The documentary film “Gasland” had set the tone. The town of Dimock, Pa had been featured in a scene where fire was blasting out of the sink faucets –all because the natural gas companies were using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of the subsurface shale to release the trapped natural gas. The presumption was that somehow this fracturing was resulting in leakage of natural gas into the subsurface water from which the locals drew their drinking water.
It seemed like a good idea for a movie script, especially when it would bash those thieving rascals that run those evil oil and natural gas companies. So, Matt Damon andJohn Krasinski said they would make the movie and it would be about “American identity . . . and what defines us as a country.” Whatever that means. They planned to title the movie, “Promised Land”. According to the NY Post, the story line was to have Damon, the big oil and natural gas company representative, exposed by an environmentalist. The environmentalist would reveal the Damon’s (oil company’s) plan to “exploit, pollute and leave” the small community.
The wheels began to come off the movie story-line when tests by the State of Pennsylvania and the EPA found that the Dimock water was not contaminated. In addition several other stories were reported further ruining the narrative that Damon, et al had chosen. Again, from the Post:
“There was Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers in Texas, a group that produced a frightening video of a flaming house water pipe and claimed a gas company had polluted the water. But a judge just found that the tape was an outright fraud — Wolf Eagle connected the house gas pipe to a hose and lit the water. Other “pollution” cases collapsed in Wyoming and Colorado. Even Josh Fox, who with his Oscar-nominated documentary “Gasland” first raised concerns about flammable water, has had to admit he withheld evidence that fracking was not responsible.”
Surely, the Hollywood crowd will come up with something and you want to know why? Because Abu Dhabi, one of the oil rich United Arab Emirates, is providing part the financing for this movie.
Do you suppose that Abu Dhabi has an interest in slowing or stopping fracking altogether? Fracking is propelling the United States to a condition of oil and natural gas self-sufficiency. The consequence will probably be to cause crude oil prices to drop. Because the Emirates’ economic life is predicated on sales of crude oil, this is a logical conclusion.
But Damon is smart enough to make that connection. Yet he is smearing US OIL AND GAS COMPANIES in order to stop fracking. Liberals, seesh.
Click on the link below to read the entire NY Post story:
www.nypost.com/f/print/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/for_his_next_escape_x46uFSONrAaCey67ZzZV0I
To read more of the Foundry Posting on Abu Dhabi financing the Damon picture click here: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/28/matt-damons-anti-fracking-movie-financed-by-oil-rich-arab-nation/
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 
Thanks for the post. Fracking in general, and the Marcellus shale project in particular, will continue to merit oversight. Hopefully, this can be done in a calm, educated, respectful manner. If fracking delivers, it could provide a big part of the solution to our energy needs. If it proves to pose too great an environmental threat, it should be shelved until those issues can be resolved. Unfounded claims and partial truths on either side, unmerited attacks on oil companies, and anonymous authors concluding articles with phrases such as “liberals, seesh” (sic) at the end of articles that tell only a fraction of the full story aren’t useful.
Pingback: Promised Land Sinks At The Boxoffice | Climate Change Sanity