Maybe Its Just Indigestion: Review of Gasland

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Ansel Adams

I have a confession to make. I love “This American Life”. Now this isn’t just a shameless plug for NPR, but before I get into my discussion on the documentary Gasland I want to touch upon what makes “This American Life” special, besides Ira Glass’ voice. “This American Life” is, simply, good radio. It is engaging, its personal, it is thought provoking, it combines artistic elements in radio with thorough research. The show lays bare the very personal stories of the individuals but retains a cool and calculated structure to guide us through the highly emotional narratives. The result, a radio piece that leaves listeners with an experience that is at once personal and educating.
This, in summary, describes my experience with Gasland.

Initially, Gasland strikes me as something that is misdirected. It has the artsy feel of cinematography major and the narrative mechanics used to set the stage are by no means revolutionary. Yet it is all effective. The narrator uses a level, almost deadpan, radio voice and when combined with the aesthetically pretty camera shots the film becomes the documentary of a journey.

But here I am, two paragraphs into my review and I haven’t even told you what Gasland is about. Josh Fox is the narrator and the muse for this film. The son of two Pennsylvanian self proclaimed hippies Josh has lived in the Pennsylvanian backwoods. Exploring the creek that runs behind his house, plucking at his banjo, and presumably learning cinematography in his ample spare time. Josh’s story begins like so many others who also live in rural areas, he receives a letter from a gas company informing him that his property sits over a large deposit of natural gas, in Josh’s case the Marcellus Shale. How large? The Marcellus Shale alone extends across the states of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, and West Virginia. And this isn’t the only massive deposit of natural gas in the United States.

Go google a map of natural gas deposits in the U.S., I’ll wait.

So Josh receives a letter informing him of the deposit of gas that sits under his property. The deposit that makes up the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas” and the company offers Josh over four thousand dollars per acre of land to drill for this gas. For Josh, that would have been $100,000 dollars, for a signature.

The film weaves in and out of technical descriptions about the methods used to extract natural gas from the ground, hydraulic fracturing (fondly referred to as fracking), and the personal narratives of Josh and those affected by the fracking. The film is highly personal. Josh carries it with him everywhere and there are more than a couple off center shots of him driving through the nation as he visits homes where tap water explodes into flame, the hides slough off of cattle, and meets individuals who have leased their land only to lose their sense of smell, taste, and their way of life.

What impressed me most was the level of detailed research and the accessibility of these complex and well concealed processes. The gas companies did not willingly give up any information and often times the individuals Josh interviewed did not seem to know as much about the fracking process as Josh. The film showed just how horrible and mindless the fracking process is and the clear lack of concern from the gas companies.

If I had to level one complaint at Gasland it would be that the full complexity of this issue was not explored. If you have seen the film you will understand that this film is already quite complex. But lets go back to “This American Life”. I heard a similar piece about gas drilling in the Pennsylvania area. Similar health issues were described, the burning water coming out of the tap, dying animals, contaminated water, this really is seven horsemen types of awful. But the NPR radio piece found those individuals who leased there land and were happy for the money. Throughout Gasland you wonder, how can this still be going on. When I hear that over 596 chemicals are dumped into natural drinking water supplies I don’t need to hear much more to know that this fracking cannot be good. But the money paid to landowners has divided the affected populations. A cool, quick $100,000 can turn a good neighbor into a political rival. This issue was largely ignored by Gasland and, I believe, is critical to understanding the difficulties associated with fighting the corporate exploitation of our most precious natural resource, water.

In today’s world of the occupy movement, the populist movements and the springtime of revolution it is interesting to see one individual dig deeper and do the work to uncover such well concealed information. It remains to be seen what the public can do with such knowledge.

Anecdotal Case Study of Programmable Thermostats

I have had a programmable thermostat in my humble abode for a couple of months now. I thought I'd share the benefits I've seen from using it, the settings I use, and why I choose to use them.

Leading off with the benefits. Due to the settings I've chosen to use, I've seen my summer electric bills drop by almost $40/month compared with the same months last year--despite this summer being warmer than it was last year. For a typical programmable thermostat, costing about $50, this creates a payback period of five weeks and a Net Present Value over the course of five months (months of likely AC use) of nearly $150 (4% discount rate); that is, given an investment return rate of 4%, you could put $150 in your pocket today and end up with the same money. It has most certainly generated positive value.

These savings were achieved with the following settings. In the overnight hours during weekdays (9p-7a), I have it set for 70°. From 7a-9p, I leave it set for 85°. On the weekend, I have it set for the same 70° overnight and 75° during the day.

While I concede that these are by and large very warm settings (especially for the evening hours after work), they clearly make an enormous difference in the bottom line. However, by keeping those settings that high, especially during the hottest days, I am paying a huge dividend to both my utility company and to the environment.

