Gasland

[npmommie]

Has anyone seen this documentary?
we just watched it on HBO, its very good.
and eye opening.

 

[bicker]

I haven't seen it yet. The blurbs promoting get me wondering about how balanced it is. "Do the potential harmful effects outweigh the positives?" I rarely see any documentary give fair and full consideration to both sides.

For example, in terms of the positives, does Gasland include fair and full integration of the aspect of either doing without everything that is currently driven by natural gas, or replacing natural gas with the most likely alternative energy sources, i.e., crude oil, coal, and/or nuclear? I would be very disappointed if they referred to energy sources that are not already developed and ready to be substituted in. The comparison of natural gas must be against these other current sources, and clearly replacements should be undertaken in order of severity of the current source's negative aspects - new energy sources are pursued as a replacement for all polluting/damaging/dangerous energy sources, not just natural gas. I consider it dishonest for a documentary to omit the mitigating realities, even though raising those realities would tend to decimate the power of the message that the documentary is trying to project.

Another imbalance I often see in documentaries like this is a failure to place blame on us, on citizens/consumers/taxpayers, as the real culprits, when appropriate. The general public drives society toward the "cheap and easy" solutions with minimal regard for the long-term consequences. The general public pays lip-service to "doing the right thing" but that ethos goes only as far as it adversely affects our own personal comfort, personal finances, personal enjoyment of our lives. Taken collectively, the general public embraces the "Let other people incur the cost for my own values." Don't get me wrong; individuals do take some personal actions to support their own values, but very few do so in the comprehensive, life-affecting manner necessary to remove the ills from the world that they seek to remove. Generally, we do "our share" - in other words, as much as we're personally willing to do - and then we expect others to do the rest. Does Gasland outline how the general public's reticence to incur sacrifices affects the issue?

So I'll be waiting for this documentary to come-around on Netflix streaming, and will watch it once it does, but will be watching it from the perspective Carl Sagan warned us all to take on, in The Fine Art of Baloney Detection.