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costs that communities confront when fracking comes to town – costs to
their essential character and quality of life.
“Promised Land” is set in a small farming town that is almost
certainly meant to be in Pennsylvania, where it was filmed. Pennsylvania
is a hotbed of fracking activity and has become the poster child for all that
can go wrong when a state decides to let the frackers in before fully
considering the risks and putting safeguards in place.
But “Promised Land” isn’t really about that aspect of fracking –
important as it is. Instead, the movie is concerned with the Hobson’s
choice that many communities face when the oil and gas industry comes to
town. Is the prospect of speculative economic gain worth sacrificing your
hometown’s traditional rural/agricultural character and bucolic
landscapes? Because no matter where one stands in regards to the debate
about fracking’s potential environmental and public health threats, there is
no question that oil and gas development is a heavy industrial activity –
one exemplified by extraordinary levels of heavy truck traffic, noise, dust
and visual assaults. It is also one accompanied by a significant influx of
transient out-of-state workers, and frequently characterized by the
standard boom-and-bust cycles of fossil fuel development.
These are not impacts that can be addressed through better rules or
tighter enforcement by state governments (though both are certainly
necessary to address the wide range of environmental and health threats
posed by fracking). Rather, these community impacts are inherent in the
nature of oil and gas development.
As “Promised Land” powerfully depicts on the strength of the actors'
performances and gorgeous cinematography, all of this adds up to a choice
for the towns in fracking’s path as to whether to take a gamble on what is,
inevitably, an utterly transformational industry.
This is not to deny that many communities are, like the one
represented in the film, facing severe economic straits. But what we as a
society should be giving such communities are real options for clean,
long-term, stable economic growth, such as policies that revitalize
sustainable agriculture and encourage renewable energy development.