Coming Soon: The Anti-“Gasland”

One very belated note from CPAC: It was the soft launch of a new project that could rehabilitate the image of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” Among the lucky people given speaking slots last Saturday was Ann McElhinney, who had produced, with her husband Phelim McAleer, the global warning mythbusting doc Not Evil, Just Wrong. The husband-wife auteur unit sported “Fracking Brilliant!” T-shirts to promote the FrackNation project, which they admitted was a response to Gasland. “I’ll be honest,” said McElhinney. “We started paying attention to this after that movie came out – it’s framed the issue completely.” And unfairly. She and her husband are collecting stories of communities that thrive when they allow fracking. “If it’s unsafe, we want to know that, too,” said McAleer. “Let’s just see the science. Gasland is very good on stories, but not when it comes to the science.”