it happens sporadically. The missing information doesn't prove that the water was contaminated before tracking had begun. In ‘FrackNation’ we can see some of the ‘Gasland’ people getting angry when the EPA presented them with the results indicating that their water was not contaminated. But would this automatically prove that their water didn’t get worse with fracking, whilst still strictly within the EPA ‘acceptable’ levels? What is acceptable for some may not be for others and there is no shortage of evidence questioning the objectivity and impartiality of the EPA, to the point that their credibility is at best questionable.
Exactly what purpose could be served by pretending to have contaminated water when it is not?
It is hardly going to improve the value of their properties or their farming produce, nor were they getting VIP treatment from their government agencies as a result of these complaints. Within the area where ‘Gasland’ was filmed some of the people down the road may have had clean water, as claimed in ‘FrackNation’, but could their wells and aquifers be much deeper, or shallower, or on different trajectories of fracking waste?
If the chemical waste didn’t quite make it to the recommended double skinned barrels, then it is quite conceivable that the 50% or so of the waste that remains in the ground could contaminate some wells and water courses but not necessary all of them?
Phelim went on to interview Professor Bruce Ames, at Berkeley, California, to find out more about the chemicals used in fracking. The Professor believes that the media have been doing some fear mongering to sell their newspapers. He informs us that there are indeed carcinogens amongst the fracking chemicals, but wait for it, these are comparable to the carcinogenic chemicals ingested when consuming high doses of broccoli (hummmmm - I’d like to think that I never come close to death by broccoli) and then he went on to add “or in a cup of coffee”. Damn you Professor! That’s it. You got me there.
Unknown
Broccoli
So, according to Professor Ames, there is indeed an acceptable level of say, benzene to enjoy in your bathtub or to prepare in your baby’s bottle! That settles that one. I wonder if, according to his high standards, there is an acceptable amount of dog crap to be added into a cookie recipe to which Professor Bruce Ames would be willing to ingest.
I would like to know exactly who decides what is an acceptable level of chemicals in the human body and the environment? Government employees? Industry ‘experts’? Can we trust them? Should we? I think not. Far too often the government’s advisors work, have worked or end up working for the industry they are suppose to regulate. Whether that industry is oil, gas, pharmaceutical, banking etc..
For his second interview Phelim didn’t have to go too far, in fact he stayed in Berkeley. The objective of this interview was to tackle trivial concerns we mere mortals have about earthquakes. He met with Professor Ernest Major, who gave the impression he was bemused at the absurdity that people could be worried with issues, such as the drilling of the earth a few kilometres deep, whilst injecting over 400 chemicals, and thinking that it could eventually cause a seismic reaction! Of course not!
Well hardly, just tremors, nothing to worry ourselves with anyway. Oil and gas drilling is very safe; very, very safe. Of course it is!
He continued by saying that if you want earthquakes just start messing around with insane geothermal power technology, which according to Wiki is cost effective, reliable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly, obviously like everything else within a clear set of regulations. But according to our good Professor that is not a good idea. Solar panels and wind power also got a real beating, whether you agree with these technologies or not, one has to wonder why such hatred. Anyway, some people would say anything to keep the funds flowing!
Unknown
Results of a major earthquake
Back in the UK, Professor Peter Styles one of the co-authors of the report written as a result of the Blackpool earthquakes caused by Cuadrilla in 2011 said that, “Earthquakes are not likely to cause significant damage”. That is such a relief to know, especially being just down the road from a rusty old nuclear plant called Sellafield, it doesn’t bear thinking about the damage that could do. People must sleep better now that Professor Styles has cleared things up! Of course, that would actually depend on the earthquake. I must assume that he must be in a position whereby he can predict such things as the strength of an earthquake.
Once upon a time people we would have been told by the likes of Professors Styles, Ames, Major, and the ‘experts’, that asbestos was perfectly safe and that we would deduce that it would be unlikely that it would cause illnesses. Look back at the victims. Asbestos regulations? We’ve got them now but a little too late. With a bit of care and attention from the ‘experts’ the asbestos damage could have been prevented.
If fracking was a trustworthy industry, dedicated to drilling safely into the earth to collect gas or oil, then supplying it straight into people’s homes or businesses, without risk, without chemicals, without risk of pollution to the aquifer, just as idyllically shown on ‘FrackNation’, then it may just seem like a wonderful idea. However, it is not, and according to some of Berkeley’s experts, if windmills kill birds and don’t produce as much as they actually waste, if solar panels use an incalculable amount of resources, human and minerals and - don’t laugh - nasty chemicals, (eeew) and Geothermal Technology causes earthquakes, then why are we supposed to believe that they have fracking all sorted out, just because they claim that it is the best thing since the invention of the wheel?
The film gets pretty nauseating toward the middle and the end.
