Staying Environmental Even When Your Abroad

The critically acclaimed 2010 documentary on hydraulic fracking, Gasland.

I’ve been a bit consumed recently.

I can’t seem to keep from researching the various major environmental issues taking place within the world today. It all started with my favorite coalition of writers known as the Dark Mountain Project, who have released three issues of an ongoing series of books collecting various pieces of work from poetry, to interviews, to short stories, to paintings regarding the need to reorganize nature back to the top of our priorities and ideologies in life.

From there I’ve come across numerous other hot topic issues on the environmentalist agenda, one important one being the issue of hydraulic fracking. If any of you have watched Gasland, the documentary questioning the health hazards to both the environment and to human beings involved with this natural gas removal process, then you know what this is already.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, here’s a small taster.

Hydraulic fracking is a technique used to release petroleum, natural gas, or other substances for extraction. Oddly enough, I have not only seen this process take place, but I even oversaw and contributed to the actual fracking of an oil well. It was a couple of summers ago, in the flatlands of northern Texas 45 minutes from my hometown, when I was working for one of my fathers’ colleagues who was an independent oil man. We spent a whole day monitoring the fracking of one of his wells, and I remember being thoroughly intrigued by the process.

However, unsurprisingly, the short description I was given of this process left out most of the horrific details I was unaware inevitably results from it. Gasland is a solid ground zero for all of this, although do beware of the numerous counterattacks via videos and websites that attempt to contradict many of Gasland’s claims. At the same time, do realize that Josh Fox is a passionate individual being guided much by his emotions throughout the film, he just tries to present the facts as he received them. Through all of this sticky, verbal debate in which one can easily get lost, or more like distracted, by the technical terminology used, one thing is for sure — something definitely smells fishy.

This newly released video by Josh Fox serves as his rebuttal to the claims against facts in Gasland, and is just as powerful as Gasland itself.

NoteZ — I don’t know if it is just me, but Josh was born to do voice over it seems, a white Morgan Freeman. 

Well, this process takes place all over our country, and is trying to be spread across the world. Canada is already dealing with these dangers towards indigenous people’s cultures and lifestyles through industrialization processes such as this. Causes like Sacred Headwaters and Idle No More are both necessary and important organizations fighting for the threatened livelihoods of these people, I implore you to at the very least learn more about them.

Or even simpler, take a couple of minutes to watch this trailer for a documentary I am highly anticipating called Fractured Land.

NoteZ: For more information on Fractured Land, check out this article on EcoWatch.

It is hard not to be taken back by this. To realize that as we sit back hoping and trusting the higher-ups in our world to run our world with ethical responsibility and moral guidelines, not only is the world being irreparably damaged through unchecked resource harvesting processes, but people’s lives are being tremendously affected.

It was frightening to see it hit so close to home, right at my doorstep, with many of these fracturing natural gas wells taking place all around northern Texas. Gasland even has a few minutes dedicated to the issues involving Fort Worth.

So I’m proud to say that I have changed my ways.

Responsibility for these matters can no longer be pushed off to the higher-ups. We only contribute to the irresponsibility of these corporations by allowing them to get away with what they do. We must strive to stay updated with the current environmental issues around the world and contributing to them in whatever ways we can.

I’ve realized, that no matter how irritated I get with politics, with politicians and corporations, with all the greed and corruption that coincides with it, the one thing that I believe is worth fighting for, that necessitates it, is the environment.

This place is our home. And the very least we can do is stand up for it.

NoteZ: The first place for anyone to start making a change is becoming informed. A site I have recently come across that seems to be a good source for news and updates on environmental issues is EcoWatch. But I know there has to be thousands of similar sites and organizations dedicated to these various global issues.

I’d love to know what sites and organizations you follow and recommend! Comment below.