Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Josh Fox:
What We Have to Do to Prevent Climate Apocalypse
January 22, 2016
The
so-called fracking revolution has transformed America’s energy landscape.
With more than 100,000 [3] oil
and gas wells drilled and fracked since 2005, the nation has secured cheap and
plentiful energy, forcing a drop [4] in natural gas prices.
The oil giant BP believes that with this surging production of shale oil and
gas, the U.S. could become energy self-sufficient by 2030 [5], escaping the grip of OPEC,
the Saudi-led oil cartel that currently accounts for 35 percent [6] of
American oil imports.
But as
advocates hail fracking as a savior that can unlock the nation’s energy
independence, opponents have raised the alarms about this method of extracting
natural gas for its harmful effects on public health and the environment.
Fracktivists have also warned that the focus on fracking has derailed the
ultimate goal of moving to a low-carbon economy powered primarily by renewable
energy. The anti-fracking movement [7] has
steadily grown, bringing together environmentalists, public health advocates,
supporters of renewable energy and local communities across the country that
have felt the negative impacts of fracking projects.
One of the
early mobilizers of the nationwide anti-fracking movement was the 2010 Emmy
Award-winning documentary Gasland [8], written
and directed by Josh Fox, whose journey into fracking started in May 2008, when
he received a letter from a natural gas company offering to lease his family's
land in Pennsylvania for $100,000 to drill for gas. In his new film, How to Let
Go of The World (And Love All the Things Climate Can't Change) [9], which
premieres this month at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, Fox travels to 12
countries on six continents to examine climate change through a fresh lens and
uncover personal stories of hope.
I had a
chance to ask Fox some questions about the current state of fracking, the
grassroots anti-fracking movement, his new film and his thoughts on the future.
Reynard
Loki: On a scale of 1 to 10, how you would grade COP21, the international
climate talks held in Paris last month?
Josh Fox:
I'd give it both a 10 and a 1. As far as what governments have pledged and said
that they were capable of doing, in a lot of ways, it's the best we could hope
for. Having said that, government's approach to this question for the past 25
years has been so lame, so problematic, so full of undue influence by the
fossil fuel industry and not heeding or listening to the science — we're
in such bad shape. In many ways, this agreement is a step backwards from the
2009 debacle [10] in Copenhagen, which
pointed the world toward the idea that we were going to limit climate change to
2° of warming. The INDCs [11] — the “intended
nationally determined contributions” — to the current agreement are leading us
down a path of between 3.5-3.7°.
RL: How
much of the problem is politics?
JF: The
agreement points to the wide gulf between what science and nature are telling
us we have to do, and what politics at that level is willing to do. It's simply
ineffective. These are not legally binding agreements [13], let's not
forget that. These are aspirational. The idea that somehow this agreement is
going to lead us down the path of a 2° warmed world, or a 1.5° warmed world, is
completely nonsensical. It is one of the most expensive diplomatic agreements
in the history of humankind and is very strong-worded in terms of its language,
but it doesn't actually make this problem stop.
We know
that the Republican Party will not take serious action on climate change. If
the Paris agreement had to be ratified by Congress, it would fail. Congress is
so stuck on stupid, and so completely out of touch with the rest of the world,
that we know that's not going to happen. We have to get serious in this country
about actually stopping fracked gas, stopping all of the other fossil fuels and
making the transition toward 100 percent renewable energy.
RL: How
dangerous is climate denialism?
JF: The
fossil fuel industry has led us down the path of denial of the very thing that
runs our entire civilization, which is science. Our civilization runs on
science. It doesn't necessarily run on fossil fuels, but it definitely runs on
science. When you have the fossil fuel giants creating an atmosphere that is so
damning of the very building blocks of civilization, it signals that these
people have to go. That system has to be changed, and those proponents are not
only both fiscally and environmentally responsible, but I would argue, have a
degree of criminal negligence.
If these
people know that what they're doing is destroying the planet, and they continue
to do it, I would say that that's a case for criminal negligence, as it was
with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as it is with all of these fossil
fuel disasters that happen on the ground, this is a fossil fuel disaster that's
happening in the sky. We have to understand that these people continue to be
responsible as they continue to campaign that climate change doesn't exist.
