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Discussion > Gasland at the BFI in London

Keep a lid on it please gentlemen.

May 7, 2013 at 7:01 PM | Registered CommenterBishop Hill

BB
The only relevant point is whether GasLand is truthful or not.
Not having seen it, I cannot comment directly, but I have seen a video clip in which Fox was challenged on the question of flaming tap water since there is evidence that this is a well-known phenomenon in certain areas and has been so for many decades and has no connection with fracking.
His response was that this was "not relevant" which, I would suggest, at least casts doubt on his integrity as far as this aspect of the film is concerned, or would you disagree? Please feel free to do so, preferably giving your reasons.
One can then ask why he includes this phenomenon in his film (knowing it to be "irrelevant") unless he is hoping to convince people that flaming tap water is a side effect of fracking and therefore they should oppose it.
And again, given that he is a self-proclaimed "environmental activist", can we believe anything he says about the use of fossil fuels?

May 7, 2013 at 7:43 PM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

Mike Jackson, the point I think is that before fracking started the water of the families shown was not burnable. Afterwards it was. Three cases were discussed with water troubles in Colorado after fracking. One family moved away, one collects water from the local store, the third is supplied with water by the gas company and signed a gagging order preventing them from talking about it. Why would the gas company do that? Doesn't that make you a little suspicious?

So Mike Jackson hasn't watched it. Have you, Nial and Diogenes, actually watched the film?

May 7, 2013 at 9:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterBitBucket

bitty as usual evades the crux....

HAVE YOU, BITBUCKET, EVER ATTEMPTED TO SET LIGHT TO YOUR WATER?

May 7, 2013 at 10:41 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

Bittytwatty

I watched it and found it risible. I simply did not believe it. I wanted to take the negative and examine it for signs of "greenpeace" cutting.

Did you suck up the film as a piece of "analysis" ? lmao

May 7, 2013 at 11:06 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

Diogenes, I bet you were searching for the <coloured crayon> tag

May 7, 2013 at 11:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterBitBucket

go away, bucket. You are wasting time, and trying to detract from the question. Take your windmill boosterism elsewhere.

May 8, 2013 at 3:33 AM | Registered Commentershub

Shub, I made no mention of windmills. Maybe you didn't read the thread. Diogenes was asking for advice on slagging off a film he hadn't seen but considered 'absurd'. Others, some of whom probably also hadn't seen it, were glad to help. It is a bit like religious people trying to ban films they haven't seen (remember 'Life of Brian'?).

As I said to Martin earlier in the thread, if you want me to leave, add your name to the list (politely, mind).

BTW your http://nigguraths.wordpress.com/2013/05/04/the-tipping-point-the-non-linear-response-the-precautionary which showed up on my reader is still a 404. I was looking forward to reading that...

May 8, 2013 at 3:52 AM | Unregistered CommenterBitBucket

Why should I politely ask you to leave? You can leave as it is.

May 8, 2013 at 4:30 AM | Registered Commentershub

I have not idea why anyone engages with little bucker. He is amazingly ignorant, I cannot remember a troll with so little knowledge across such a wide number of everyday topics. I am asking him to leave, because he's a content free nuisance, who doesn't come near to challenging any of the ideas put forward on this, or any other thread.

May 8, 2013 at 8:29 AM | Unregistered Commentergeronimo

May 8, 2013 at 8:29 AM | geronimo

I second the motion.

Were he to leave gracefully, 'twould be a far, far better thing that he does, than he has ever done before.

May 8, 2013 at 9:26 AM | Registered CommenterHilary Ostrov

As a long time apologist for you BB, I have to say your recent petulant outbursts do not become you. I would prefer you to leave off too, if truth be told. If that means leaving, then that is what you should do.

May 8, 2013 at 10:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterTheBigYinJames

the gift that keeps on giving....so BBucker is a proper sceptic because he has a visceral dislike of "fossil fuel" companies, the poor thing.

meanwhile the evidence against Josh Fox keeps building...

http://www.energyindepth.org/tag/parker-county/

http://www.energyindepth.org/tag/josh-fox/

and here is a lovely little quote about his new follow-up film:

Sure, the sequel has some new cast members and a few new claims. Somehow, Fox discovers that shale is actually worse than he previously thought: Earthquakes. Methane leaks. Well failures. Hurricanes. Heck, viewers were probably waiting for swarms of locusts to appear – fracking locusts, to be sure.

And there was plenty of spectacle, too. Yoko Ono was in the audience. So was former Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), the congressman who lent his name to the infamous “FRAC Act” that Josh so desperately wants to become law. After the movie, they joined him on stage, along with the Lipskys, John Fenton, Calvin Tillman, and the rest of the “cast.”

But the emotion-filled remarks afterwards – including a plea to push for Mark Jacobson’s “100% renewables” plan as the way to stop natural gas development – were also the perfect bookend to a movement that was always based on sensationalism over substance (Jacobson’s plan is, quite simply, pure fairy tale). The call to action was more of a cry of desperation (“Please, keep us relevant!”) by a filmmaker, and indeed an entire ideology, whose time has come and gone. As an early review of the film puts it, Gasland Part II “runs longer than the earlier installment, but ultimately it has less to say.”