On hot days, utilities achieve what's called "peak demand" or "peak load." When this happens, especially to utilities that do not have their own generation capabilities, the companies have to go onto the open market and pay spot-market prices for electricity. These can be several dollars (or several hundred dollars) per kilowatt-hour in five-minute increments. Considering retail prices are less than ten cents/kWh (here in Iowa), this is a HUGE markup. By having my thermostat up, I reduce the system-wide demand and reduce the need to pay exorbitant prices on the spot market.

Utilities that have generative capabilities can use generators to meet peak demand. These usually use an enormous amount of relatively expensive fuel, relatively inefficiently. My utility company has such capabilities. Instead of making it necessary to use that fuel and pollute, I choose to suffer mildly until 9pm.

Why 9pm? If the answer hasn't made itself evident yet, that's the time at which there is significant drop-off in load demand. Moreover, by using electricity overnight, I help smooth overall load demand--which is a topic for another post!

Environmental Book Reviews (Round 2)

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution
By Heather Rogers

While reviewing recently published environmental literature, this book really looked like it had potential. The author argues that the problems in the environmental movement have little to do with technological shortcomings or lack of will among voters. Instead, the environmental movement has been unsuccessful because it has been pulled into the same old economic system that it should be trying to reform. This can be seen in modern environmentalism’s new-found materialism. The author’s introduction provides an example by talking about the increasingly common re-usable shopping bags. I am going to go a step further and post this article on buying green televisions. While I obviously have respect for the authors of that article, it seems to have never occurred to them that a person can live a fulfilling (and very sustainable) life with no television at all.

Overall, the book was well researched and clear in it’s writing. However, my biggest critique seemed to be that the information gathered by the author was not used to it’s full potential. The author seemed to build up an interesting series of arguments only to stop short of applying all of this information to the big picture. This was especially strange because clearly the author had opinions in this area. One example is this excerpt: “Capitalism’s market imperatives, which have remained mind-bogglingly unchallenged in the pall of economic collapse dictate that profitability comes first.” This quote is surprising because it seems to have been casually mentioned as a well established fact in the middle of an otherwise bland chapter on green automobiles.

Despite falling short of being truly ground-breaking, this would be an excellent read for someone who is just getting introduced into environmentalism and trying to live a more sustainable life. It provides a unique prospective on many different aspects of sustainability.

Against the Grain: How Agriculture has Hijacked Civilization
By Richard Manning

With some books, it takes a few chapters to figure out the author’s bias and motivation for writing. It’s refreshing that you know what you are in for by the time you finish this book’s title.

The first portion of this book lays out the history of agriculture with a strong bias against the effects of sedentism and grain production. While doing this, the author selectively picks facts from the archaeological record and ignores any that might support other conclusions. Reading his arguments, this book reminds you that with a big enough data set, you can pretty much argue any conclusion. Additionally, the author insists on connecting trends in ancient agriculture to modern agriculture. Although interesting for the sake of argument, these connections are generally weak and require more data to be convincing.

This books gets interesting once the author moves beyond more ancient history and begins to discuss the worlds food culture in the last 100 years. There is an especially interesting section on the historical roots of America’s obsession with food. This section alone makes the book worth reading.

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.

The title of this post comes from a Chinese proverb and I thought it a fitting assessment of a project undertaken by members of Green Iowa Americorps in Cedar Rapids recently.  Eric Nost and Thor Anderson have been working with Trees Forever and the City Arborist, Todd Fagan, to plan a large-scale tree planting in the Wellington Heights neighborhood of CR.  Yesterday our detachment of GIA, along with a handful of community volunteers, planted 35 trees.  Today we will plant 20 more.  The benefits of these "street trees" are many and wide ranging.  When planted in cities, trees do two things of exceptional importance to our organization: they provide shade to houses in the summer--thereby lowering fossil fuel use and residential cost for air conditioning--and they sequester carbon (and in turn produce oxygen, a sort of subsidiary benefit).  These benefits only increase as the trees mature.  Which is why, of course, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  We'll have to settle for now.    

Its Already Here

Last week I finished reading Bill McKibben's latest book, Eaarth, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which another member reviewed previously.  In one of his central theses, McKibben argues that climate change is not exclusively an issue for future generations, but that we humans and our industrial activities have already radically altered our home planet, enough so that it requires another name.  Hence "Eaarth."  He goes through a litany of commentators, all of whom trot out the same bequeathing-a-spoiled-planet-to-our-grandkids line that has been environmental conventional wisdom for some time.  But that line is no longer serviceable: the climate is changing now.  Here's a video from The Weather Channel (via climateprogress) that makes this point enthusiastically.

Corridor Cities Plan for Nature

The Cedar Rapids Gazette briefly mentions our collaboration to plant trees in a Cedar Rapids neighborhood in an Earth Day article about what Corridor cities are doing to plan for nature.

