Linda Relyea
Adams State College
Adams State College EARTH group extends an invitation to the public for an environmental movie triple feature at 5:45 p.m. Friday, April 15, in Porter Hall room 130. The movies include “Fresh”, about the consequences of industrial food production; “Gasland”, an expose of natural gas drilling in the US; and “Split Estate”, which, documents average Colorado citizens trying to cope with natural gas drilling literally in their back yards. The event is free and open to the public.
According to the website, freshthemovie.com, “Fresh” celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.
According to gaslandthemovie.com, the largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of “fracking” or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a “Saudia Arabia of natural gas” just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. For example, residents of a town in Pennsylvania reported that they are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called Gasland. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.
Imagine discovering that you don’t own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard. According to splitestate.com, Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health.
Zeroing in on Garfield County, Colorado and the San Juan Basin, this clarion call for accountability examines the growing environmental and social costs to an area now referred to as a “National Sacrifice Zone.”
The film, “Fresh” is sponsored by the Local Foods Coalition and “Split Estate” is sponsored by ASC Community Partnerships. For more information call 719-587-7741.
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