RL: Were
you surprised that the Paris accord agreed to the 1.5° mark?
JF: I
thought that was a surprise, but I don't think it is a surprise if you know the
strength of the environmental indigenous network that made that goal such a
prominent part of the Paris talks. It was the indigenous people from the
Pacific Islands and the Amazon who were saying, "Listen, two degrees is a
crazy idea." A 2° warmer world is so dangerous and such a problem that you
simply cannot aspire to a 2° warmer world, because 2° is not a limit. It's an
average.
RL: What does
a 2° warmer world mean?
JF: A 2°
warmer world on average means that Africa is going to warm by three or four
degrees. Desmond Tutu [14] came
out and said if you agree to two degrees, you agree to cooking the continent.
Similarly, our coastal cities in the United States would suffer a six-meter
rise in sea level. That's the end as we know it for New York City, Boston,
Philadelphia, Charlotte, Miami, Washington DC. You're talking about an East
Coast that no longer has a stable coastline. That's unimaginable, even just for
the United States, let alone thinking about the Marshall Islands, or Tuvalu or
Samoa or Fiji — all of these places across the southern Pacific.
Here's the
problem, though: We already have warmed the earth by about a degree right now.
Carbon dioxide sits in the atmosphere for 30 or 40 years or longer. We already
have enough CO2 in the atmosphere right now to get us to 1.5°. A 1.5° limit
means shut off all emissions right now. That's not happening.
RL: What’s
the alternative?
JF: There
is one way to start to get toward that 1.5° goal. That's by radically reducing
methane emissions. Methane emissions warm the earth faster, and it sticks
around for less time. If you cut methane emissions, it's your fastest way
toward cooling the planet back down. Unfortunately, the United States is in the
process of making a wholesale transition from coal to natural gas. What we
should be doing is making a transition from coal and natural gas to renewable
energy immediately.
RL: Can
natural gas act as a lower carbon bridge [15] from
coal to renewable energy, as President Obama and others have suggested?
JF: You've
got 300 new gas power plants being proposed in the United States alone. This is
a disaster. It is a total contradiction to the Obama administration's stated
goal of keeping the planet well below 2°. John Kerry [16] was a
big part of saying, "We need to keep the planet well below 2°." We
can't do that and build 300 new fracking power plants. We can't do that and
frack two million more wells for natural gas and build hundreds of thousands of
miles of pipelines, compressor stations and LNG [liquefied natural gas [17]] terminals
— and lift the oil export ban.
All of
these things the United States is doing are in direct contradiction with its
aspirational goals stated in Paris. We should be phasing out natural
gas—period. Not planning for its future. We cannot possibly keep using fossil
fuels if we want to keep our major cities on the East Coast from going
underwater. Period. That story has been written.
We know how
much methane will go into the atmosphere. We're already at 1.5 degrees. We have
no budget left for carbon at all. Even if you stopped all the methane, you're
still talking about half the carbon of coal. Even if you stopped and you built
those power plants, you're still talking about huge emissions of carbon dioxide.
There's simply no way around it. You have to start to convert immediately to
100 percent renewable energy and do that on a very fast time scale.
RL: So what
has to happen?
JF: Actual
participatory democracy in the streets. Right now all of those power plants,
pipelines, compressor stations and LNG terminals have really significant
opposition at the local level. People in upstate New York are fighting
the Constitution pipeline [18]. In
Massachusetts they’re fighting the NED
pipeline [19]. In Seattle [20] and Portland [21] and
across the Gulf Coast [22], they're
fighting LNG terminals. In Denton [23], Texas, the birthplace of
fracking, they're fighting fracked gas power plants. These local fights have to
be invested in and supported by the elements that support the fracking fight,
by the people who are supporting the climate change fight.
RL: Who
should be financing the movement?