I don’t really know what Phelim wanted to achieve there with the presence of his friends and family. He may have run out of superlatives in which to describe the fracking industry. However this didn’t work for me at all. Sure, I have concerns as to why Josh Fox wouldn’t want to have a discussion with this guy. Sounds to me like a bit of sabotage and if I wasn't convinced enough of my own views, ‘FrackNation’ may have had a point. But instead, I thought this film was a poor effort to rally some fracking support.
This ‘documentary’ is aimed at the people that don’t really want to investigate fracking and put their mind at rest.
It only takes a bit of research for the fracking argument to start crumbling in the way it is presented to us by our government and the industry. No amount of trolling will serve any purpose on the informed. It will take more than secret double agents’ infiltration of the anti-fracking movement or attempts to discredit anyone via promo-documantaries to convince me otherwise. Staying united by keeping the focus on the real cause, whatever irrelevance is thrown in the arena, is what keeps the movement strong. Though, I am not entirely convinced that drilling and fracking are the real issues here, they are very real dangers.
Could they be just a distraction for a much more sinister agenda, Agenda 21?
Unknown
Agenda 21
Although masquerading behind a ‘green’ cover, its objectives are to eventually displace people from the relatively ‘freer’ countryside into the more easily controllable major cities. Slowly but surely, and without our consent or awareness, Agenda 21 is taking place under the guise of‘Smart’ planning, ‘intelligent' ener etc. As you can imagine, to get such a plan implemented requires a lot of very compromised and/or corrupted individuals at all levels of the political/industrial spectrum.
Just a brief look at the government owned mouthpieces, who pass as media, shows how unsavoury some of those ‘in charge’ can be with all their sex scandals, money fiddles etc. - yet they seem to walk about life with impunity.
With their co-operation, the Corporatocracy has been stealthily taking over our lives in every way possible, managing our health to ensure we become life long customers to big pharma, genetically modifying our food in the most disgusting fashion whilst spraying them with pesticides that would make the Nazis envious. Education has become mere formatting of our children’s brains from one screen to the other, our air is peppered with geo-engineering’s nano particles, our water is nothing to be envied by the nomads of the Sahara dessert with chemicals added supposedly for our ‘benefit’. All this is giving our controllers more and more power to dominate us, done in such an insidious, almost fluffy manner that to most, it is just business as usual, government loves me, lets watch TV.
Unknown
Water is life
The industry and the corporations are teaming up together and looting the potable water, poisoning it or bottling it up for profit.
All that for gas?
Thank goodness for those who are paying attention and raising awareness from the frontline. Logistically we can’t all be there and realistically, is this the only way to deal with the fracking issue?
Come to think of it, the UK government went around the world spreading‘democracy’ recently, in countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. They really want to get into Syria, Iran and also North Korea. The Ukrainians could do with a bit of UK/NATO cuddling too apparently.
On that basis isn’t it about time WE, the people of the UK try this at home and see if ‘democracy’ can work for us?
After all if ‘democracy’ is so beneficial, essential even, for the people of far away lands, it can’t be bad for us can it? Lets retrain our public servants to do a bit of ‘democracy’ at home. The time has come when we should take back our power and make the politicians realise that for them to do anything (and that includes fracking on our land), they need the consent of the governed, (and that’s us); the ones who pay their wages and who they’re supposed to represent. Alternatively we ought to get them out of their sumptuous offices. There has to be a more permanent way than protesting.
Unknown
The police need to be reminded who they work for.
Above all, no people should ever have to protest for something quite as insane as protecting our quality of life, the environment - for now and for the future generations, against our very own government. If a foreign invader would attempt such lunacy, the whole nation would not think twice about starting war with them. When the same attacks come from within we call it science or progress or sustainability. Fracking is none of these. It is a crime against humanity, so do we have to declare war on our public servants and government for them to start serving us as they should?
In Barton Moss the way the police have been behaving around the‘protectors’ may appear as if their presence is to facilitate the deliveries to the iGas drill site when in fact it feels more like a way to entice conflict. They have been provoking, causing friction and picking fights with the ‘protectors’. When they snatched a 15 year old school girl as she was there observing the march for a school project, I very much doubt that this girl gave them any cause for concern; to be either a threat or more ludicrously, that she may have been in some sort of danger.
I tend to think that they wanted a reaction from the ‘protectors’, preferably a violent one and an excuse to get their real mission to start, which I suspect is to cause disturbance, uprising and unrest. So far they have nothing but arrests and few ridiculous, token charges on the ‘protectors’, with no incriminating video footage from their evidence gatherers. The‘protectors’ are conducting themselves in a way that would have made Gandhi proud. They are being pushed to what would be most people’s limits.
Is there a trigger point and what will it be?
Hopefully they will not lose their focus for what the cause is; the protection of the aquifer, the environment, and the people. For the people willing to join the ranks of the anti-fracking campaign they should do their research, be wary of the ‘expert’and become the ‘expert’. It will be your best armour against the shills and the trolls.
Fracknation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1TKVRRhsGo
