Josh Fox at the Woodstock Film Festival

The Woodstock Film Festival has become a source of radical thought. On August 28 they showed the documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution at Upstate Films in Woodstock, and on Wednesday Josh Fox, the director of Gasland, spoke at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock about strategies to combat global warming. Gasland (2010) explores the dangers of fracking. Josh Fox’s new movie, GASWORK: The Fight for C. J.’s Law, describes the perils of oil and gas labor. Oil field workers have seven times the fatality rate of the average American worker.

Here are some of my notes from Fox’s talk:

Alternative electrical power is now as cheap as conventional electricity. He recommends these websites: solutionsgrassroots.com, mydomino.com.

“We’re all going to have to eat a lot less meat.” (But grass-fed beef actually helps the earth, because the roots of grass will only be as long as the green blades above the soil. If the top of the grass keeps getting clipped – by a cow’s teeth – part of the root system will die, returning carbon to the earth. And that’s good!) (Similarly, a compost pile stores carbon.)

“Of all the things we have to do to save the earth, the easiest is elect Bernie Sanders president!” (“Hillary is like the New Coke: there’s brand loyalty, but it just doesn’t taste right.”)

“I’m a filmmaker, not an organizer. I can’t organize my sock drawer – in fact, I don’t have a sock drawer!”