JF: There
are millionaires and billionaires and ordinary people who are putting tons and
tons of money out there to try to create this movement against climate change,
and movement for global environmental justice. Those fights at the local level
in the United States have to be supported. We're talking about hundreds of
groups across the United States that are fighting these fights at an individual
level. It's like Keystone XL times 100. It's like Tom Steyer, Bill Gates, and
Michael Bloomberg and all those powerful people who believe that climate change
is a bad thing. They need to start talking to the activists because fracked gas
running the show in the United States for the next 40 years definitely means
we're going underwater here in New York. We're going underwater in Philadelphia.
We're going underwater in Miami. That's what it means.
You're
signing the death warrant for those cities unless you realize that fracked gas
is the worst possible fuel for climate.
RL: Is
natural gas really cleaner than coal?
JF: Fracked
gas at the power plant burns cleaner in terms of less CO2 and has less
particulate matter than coal. However, methane itself, natural gas, fracked
gas, is according to IPCC, 86 times more potent a global warming agent than CO2
is in the atmosphere. That means that if you're leaking significant portions of
natural gas directly into the atmosphere rather than having it all burned, then
the leaked methane plus burned CO2 adds up to a worse greenhouse gas emission
profile than coal. What we're seeing out there in the field is huge amounts of
natural gas, fracked gas, are leaking out of the process at every stage. Gas
lines leak, the compressor stations leak, the fracked gas drilling process
itself liberates and vents methane directly into the atmosphere. It's something
that we reported on in Gasland 2 [24].
Scientists at Cornell estimated several years ago that between 3.6 and 7.9 percent [25] of
all the gas harvested through fracking and shale gas, leaked into the
atmosphere at methane. That means that when you combine the total emissions
profile for fracked gas, with respect to climate change, you're actually doing
worse than coal. Fracked gas is substantially worse than our worse fuel.
Look at
what's happening right now in Porter Ranch in California — a methane geyser
that has erupted out of a natural gas storage facility that currently is the
largest single climate emissions source in the world. It is emitting 25 percent
of California's methane every single day. That is one facility that went awry.
There are hundreds of thousands of these facilities across America right now
with antiquated equipment.
RL: But
coal isn’t better than natural gas.
JF: I'm not
campaigning for coal. I think coal is a disaster. We have to phase out coal.
Unfortunately, however, 10, 15 years ago, the natural gas industry's propaganda
was so pervasive and insidious that they were able to misinform the world that
they were cleaner than coal in terms of climate change emissions. It is
absolutely 100 percent not true. That is a myth that the natural gas, the
fracked gas industry, propagated out into the world to get people to buy into
the idea that natural gas, or fracked gas, is clean. Fracked gas is anything
but clean. It pollutes the groundwater when you do the fracking. It pollutes
the air in the sites all around it and causes health problems.
We know now
that so much of this process leaks, that we're talking about something that's
worse than coal, especially if you're talking about expanding it. Methane's not
even a part of the Paris agreement, okay? That's a huge problem. It's all about
carbon. Right now, we're talking about a huge, huge upswing in methane
emissions in the United States that will only get worse if we permit these
frack gas power plants, these frack gas pipelines, and these LNG terminals.
RL: How
close are we to getting the entire nation powered by renewable energy?
JF: Very
far away. I think it's something like less than 10 percent. But when Americans
have had our backs up against a wall, we've done the impossible over and over
again. When JFK said we're going to put a man on the moon, we did it, and we
did it really fast. We did it inside of a decade. When the Nazis were
militarizing in Europe, FDR went to the automobile industry and said, Okay,
we're going to build the largest war machine the world has ever seen because we
need to defeat fascism in Europe.
The car
industry went back to FDR and they said, Well, we're going to try our best, but
it's going to be pretty hard to do that at the same time as we make all these
cars. FDR said, No, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. We're going
to ban the sale of private automobiles in this country.
In seven
years, they built the largest war machine that the world has ever seen and
defeated the Nazis in Europe. We did that in six years. We can do this.
RL: Let’s
talk about China for a moment. According to new data from Bloomberg
New Energy Finance [26], for the
first time ever, developing countries account for the majority of global clean
energy investment. Over the last year, China alone outpaced renewable energy
investment in the U.S., U.K. and France combined.
