Journalist Phelim McAleer and filmmaker Ann McElhinney have something to say about recent documentaries spreading alarmism about fracking, and it isn’t complementary.
FrackNation is the duo’s docu-response to negative documentaries about fracking — like Matt Damon’s Promiseland and Josh Fox’s GasLand. The documentary addresses many anti-fracking claims, clarifying scientific inconsistencies and outright deception in these so-called documentaries.
The piece features respected cancer researcher, Bruce Ames of the University of California at Berkeley as noting, “If people say fracking is causing cancer, they don't know what they're talking about." He explains that saying fracking leads to carcinogens in drinking water is comparable saying many common healthy foods we eat also have small traces of carcinogens.
Americans for Tax Reform founder, Grover Norquist, reviewed the documentary this week in the Huffington Post. He commented on the GasLand’s alarmism gimmickry:
A previous documentary titled Gasland by Josh Fox made dramatic claims that fracking leads to flammable tap water. A resident shows how he can light the water from his kitchen faucet on fire. You would think the entire town was up in arms against those wishing to drill for natural gas through fracking. Or perhaps dead already from the pollution. Compelling television…
And completely dishonest.
Frack Nation follows our Irish-accented journalist Phelim McAleer as he fact-checks such assertions from Gasland. It turns out that fracking is an old technology that has been used for years and is now improved. We learn that methane gas released with well water is a common occurrence in many areas and has been for decades — long before anyone fracked anything within a thousand miles. Josh Fox knew this and deliberately left it out of his "documentary."
To read more of Grover Norquist’s review, click here.