Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Anti-Fracking Film Produced with Abu Dhabi Oil Money
CNSNews ^ | January 4, 2013 | Matt Cover

Posted on 01/07/2013 2:33:36 PM PST by neverdem

“Promised Land,” the anti-fracking film written and produced by Hollywood stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski, was made in part by a production company owned by the government of Arab oil emirate Abu Dhabi – a state in direct competition with American oil and gas producers.

The film is financed in part by Image Nation Abu Dhabi, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Media which is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, one of 13 Arab emirates that makes up the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and serves as that country’s capitol.

Abu Dhabi media was created by the Abu Dhabi government in 2007 with $27.3 million as part of that country’s effort to diversify its economy into new markets such as media production.

The film’s Abu Dhabi connection is significant, because the UAE is the world’s third largest oil exporter, according to 2011 figures from the U.S. Energy Information Agency. The country also holds the 7th largest proven reserves of crude oil and natural gas in the world. The UAE was ranked 17th in the world in natural gas production in 2010, according to EIA.

That the UAE is a major natural gas and oil producer puts it in direct competition with U.S. natural gas producers, who have seen a revolution in production with the increased use of fracking – an old process that has found new uses as technology has made it possible to drill new wells and open up gas reserves that were once thought inaccessible.

As fracking has found wider use, especially in the U.S., natural gas production has soared, bringing new jobs and economic opportunity to many American communities and weakening the hold that states such as the UAE once had on oil and gas production and global prices.

The film tells the story of Steve Butler (Damon), a natural gas company salesman, as he travels to an impoverished Pennsylvania town trying to acquire drilling rights from local landowners and environmentalist Dustin Noble (Krasinksi), who is intent on stopping him.

While the film focuses on the battle between Damon and Krasinski for the hearts and minds of poor, rural Pennsylvanians – culminating in a town vote on whether to allow Damon’s gas company to develop the farmland that sits atop large natural gas reserves – underlying the decision is a debate on the economic benefits of fracking.

Those economic benefits, promised by Damon’s gas company salesman, are weighed against the supposed economic costs of hydraulic fracturing – fracking – the process used by gas companies to break the shale rock formations that contain the gas reserves.

Krasinski’s character presents a host of supposed environmental consequences the town will be faced with if it allows fracking to occur, including so-called flaming water, contaminated ground water, and sick livestock.

Those supposed consequences have all been debunked as either lacking in evidence or not resulting from fracking.

In one scene, Krasinski’s character demonstrates to a fifth grade classroom how fracking can allegedly result in flaming water – a phenomenon that happens when water is infused with methane and then somehow set alight.

In the film, Krasinski’s character tries to show the children how dangerous flaming water can be by pretending to set the class’ pet turtle on fire.

In reality, flaming water is not produced by fracking as Colorado regulators found when they investigated so-called flaming wells documented in the anti-fracking documentary Gasland. Colorado Department of Natural Resources(PDF) scientists found that the methane in the wells was a natural occurrence, not a byproduct of fracking.

In another scene from the film, town supervisor Gerry Richards states that fracking can cause natural gas to seep into groundwater – a claim that has been debunked by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who has said publicly that there is no evidence of groundwater contamination from fracking.

“In no case have we made a definitive determination that the fracking process has caused chemicals to enter groundwater,” Jackson told Fox News in April 2012.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado; US: Pennsylvania; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: abudhabi; colorado; energy; fracking; gasland; johnkrasinski; mattdamon; opec; pennsylvania; promisedland; shalegas; shaleoil; unitedarabemirates; usefulidiots; uselessidiots; waronterror

1 posted on 01/07/2013 2:33:44 PM PST by neverdem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: george76; dljordan; GraceG; dynachrome; unkus; loungitude; FlingWingFlyer; Washi; RandallFlagg; ...

Agitprop against fracking ping


2 posted on 01/07/2013 2:40:33 PM PST by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

So, Matt Damon is a tool of anti-American propagandists.

It should be mentioned every time his name comes up.

For example: Matt Damon (tool of anti-American propagandists) ...


3 posted on 01/07/2013 2:53:20 PM PST by glorgau
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

So, are they a registered oil lobby, and is there some “ethics violation” (I know, I know) here?

Why wouldn’t it require a disclaimer attached to the propaganda piece?


4 posted on 01/07/2013 3:05:34 PM PST by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
I guess the evil oil and natural gas companies have been fracking for a lot longer than most people realize. A cursory internet search revealed several towns known for many years as "Burning Springs". (There are undoubtedly many more of them.)

