RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—With so much (deserving) attention set on figuring out how to stop the massive Gulf oil gusher, you may have missed headlines highlighting other energy-related disasters across the country earlier this month. Within just six days of each other, natural gas well blowouts and explosions occurred, ranging from a 16-hour gusher of toxic liquid and methane from a well in a Pennsylvania state park to two separate explosions that killed three workers in Texas and a methane blast in West Virginia. Collectively, the incidents raise even more concerns among public health experts already wary of the energy-intensive and chemical-heavy method of natural gas extraction called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Reading about the consequences of this form of natural gas drilling is one thing, but seeing the people and places across the country where fracking occurs—where people are sick, where animals lose their hair, where land at the base of national parks looks like the surface of Mars, and yes, where people can light their tap water on fire—is certainly another. You can see all that and more by watching Gasland, winner of this year's Sundance Documentary Special Jury Prize.
