To jumpstart our efforts to support state-based work to address climate change, we’ve partnered with filmmaker Josh Fox, state level organizations, and local grassroots groups to host special screenings of Gasland 2 in Texas and North Carolina – two battlegrounds in the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) debate.

The tour started in Texas, where the film filled theaters in San Antonio, Dallas, and Fort Worth. Fox moderated Q&A sessions that spotlighted subjects of the film and groups that have been organizing against fracking. “Many of the areas that face increasing drought are the same areas where fracking operations continue to use millions of gallons of water. Texas, the nation’s third-largest agricultural producer and one of the states growing in population most rapidly, cannot continue to sustain such disastrous water losses,” said Alyssa Burgin, director of the Texas Drought Project and co-host of the recent Texas screenings.

On Monday, October 7th the tour stops in North Carolina where it is co-hosted by Reel Power and Clean Water for NC, a science based environmental justice advocacy group, with the aim to grow the anti-fracking movement in NC at this critical time. There is currently a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the state that will last until 2015 while regulations are being developed.

“Public awareness about fracking—its impacts on water, air, land, and vulnerable communities—is growing fast in North Carolina,” says Hope Taylor, exec. director of Clean Water for NC, “thanks to the power of the first Gasland movie and the research and outreach of many grassroots groups. We are learning so much from the experience of communities in Pennsylvania who were promised years of prosperity and are now experiencing the “bust”, as well as water contamination and community disruption, and from folks in Texas around drilling and compressor stations where poisoned air is causing grave health concerns ignored by regulators, or in Colorado, where recent flooding has broken pipelines, and inundated well pads and condensate tanks.”

The public is invited to attend this free event, which will take place at 7:00 PM on October 7 at Durham’s Carolina Theatre at 309 W Morgan St. To reserve a free ticket, please visit https://gasland2nc.eventbrite.com/.