Natural World: A Farm for the Future - A documentary on a post carbon farm.

Green Iowa Newsletter

See what we've been up to lately-- check out the latest edition of our newsletter here!

"The Cove"

The documentary "The Cove" directed by Louie Psihoyos was an emotional and heart-rending picture to watch. It is based on actual events involving dolphins. The fishermen of Taijii, Japan use mulitiple boats to herd a pod of dolphins into the bay. To do this, they create a wall of sound by clanking on pipes that extend into the water. The dolphins are highly sensitive to sound so they turn and try to swim away; therein sealing their fate. Once in the bay, they are roped off with fishing net and left alone over night. Early the next morning, everythings begins innocently by marine show specialists, who come from around the world, choosing which dolphin they would like to take back for their shows. I realize this doesn't sound too horrible once you get past the part where the dolphins will now be subjected to captivity and large noisy crowds, but are you wondering about the dolphins that don't get picked? Well, these dolphins are dragged, and yes, I mean that literally, dragged behind a boat around the bend in the bay. Once there, they are speared repeatedly until the water is red with their blood. (You may think I am exaggerating, but watch the film and you'll see for yourself.) I realize that harvesting dolphins is an occupation and a source of income for the nation, but what I don't understand is why people would eat dolphin meat. The meat contains large amounts of mercury; which, as most of us know, is toxic to humans. So why the need for dolphin meat? The people who made this documentary actually had a technician take DNA samples of differnt meats that were sold in the markets. And guess what they found? Dolphin meat labeled as whale meat. The people who visit the market may really be eating mercury laden meat instead of real whale meat. The dolphin herding happens repeatedly every single year from September through March. On average, 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed each year. I personally can find it hard to believe that the governments would allow the dolphin capture to continue knowing that the meat is toxic to consumers. I really encourage you to watch the documentary. I know it may be hard for some to watch but really everyone should know what is happening to the dolphins.

A Culture of Conservation

ISU hosted a webinar discussing "A Culture of Conservation" by Dr. Jacqueline Comito. She discussed the issues we have with communication when it comes to conservation. There was a survey conducted that discussed common frustrations among farmers, watershed commissioners, DNR and other groups like this. Some of these included how the people are rewarded for high yields and not for conservation, how an increase of erosion is due to increased tillage, and how urban residents have an under appreciation of farmers by thinking they do nothing when to comes to protecting the land and water. They discussed if changing the language of conservation would increase conservation practices, encourage change in individual practices, or create and reflect the value changes in society. Also, there is a misperception of the "good farmer." Typically, commercials of agriculture are showing farmers who are under forty and tilling in a nice, rich, black soil field. In reality, most farmers in Iowa are over fifty and soil quality is a mix of good and bad. They would also like the commercials to show better soil conservation practices like terraces, waterways, and no till. The speaker also mentioned how we measure agriculture success is in high yields and efficiency; where real success should be measured in lessening soil erosion, water pollution, flooding, and damaging native habitats. They pointed out that there are concerns about soil and water quality but there is really no urgency to fix any of these issues or misconceptions. The lecture was informative and had some interesting points. If anyone is interested you can go to Iowa Learning Farms and look at their webinars. They cover many different topics so you may find one to your liking.

Climate change, earthquakes, volcanic activity, and avalanches.

There is interesting new evidence that climate change will cause more frequent and intense earthquakes, avalanches and eruptions of volcanos. Scientists have started to study the corelation between glacier melt, changes in geology and increased sesmic activity. Also, the article points outs alarming climate change feedback loops possible in seabeds that I had not read about before.

Read the article from the Guardian here.

Environmental Lecture

I went to an lecture on environmental issues by Carolyn Raffensperger. She talked about how we have more right to a gun than we do to clean air. There is nothing in the constitution about our rights to breate clean air and drink clean water. She pointed out that we are a here and now generation. We do not look toward the future more than 20 years and that we should be looking out for the 7th generation, along the lines of 150 years down the road. We need to be taking care of the environment around us so there is something still unique and beautiful to future generations. We want something to pass down through the generations that we can be proud of. She mentioned that her generation left behind global warming, dead oceans, and polluted air and that future generations will be paying for that for many years to come. She suggested that the younger generation start taking care of the future and find ways to implement change that would improve our way of life. I agree with her points but I also think time is against us. Change rarely happens fast and we need dedicated individuals that will start the process and then others that will carry on through the generations. It is a big undertaking to think outside of what is good for the economy and start thinking what is good for our world. As she pointed out with slavery, we knew it was wrong so we outlawed it, even though it was supposedly "good" for the economy. We know things are wrong in this day in age, but we are willing to risk things like health, entire animal species, and our lives in order to gain that extra buck. As Carolyn said, we need individuals who will be proactive and have their ideas and possible solutions heard so that our generation has something worthwhile to pass on to future generations.