The article "Hollywood tapping into fracking fears," Dec. 16, asserted the new film "Promised Land" pits Big Drilling against Big Hollywood. But it's more like Big Drilling vs. The World. Opposition to this method of gas drilling is widespread. A Dec. 5 Siena College poll showed that, throughout upstate New York, opponents of fracking outnumber supporters 45 percent to 39 percent.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo would be wise to consider those who would be most directly affected by fracking are predominantly against it. And the governor shouldn't turn his back on the millions of people who have been affected by 100-year floods caused by hurricanes he himself linked to climate change. After all, fracking — with the methane it releases into the atmosphere — is a climate change contributor.
Independent Oil and Gas Association lobbyist Jim Smith parrots Gov. Cuomo's desire to let science guide us on fracking. What Mr. Smith doesn't want the public to know is that two industry-funded fracking "research" institutes, one at the University at Buffalo and the other at the University of Texas at Austin, found the credibility of their pro-fracking work under fire. Buffalo shut down its institute. The Austin study remains under review. Academic institutions should be studying renewable energy alternatives to the environmental degradation of fossil fuels, not taking oil and gas money to promote the boom-and-bust industrialization of our rural communities.
Putting aside the overhyped controversy surrounding the film, "Promised Land" is an honest and urgent look at how fracking "tears apart local communities and subverts democracies and corrupts political leaders and eviscerates all the things that Americans value," as Matt Damon so aptly put it at the film's premiere.
Lisa Zaccaglini
Sharon Springs
Against Hydrofracking
Sharon Springs