JF: China’s
decision to close down 1,000 coal mines and not open any new coal mines
— that's really significant. If America did the same thing, and said we're
going to stop doing coal, and we're going to stop doing our fracked gas, our
new infatuation with fracked gas, then we're talking about something that could
really be meaningful. The Chinese just committed last year to building one
terawatt of renewable energy by 2030. One terawatt of renewable energy by 2030
is about 20 percent of Chinese electricity generation. In the United States,
that's 100 percent. If the Chinese can build one terawatt in 15 years, why
can't we build it in 10? There's no reason. It's simply the political will on
the ground.
We've seen
these types of transformations sweep through our society time and time again.
Fifteen years ago, no one had a cellphone. Now it's unimaginable that you don't
have a supercomputer in your pocket. Don't tell me it's not possible to do.
However, it's certainly impossible if we build these fracked gas power plants.
RL: In
your new
film, [9] How to Let
Go of The World (And Love All the Things Climate Can't Change), you travel to
12 countries on six continents. On your website, you say that “the film
acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and
asks, what is it that climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us
that no calamity can take it away?”
Are you
hopeful or pessimistic about the future?
JF: That's
a day-to-day question. In the new film, I go through the whole gamut of
emotions, from deepest despair to dancing in the street, literally. This film
is about the answer. I think when you really encounter the depths of the
problem, there's nothing but despair and sorrow and grief, that it has to take
you over. However, the depths of that emotional responsibility led me to
meeting some of the most inspiring, positive, innovative, creative, willful and
resilient people on the planet.
The film
takes you to the Amazon, where you're with the indigenous environmental
monitors who are trying to get the story out about oil spills that are
poisoning the fish in their villages and jungles. We take you to the Pacific
Climate Warriors [27] blockading the Port of
Newcastle against the largest coal export facility in the world. These people
are indomitable. People fighting for human rights in China. People fighting for
stopping the fracking and tar sands expansion in America. The stories are
incredibly emotionally powerful, and so it's a rollercoaster ride.
RL: What’s
the film’s central message?
JF: The
idea is how to let go of the world. Well, we've got to let go of the world of
greed and competition. We've got to let go of that world to give birth to
another one. Climate change is going to claim a lot of places. It's going to
create a lot of suffering. It's going to create a lot of havoc. What are all
the things that climate can't change? Well, those are community, love,
resilience, human rights, democracy, basic decency and generosity. These are
the things that we have to pull upon.
When you
look in the depths of your heart and the depths of your soul, what are the
things that make life worth living? Those are the things that climate can't
change.
RL: Those
are all great ideals, but isn’t the reality on the ground different in terms of
people who are busy dealing with their everyday lives and own struggles?
JF: What
we're saying to people is, don't fool yourself right now. This is not going to
be an easy task. This is something that you're going to have to sacrifice for,
and this is something that you're going to have to actually work for. That
means one to two hours a week as a volunteer at your local organization. That
means one to two hours a week ... It might mean missing your kid's Thursday
night soccer game once in awhile. Well, if that's what it means, fine. It means
creating a stronger, and a safer, and a more healthy planet for their future.
That's what is required and nothing less. At the same time, this is really just
an invitation to a party. The movement is culture. The movement is music. The
movement is film. It's having your neighbors over for dinner. That's what this
is.
RL: What
would you say to someone who’s concerned about climate, but hasn’t yet made the
personal leap to become active in the climate movement?
JF: What
did other movements do in the history of movements? Look at the civil rights
movement. Look at the suffragettes. Look at feminism. Look at the movement to
get children out of the workforce in the coal mines. What did those movements
do? The answer is everything. They had songs. They had stories. They had plays.
They had movies. They had marches. They had civil disobedience. They had
conversations around your coffee table. This is what it means to be a
participant in democratic civilization. This is what it means to be a citizen,
and this is the biggest challenge that democracy and human organization has
ever faced.
Of course
it's going to take some time, and it's going to take some willingness, but the
good part of that is, that's going to be a meaningful experience. It's going to
be a fun experience. It's going to be something that brings us closer to what
makes life worth living.
