Dateline: 28 January 2012
We were at the kitchen table (my wife was there too) when I asked my son, Robert, if he would like to go see a movie with me. And my wife heard him say, without hesitation, “Sure.” And she saw me look her way, as if to ask, “Did I hear that right?” And then she smiled at me.
Robert is my middle son (I have three). He is 20 years old. He works full time at a Nissan/Subaru dealership as a mechanic. He bought himself a lifetime hunting license a couple years ago, and puts it to good use. And he has a girlfriend. So he’s a busy guy. As a result, we don’t do much together these days.
I never expected him to actually say something like... “Sure.” And then I felt kind of bad about it.
“It’s a documentary,” I explained, almost apologetically, giving him the opportunity to back out (Robert isn’t normally a documentary watcher).
“That’s okay. What’s it about?”
“It’s about hydrofracking. It’s about how hydrofracking is messing up people’s water and their lives.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s about time we had ourselves a little father-and-son outing.”
I looked over at my wife again.
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So that’s how me and Robert, on a cold and rainy night in January (two days ago, to be exact), ended up in the cafeteria of the Groton, N.Y. high school, watching Gasland.
There were maybe 20 people in the room (Robert was surely the youngest).
Before the movie, a man told us that the Groton town and village boards were doing nothing to address the issue of fracking. He said all the board members had been invited to a moratorium seminar with attorney David Slottje last weekend, but not a single board member went.
I was very surprised to hear that. I can’t think of any other issue that will have a more profound impact on a Central New York community than hydrofracking. If local government officials don’t make a serious effort to understand the issue, and proactively deal with it, they are neglecting their highest responsibility as elected public servants. That’s my opinion.
As for the movie, Gasland is clearly a documentary against hydrofracking. It is also a low-budget production. But, as such, it is put together very well. I admire Josh Fox for taking the initiative and putting all the work into making the movie. He did a decent job.
I firmly believe that all information media is, ultimately, biased. There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to information media. There is always a bias because media is produced by people, and all people are biased. If you think you are the exception, then you don't know yourself very well.
So, I never accept or dismiss the biased message of any documentary movie simply because it is biased. Instead, I try to determine if the bias is properly informed (with credible evidence and facts). Then I look for the motive behind any biased presentation. And, finally, I make a judgment about the honesty or the ethics of the bias, based on my own beliefs about what is ethical and honest.
I think everyone, to some degree, does all those things subconsciously, everyday, with so many different media messages.
But when a contentious and serious issue like hydrofracking, with enormous amounts of money and potential risk are involved, it is vitally important to be aware of motives and honesty in the bias, both of media and of individual people, including ourselves.
In the final analysis, as an elected official, my bias must be focused more than anything else on my responsibility to protect the safety and general welfare of the Sempronius community as a whole—now and for generations to come.
That said, if there is any doubt that this relatively new, unconventional gas drilling procedure known as hydrofracking presents a danger to the health and welfare of this community, I am ethically and morally obligated to oppose it. That is my opinion.
Gasland may have it's flaws (I did find what I believe to be one small error in the information), but it presents a lot of personal testimony from innocent people whose lives have been seriously impacted—in a very bad way—by hydrofracking near their homes. And there is an abundance of corroborating testimony to that same outcome from numerous other information sources, even sources with a pro-fracking bias (as I'll point out in an upcoming post here).
What’s more, Gasland presents evidence that the gas drilling industry has been exempted from federal clean air and water standards (put in place to protect people and communities). The exemption appears to have come as a result of political manipulation through gas industry influence.
I consider those powerfully compelling indictments, and they should not be ignored. They are compelling enough to further convince me that a moratorium on fracking in this town is a wise and proper step to take. A moratorium will put the brakes on fracking and give everyone time to better understand things like bias, motive, honesty and truth. There is far too much at stake to ignore this issue.
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P.S. Robert told me he was glad he saw the movie.