So, beyond the bigger picture about the waning credibility of the anti-fracking movement, what was in Gasland Part II? Where did Fox travel, and with whom did he speak? Given that issues relating to Dimock have been explained ad nauseum over the past several years, we won’t go into detail explaining why opponents’ claims about that town are untrue. If you want the real story about Dimock, please go here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Similarly, the Lipsky case in Parker County, Tex., has been in the news for years, and most of it deals with fraud on the part of local activists, who strategized for months on how to deceive the public and get the EPA involved. The EPA dropped its case, too – not because of election year politics or industry pressure (as Fox alleges), but because real scientific evidence disproved any link between natural gas development and the methane in the Lipsky water well. In fact, most of what Fox tried to spin out of the case paralleled what several media outlets previously tried to manufacture as a story line, and each one has been completely debunked. It’s unclear why Fox would rest his laurels so heavily on a case that the public has moved past, but when you’re desperate to remain relevant, you often have to grasp at straws.

May 8, 2013 at 2:05 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

well, well...

maybe Josh Fox is not such a nice guy after all...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/rewarded_for_breast_cancer_lies_puodzJYB8jYGz9PXkoOjNL

May 8, 2013 at 2:30 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

another interesting article:

http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2012/06/23/gaslands-josh-fox-cant-be-bothered-with-facts/

May 8, 2013 at 2:34 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

and in this debate, Mr Fox does come across as something of an imbecile. His style of argument is eerily reminiscent of the Bucket

http://branch.com/b/fracking

May 8, 2013 at 2:47 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

diogenes, here's another you can add to your collection.

http://cogcc.state.co.us/library/GASLAND%20DOC.pdf

I would also like BB to include my name on the list.

May 8, 2013 at 4:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterDavid Porter

May 8, 2013 at 4:58 PM David Porter


David, and others, please see the new Discussion thread BitBucket departs for pastures green(er)?

May 8, 2013 at 5:09 PM | Registered CommenterMartin A

BB: Yes, I dislike FF companies because of the harm they do, but let's not get into that.

BB - I am curious (if you are still here); how consistent are your actions with your free-floating 'dislike' of FF companies? Do you use their products, directly or indirectly: transport, plastics, imported goods, imported foods, etc? If so, why?

May 8, 2013 at 7:12 PM | Unregistered Commenterdcardno

Dcardno, consistent? I said I dislike them. I don't begrudge them their existence or find their products unnecessary. I look at it in the same way I look at cigarette companies. I decided long ago that they are necessary. I don't smoke and hate it when I have to breath others' smoke. And yet I also believe people should be able to do what they want and that trying to prevent them from doing so leads to greater harm. In that vein I believe that taking drugs should be legal, regulated and taxed - and the health problems that arise treated as health issues, not criminalised. For that to happen, someone has to be able to sell the drugs and the obvious parallel is cigarette companies. Hence I cannot object to such companies.

In both cases, the companies involved should operate according to the law and should not behave in ways that we in the West would not allow when operating in foreign, often poor, lands. That means not distorting and lying about the health effects of products, not selling fags to minors, not polluting the land and the air in the production of products (clearly in both cases that is impossible to avoid in use), not engaging in corrupt practices and in participating in the destabilisation of governments or societies, etc.

May 8, 2013 at 7:47 PM | Unregistered CommenterBitBucket

one wonders what BB knows about refining rare earth metals in order to manufacture the magnets that are integral to the windmills he loves so much. The environmental footprint of refining rare earths versus fracking......Josh Fox and BB know the answers but they probably do not know the questions.

May 8, 2013 at 10:25 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes

For the record, and for the benefit of those who might be inclined to respond to his comment at 7:47 PM above, it appears that at 8:37 PM, BB accepted the invitation to depart.

His acceptance [of May 8, 2013 at 8:37 PM] includes a "forwarding" address for those who are interested in engaging further.

Of course he does not offer any guarantee that he might not opt to return in another nymcarnation; however, I'm sure we can cross that particular bridge if - or when - we come to it!

May 8, 2013 at 10:56 PM | Registered CommenterHilary Ostrov

On the whole I think it's a pity he's gone, there's a risk that BH will turn turn into a self affirming clique.

On the other hand comparing fossil fuel companies with cigarette companies......?

And I did wonder what his motivation on here was, he seemed increasingly here for an argument rather than debate.

You never know, he might see the light (of the engineering practicalities of some of what he's proposing) and return.

May 9, 2013 at 12:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterNial

... there's a risk that BH will turn turn into a self affirming clique.
Nial, that's a risk on any site that is dedicated to one side or the other in a contentious field like climate.
As long as there are those like Dr Betts or Dr Wilson (regardless of our views of him and his email problems) and others who are prepared to come on here and engage and we are prepared to deal honestly with them, accepting the different point of view but making our own position honestly and clearly the risk should be comparatively small.
At least I would hope so.

May 9, 2013 at 2:17 PM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson

Mike

off-topic ;)

The people who comment at BH are ver varied in political beliefs and scientific knowledge. It is far from a homogeneous grouping, despite what alarmists might think. IMy points of similarity with you, Philip Bratby, Martin Brumby, AlecM, Richard "Wattis" Drake, geronimo etc are minuscule. But I will be glad to see the back of irritating f---tards such as BBD and Bitty, who bring nothing to the debate apart from endless negativity and denial.

May 9, 2013 at 10:48 PM | Unregistered Commenterdiogenes