In New York:

"Natural gas springs. The gas was formed when organic material was caught in-between layers of mud millions of years ago when this region was covered by a shallow ocean. The organic material decayed and was subject to intense pressure, forming natural gas, which became trapped within layers of shale rock. The ravine in the region cuts through the gas-rich layers of shale and the gas leaks out. French explorer Robert de La Salle, was brought by the Seneca of the village of Ganagaro in August of 1669 to inspect the spring."

Source: NY Historic Society site

In Kentucky:

"Burning Springs is an unincorporated community in Clay County, Kentucky, United States.[1] It is located along U.S. Route 421 by its junction with Kentucky Route 472.[2] It has one school, Burning Springs Elementary. It is about 4 miles from Jackson County but about 7 miles from Manchester, the county seat."

Source: wikipedia article

In West Virginia:

"Several locations in West Virginia have been named Burning Springs. Two of the best known were at springs that contained traces of gas and that could be ignited. Such springs were long regarded as natural wonders, but became important as hallmarks of oil, salt, and natural gas in the 1800s."

Source: West Virginia Cyclopedia article

5 posted on 01/07/2013 3:12:44 PM PST by Bob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

The Sand Savages realize what an America with energy from within its own borders means to them.

Specifically, it means back to living in the desert, molesting small boys and livestock.


6 posted on 01/07/2013 3:22:51 PM PST by GladesGuru (In a society predicated upon freedom, it is necessary to examine principles."..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem

Like most Hollywood political agenda movies it’s a flop. It opened at #10. Might as well set a match to it, as it were.


7 posted on 01/07/2013 3:26:52 PM PST by colorado tanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
Photobucket
8 posted on 01/07/2013 4:16:20 PM PST by FredZarguna ("... and they have a Plan")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
And why should Abu Dhabi support be a surprise when, according to former Manhattan Borough President, attorney to Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, and Nation of Islam, Percy Sutton, Obama’s College Education was funded by Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal, who also happens to be the largest private owner of News Corp/Fox News/WSJ stock? The legal counsel through whom this was arranged, according to Sutton, has been funding Wahhabi projects for at least thirty five years. The connection to the Saudi Family, according to Valerie's father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett in a Chicago Tribute article about Khalid al-Mansour/Don Warden, written in 1979, began at least in the early 1980s, though Mansour/Don Warden implies in what Youtube interviews haven't yet been scrubbed, that it began when Obama was still living in Hawaii. (Mansour describes meeting with Obama at Occidental, but talks, before publication of Obama's second autobiography, about Obama's decsion in Hawaii about the advantages of presenting himself as an African American.)

Vernon Jarrett was a close friend and colleague of Marshall Davis for several decades, Obama’s future surrogate(?) father, when both Jarrett and Davis were card carrying communists, and columnists for several Chicago Newspapers. When FBI surveillance caused Davis to move to Hawaii in the late 50s they stayed close. There is little doubt that Sutton, and Don Warden/Khalid al-Mansour were well acquainted with both of them, as Warden/Mansour was a founder of the Black Panthers, and an eloquent black nationalist, Berkeley educated attorney, and former law partner to bin-Talal (who never had a law degree), but who openly funded Wahhabi recruiting in US Prisons, and later funded most of the Mosques in the US.

Saudi funding goes much deeper than just another propaganda movie to insure oil revenue for the Saudis. Sutton was proud to have helped get Obama into Harvard Law, but the twenty million dollar donation by Alwaleed bin-Talal may have had more to do with it. Harvard got twice what bin-Talal offered New York, and Giuliani rejected, as alms for his countrymen’s murder of 3000+ and the destruction of the World Trade Center. After the twenty million in 1987, bin-Talal funded what is now the largest division of Harvard Divinity School, the Alwaleed bin-Talal Center for Islamic Study - look it up! He has now expanded it to Georgetown, American University, and four or five other institutions here and in England. What with Obama beholden to, and openly supporting the Saudi-funded Muslim Brotherhood, John Brennan, who was funded by the Saudis for several years after leaving the CIA, and who has spent five years next to Obama in the White House, having his employee "cauterize" Obama's State Department paper passport and citizenship files (which probably led to the murder of Lieutenant Quarles while he was presumably cooperating with the FBI) being appointed CIA director may be crowning achievement of Saudi infiltration.

9 posted on 01/07/2013 4:53:47 PM PST by Spaulding
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Spaulding

Thanks for the comments. Do you have any links?


10 posted on 01/07/2013 5:17:55 PM PST by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: GladesGuru
Specifically, it means back to living in the desert, molesting small boys and livestock.

Not to sound like I am defending Muslims, but I will. You should really watch your facts when you post. They may be driven back to living in the desert, but they never stopped molesting small boys and livestock. For that matter, it doesn't matter where the sand ni&&ers live. In my neck of the woods, the only livestock that are safe happen to be pigs.