Watch the
trailer for How to Let Go of The World (And Love All the Things Climate
Can't Change):
Reynard
Loki is AlterNet's environment and food editor. Follow him on Twitter @reynardloki [28]. Email him
at reynard@alternet.org [29].
[31]
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/environment/josh-fox-heres-what-we-have-do-prevent-climate-apocalypse
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/reynard-loki
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/issues/fracking/
[4] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/Spring-2015/2015a_hausman.pdf?la=en
[5] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/16/bp-shale-boom-key-to-us-energy-self-sufficiency
[6] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6
[7] http://www.alternet.org/fracking/what-frack-happening-hailing-major-activist-victories-anti-fracking-movement
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasland
[9] http://www.howtoletgomovie.com
[10] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal
[11] http://unfccc.int/focus/indc_portal/items/8766.php
[12] http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/23/opinions/opinion-roundup-climate-change/
[13] http://europe.newsweek.com/paris-climate-agreement-not-legally-binding-john-kerry-336435
[14] http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/two-degree-target-debate
[15] http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/big-energy-question/can-natural-gas-be-a-bridge-to-clean-energy/
[16] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/opinions/sutter-1-5-degrees-climate-cop21/
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas
[18] http://www.nyenvironmentreport.com/activists-make-final-push-against-permit-for-upstate-gas-pipeline/
[19] http://nhlabornews.com/2015/12/50322/
[20] http://mynorthwest.com/11/2760145/Activists-blockade-Shells-Seattle-fuel-transfer-station
[21] http://www.oregonlive.com/multimedia/index.ssf/2015/10/activists_protest_natural_gas.html
[22] http://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=honors
[23] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33140732
[24] http://www.gaslandthemovie.com
[25] http://www.acsf.cornell.edu/Assets/ACSF/docs/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
[26] http://global-climatescope.org/en/results/
[27] http://350pacific.org/pacific-climate-warriors/
[28] https://twitter.com/reynardloki
[29] mailto:reynard@alternet.org
[30] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Josh Fox: What We Have to Do to Prevent Climate Apocalypse
[31] http://www.alternet.org/
[32] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
[2] http://alternet.org
[3] http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/issues/fracking/
[4] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/Spring-2015/2015a_hausman.pdf?la=en
[5] http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/01/16/bp-shale-boom-key-to-us-energy-self-sufficiency
[6] http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=727&t=6
[7] http://www.alternet.org/fracking/what-frack-happening-hailing-major-activist-victories-anti-fracking-movement
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasland
[9] http://www.howtoletgomovie.com
[10] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/18/copenhagen-deal
[11] http://unfccc.int/focus/indc_portal/items/8766.php
[12] http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/23/opinions/opinion-roundup-climate-change/
[13] http://europe.newsweek.com/paris-climate-agreement-not-legally-binding-john-kerry-336435
[14] http://www.onearth.org/earthwire/two-degree-target-debate
[15] http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/energy/great-energy-challenge/big-energy-question/can-natural-gas-be-a-bridge-to-clean-energy/
[16] http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/08/opinions/sutter-1-5-degrees-climate-cop21/
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquefied_natural_gas
[18] http://www.nyenvironmentreport.com/activists-make-final-push-against-permit-for-upstate-gas-pipeline/
[19] http://nhlabornews.com/2015/12/50322/
[20] http://mynorthwest.com/11/2760145/Activists-blockade-Shells-Seattle-fuel-transfer-station
[21] http://www.oregonlive.com/multimedia/index.ssf/2015/10/activists_protest_natural_gas.html
[22] http://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=honors
[23] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33140732
[24] http://www.gaslandthemovie.com
[25] http://www.acsf.cornell.edu/Assets/ACSF/docs/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf
[26] http://global-climatescope.org/en/results/
[27] http://350pacific.org/pacific-climate-warriors/
[28] https://twitter.com/reynardloki
[29] mailto:reynard@alternet.org
[30] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Josh Fox: What We Have to Do to Prevent Climate Apocalypse
[31] http://www.alternet.org/
[32] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
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