Interview: Josh Fox, Director of Gasland and Gasland 2
Natural Gas Europe was pleased to have the opportunity to speak with Josh Fox, Director of Gasland and Gasland 2. We spoke about shale gas in Europe and in the United States. The American director and environmentalist explained its opposition to hydraulic fracturing, suggesting the industry listen to criticism.
1. What do you suggest to Europe and European regulators?
My position is to ban fracking. I don’t believe you can regulate it. I have seen no evidence of that. If the industry wants to come out and say oh well, we can regulate it ourselves, they should do that in a controlled, experimental environment and not as a massive experiment all over the world. This industry has not listened to criticism.
2. What kind of criticism?
We see in Texas enormous harm happening in the Barnett shale: the asthma rate there is three times the one of the rest of the state – 25% have asthma in the Barnett shale. So the ban movement has taken off. We have bans in France and in the Netherlands. You have got 5,000 initiatives in Colorado for a ban. New Yorkers want to ban. Californians want to ban. In Pennsylvania, 62% are supporting moratorium. I don’t endorse a position of regulation right now because I don’t believe that number one is enforceable, when you look at the chaos of the state agencies that are supposed to enforce that in the United States. What shale gas does represent though is a catalyst. It’s kicking people out of bed and making them go for renewable energy, because it is waking them up to what fossil fuel production really is all over the world.
3. You have been speaking mainly about the American experience, can you draw a comparison with Europe? Do you see the same patterns here also?
Opposition is winning faster in Europe than in the United States. I saw a Tweet the other day. Jigar Shah twitted out something like: ‘The bridge to renewables argument is really similar to the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell bridge to gays in the military argument.’ Clinton regretted it, Obama is going to regret it… We are still in the very infancy of what they want to do also in the States and it is encountering all this opposition. I don’t think it is gonna happen as they want this to happen. The main reason is because people have said ‘we had enough’. What’s great about it is it spurred the real conversation to where we are going get energy from.
4. You are intrinsically saying that the opposition has to start from the States. Am I right?
We cannot have democracy in the United States without freedom from fossil fuels. Where we have a democratic engagement process, we have stopped shale gas. New York State was the only state to do an environmental impact study. That process involves people in democracy. Pennsylvania did not do that, California did not do that, Colorado did not do that. When you had a democratic process, fracking and shale gas were stopped. And I think that it will continue. Because the more the people learn about it, the less they like it.
5. So, you are excluding that people might be in favour of shale gas? What are the reasons for shale gas developments?
We live in a system dominated by corporate interests. They are buying our electricity. They are buying our representatives. They are doing everything they can to influence at the state level, at the local level, at the federal level. The new movie Gasland 2 is all about this.
6. But don’t you think there is a trade-off between economic opportunities and endorsement to shale gas? Don’t you think that countries more in need of economic stimulus could benefit from shale gas?
That is not true. Bulgaria banned fracking. Romania just had this debacle. Protesters arrived by horses and carts to stop shale. Poor people know the value of the environment. This is about poor people and rich people who were all equalized by this situation.
7. Do you think that nuclear is an alternative to gas?
I don’t support nuclear. We don’t need nuclear.
8. Europe pays twice the energy prices of the States, do you think that Brussels can do anything to find a way out?
You can lower those energy prices by going renewable.
9. Let’s take an example and let’s speak about Italy. 17% of the electricity bills paid by Italians are instrumental to maintain subsidies to renewables. What’s your point of view on this?
It’s a development underway and it has to continue. When you invest 1 million dollar in gas you get 3.8 jobs, when you invest 1 million in wind and solar, you get 9.4-9.5 jobs. I know this from the United States.
10. So what would you say to the European households or to the owners of a small business? What is your message to people paying three times the gas prices paid in the United States? What would you say to Europeans paying double the price of electricity with respect to Americans?
I don’t think shale gas can resolve the problem. You are looking at this from a very very very short term perspective.
11. But the economic crisis in Europe can be a real issue in the very short run as well.
What we have to do is to increase investments in renewable energy. We cannot sit without acknowledging the fact that we are facing catastrophic problems to global warming. If we are talking about short term and long term, we have to convert our considerations about economics to long-term sustainability.
12. And how can European governments do so in a period of economic stress?
The first thing to do is to rule out fracking and drilling. You have to ban it. But what are you referring to when you speak about governments in a period of economic stress?
13. Some European countries are close to bankruptcy.
I cannot speak about this specifically. I hear what you are trying to say. But fracking costs an enormous amount of money and most of that is subsidized, at least in the United States. The worst you can do when your economic system is collapsing is to start extractive industry. That is the lesson from the developing world.
Sergio Matalucci