How The Energy Industry Should Respond To HBO's Thoroughly Refuted 'Gasland II' Jul 25th 2013, 08:00
By Alex Epstein
'Gasland' documentary Director Josh Fox attends the launch of Artists Against Fracking. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)
On July 8, Gasland, Part II came out to much fanfare. The movie's thesis is that the oil and gas industry is, through hydraulic fracturing and political manipulation, destroying our planet-especially our drinking water. Numerous specific companies are cast as villains, such as Cabot Energy, Devon Energy and Range Resources. And, not surprisingly, the media has given the film, and filmmaker Josh Fox, loads of positive coverage-even though the movie has been thoroughly refuted. What can the industry do to respond effectively?
In my experience, a lot. As an energy philosopher who routinely argues on college campuses for the big-picture benefits of fossil fuels, I know firsthand that it's possible to inoculate Americans against anti-energy propaganda. But it requires a radically different approach than most in the oil and gas industry are used to.
Here are six tactics that my organization, Center for Industrial Progress, and our clients use.
1. Be proactive
Have you heard the classic story about Napoleon who, when asked what he, as the greatest general of all time, would do in response to a seemingly impossible situation? Napoleon's response was: As the greatest general of all time, I wouldn't have gotten there in the first place.
While there is much the oil and gas industry can do to counter Gasland now, its job would have been 10 times easier had it properly educated the public about shale energy technology-aka "fracking"-before publicity-seeking individuals like Fox got their hands on it.
Importantly, people will listen to the true story of fracking; it is utterly inspiring and fascinating. A band of renegade oil and gas executives, engineers, and rig-workers developed a technology that could transform worthless rock into wondrously abundant and affordable energy–enough to improve the lives of every single American. Fracking gives some states the cheapest electricity in the world, a boon to our manufacturing. It gives us the oil and gas that run our farms, warm our homes and fuel our fun.
2. Be positive
The industry, particularly through excellent research groups like Energy in Depth, has done an outstanding job of debunking, claim by claim, Gasland and other anti-fracking materials. But too much focus on debunking is counterproductive because it puts you on the defensive.
Imagine the best case scenario of a debunking campaign; your audience agrees that everything Fox has said so far is false. Where does that get you? Effectively, it gets you to neutral, to zero. But if you are doing something incredibly good, you should "argue to 100"-tell a positive, inspiring story that incorporates your challenges (see the next point) and takes the moral high ground. In any debate, the side with the moral high ground wins.
To be sure, the industry puts out a lot of seemingly positive content, but too often that content is either too abstract (point 6) or has nothing to do with the core of your industry—the production of oil and gas. The common practice of overblowing your community service efforts and "alternative energy" initiatives accomplishes nothing except making you seem guilty and evasive. It implies that being and oil and gas company isn't honorable in and of itself—as does the common practice by Exxon, Shell, and Chevron of not even mentioning the word "oil" on their homepages!
Taking the high ground means being positive and proud about the core of your industry—the use of human ingenuity to produce the cheap, plentiful, reliable energy that fuels human progress. (And, as my book Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet explains, you can and should take the high ground on environmental issues.)
3. Be open
It is absolutely essential that you tell the full story of the health and safety challenges you face; because you haven't done so effectively, Gasland has told it (falsely) for you. Part of being open is making clear that every energy project faces health and safety challenges-certainly solar and wind do. Here's an example of this kind of argument, from a recent Forbes article I wrote on Gasland II:
Here's the truth about groundwater. Every technology uses raw materials that must be mined from the ground–any time we drill or mine or dig underground, whether to drill for oil or to mine for the materials in solar panels, groundwater can be compromised. Of all the things you can do underground, fracking is the least likely to impact groundwater, because it takes place thousands of feet away from groundwater. As President Obama's former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson acknowledged, there is no "proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water. . . ."
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