11 posted on 01/07/2013 5:24:38 PM PST by ConservativeInPA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: ConservativeInPA

LOL! Well done!


12 posted on 01/07/2013 5:39:52 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ColdOne; Convert from ECUSA; ...

Thanks neverdem.


13 posted on 01/07/2013 5:42:44 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: neverdem

A reporter asked Damon about this and his only response was something along the lines of he wasn’t aware of it till after the film was completed. The usual pile of horseS**t


14 posted on 01/07/2013 6:59:12 PM PST by eak3
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: glorgau
tool of anti-American propagandists


15 posted on 01/07/2013 8:35:19 PM PST by UCANSEE2 ( If you think I'm crazy, just wait until you talk to my invisible friend.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: neverdem
"Thanks for the comments. Do you have any links?"

For starters, the Percy Sutton interview broadcast on local New York cable is in many places on YouTube. The Obama team claimed that Percy was senile, and came up with “spokesman” for the Sutton family who claimed that al-Mansour denied everything, and Percy was known by the family to be senile. The Sutton family said they had never heard of the “Spokesman” and that Percy was perfectly lucid until the day he died. They also noted that the “Spokesman” got his age wrong. Percy was 86 and not 88 during the interview. Listen for yourself. He was slow but very careful - still a lawyer, who only recently had been advising Charles Rangel.

For the Vernon Jarrett Chicago Trib article (Jarrett was a columnist for the Tribune in 79, I found the pointers at Jack Cashill’s web site. Jack found a former New York journalist, Frank Mieli, who knew Sutton as a reporter, but who had retired to Montana. Cashill’s excellent article is here http://www.cashill.com/intellect_fraud/saudi_billionaire.htm
but points to Ken Timmerman’s article at WND and Frank Mieli’s article here http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/columns/frank/article_7924e4f0-0468-11e2-8da2-0019bb2963f4.html Mieli's is excellent, and worth going to directly.

The Chicago Trib removed the Jarrett article from its archives, but Mieli found it in the archives of a newspaper in Florida, Jarrett being a syndicated columnist. The Obots hadn't managed to scrub every bit of evidence, probably, in this case, because what is available is a photoimage from microfilm, and probably wasn't revealed by the webcrawlers at Google used to find and sanitize Obama’s history. You can download the image of Jarrett's article and expand it enough to read.

What got me interested was having listened, out of laziness, for hours on Saturday mornings while I was a grad student at Berkeley to Warden's diatribes on KDIA, a local jazz and blues radio station, and the only local station that featured Coltrane. Warden came on after the new jazz program and by that time I was working on something, and simply didn't change the station. In those days “kill the pigs” was the norm. Warden was eloquent and, while I had not background or interest to question Warden's alternative history, every Saturday was a history lesson. His message, not very different from that of our local Black Muslim, who hosted the Zebra killer. Warden was more radical than the the Black Panthers, and preached that it was the obligation of black people to kill whites, especially women and babies because they were the future soldiers of the infidel. When I learned, on David Horowitz’ “Discover the Networks” site, that Warden was Khalid al-Mansour, and heard Sutton talk about Mansour, the pieces fit. If Sutton was a rabid anti-white nationalist, I never heard it. But Warden's connection with Wahhabi Islam began in the 1960s, and his employment by the Saudi Royal Family in the late 60s, early 70s. He has been working for Wahhabi Islam for over forty years, and has represented them in Opec and international negotiations throughout the world.

The Jarrett article is about a proposal by Mansour for the Saudis to spend twenty million (one article claimed it was two hundred million, but I believe it was twenty) providing educational programs for minorities, particularly blacks and hispanics. Neither Mansour nor Jarrett mentioned whether is was to be Islamic education with the funding for Madrassas, but that is just what al-Mansour has been doing all over the world for decades. It makes perfect sense that Barry was one of his projects.

We have had an “Arabist” clique within the CIA for decades, asserting that all the problems with the middle east would disappear if only those pesky Israelis could be controlled - eliminated. Now we have the Muslim Brotherhood in the State Department in the person of Huma Abiden, the arabist CIA director John Brennan, and the symbolic Muslim president, whose background has been remarkably concealed (I have no idea whether Obama thinks himself a Muslim, though it appears that he did while a youngster in Indonesia, but probably assumes the beliefs convenient to his circumstatnces; it doesn't really matter.)

16 posted on 01/07/2013 9:03:10 PM PST by Spaulding
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Spaulding
Thanks for the links. The affection that blacks have for Islam escapes me, other than being taught to hate whitey.

Sesquicentennial Comparisons: Black Slavery in America and Ottoman Turkey (Beware: no faint hearts!)

17 posted on 01/08/2013 10:06:34 AM PST by neverdem ( Xin loi min oi)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson