for your immediate. relief. tonight on r t like a canary in the coal mine natural gas companies are singing out about a greener cleaner energy along with more jobs in a way to energy independence and utilities companies are buying into hydraulic fracturing big time we'll bring you the latest in the great energy debate coming up . and it's the battle of the economic plans president obama panders to the middle class while mitt romney presents a different vision for the u.s. and while they disagree about the means in the end both agree something needs to change to get america back on track we'll tell you the state of the economic union . plus for sale to the highest bidder your most private information including your

political preference microsoft and yahoo are a selling out on their customers all to make a quick buck will tell you what this means for your privacy and what you can do about it. it's thursday june fourteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching our t.v. well we here at r t have extensively covered hydraulic fracturing or fracking as it's called the risks of poses dangers as well as economic benefits the controversial procedure poses either way the practice is expanding take a look at this. this is a breakdown of the u.s. energy projection for two thousand and twelve the forecast for coal generated electricity is expected to fall below forty percent that's the lowest level since the government started collecting this data all the way back in one thousand and forty nine meanwhile natural gas use is on the rise it will be used to produce

twenty nine percent of electricity up from twenty percent in two thousand and eight nuclear energy production now accounts for twenty percent of electricity in the remainder of energy comes from renewable energy sources so you tell it is companies are actually ditching the much coveted coal for natural gas and the more of these supply the more the supply of natural gas grows the cheaper it gets people on both sides of the issue are passionate about their position those who support fracking say it paves the way for energy independence and creates thousands of jobs in a tough economy those against it say the dangers outweigh the benefits in this case one of them is director of gas land here is a look at his documentary. sixty two documented one thousand incidents of groundwater contamination bubbles and his says when it comes out. i wonder if they can prove whether we like it or not it's

a free for our water was good before you started growing it was a good thought it was bad obviously we have a problem. well josh fox is the filmmaker and activist and director of gas land what you just saw a clip us and he joins me now to discuss more about our energy future welcome josh so i guess whether we like it or not the country seems to be shifting away from coal to natural gas your thoughts i would is it is you have an ability in that in that sense we sleep. getting rid of coal was a really good thing coal is a horrible horrible fuel we've seen a century worth of damage to the environment and from using coal natural gas has sold itself as a cleaner burning alternative to coal and those were benefits that were. talked

about to the environmental community to the government and it's not true. research at cornell university and the national oceanic and atmospheric administration know of have shown that there is no appreciable benefit to switching to gas over coal in terms of climate change so much methane actually vents off of these sites when they're drilling for gas that you're contributing methane into the atmosphere an enormous quantities methane is many many more times more potent than coal than c o two is in the atmosphere so there is actually an offset here although it burns cleaner we're venting off enormous amounts of methane in the atmosphere there and their job salie no benefit there from the cuts or from the climate perspective now the proponents of fracking say that really what it is mostly being used as water what is it ninety nine point nine or ninety nine point five percent of it as water and if this technique is done correctly that this is as

a sustainable and environmentally friendly way of getting energy effets done correctly. well i've never heard anybody by the natural gas industry say that fracking was stable or environmentally friendly yeah there's a lot of water involved talking about two to seven million gallons of water per frack some of the chemicals that they use and so what you're talking about here in overall perspective is is an enormous quantity of chemicals per frac per well and those chemicals contaminate water in very very small amounts but we're talking about benzene i think it's five parts per billion of benzene in a groundwater in an aquifer it becomes extremely extremely unhealthy and two billion wyoming over the e.p.a. just showed that fracking was the likely cause of germination of brown where act for there they had fifty times the safe level of benzene in the ground or. chemicals from this process are migrating into aquifers we know that as well as the

gas they have an enormous problem as you saw the clip of the water being lit on fire of gas migration coming from cement casing failure and other problems in the process but the industry knows full well they have an enormous problem on their hands of their cement casing which is the part of the well which is supposed to protect groundwater failing at enormous rates industry's own documents show that six percent of those cement barriers which are one inch and have to explain one inch in diameter and have to extend three miles along the entire wellbore six percent of the spill upon installation and sixty percent of them fail on the subject of dolly well watered it just because you're saying that far away it gets polluted into the well water i read a lot of articles that say that it's not fracking itself that leads to the contamination of these wells what is and will lead to the contamination is that the

as walls are not properly sealed so if we can't properly seal these wells do we then have a solution to that problem it's an engineering impossibility when we're talking about one inch of cement so many cracks cement leaks the industry knows this very well and they've been trying to solve this problem for decades and they've written about it extensively in their own internal documents and things that were published we're talking about having to go back and fix gas wells not in a ten year period or a thirty year period that those wells are producing over eternity because a gas well in the casing has to have integrity forever if we're going to protect the groundwater that it's piercing through because they drill through the aquifers when they're going for the gas but we know that these things have an enormously high rate of failure six percent immediately upon drilling means you're going to have six incidents. where it's possible for gas and chemicals to migrate every time

you drill one hundred wells and they drill thousands of wells so the pennsylvania department of environmental protection showed in two thousand and ten six point two percent of wells were leaking gas in two thousand and eleven six point two of new wells percent of new wells really can guess seven point two thus far in two thousand and twelve this is not a fixable problem it is economically and technically impossible for them to prevent it and they're going to be if they were to assume any liability they'd be have to think they'd have to be fixing these wells for eternity so could it be clearly clearly there are many there have been many palms associated with fracking proponents say that if it's done correctly that these things can be avoided another thing that the pennsylvania labor and industry department talents when it comes to sort of tracking and is that forty eight thousand new jobs were created in the state through fracking and natural gas is becoming the u.s. is number one export and using coal as we had mentioned before comes with its own

environmental concerns and question the right it's the wrong question to say it's gas versus coal we know that we can run the world under nubile energy wind solar geothermal and these create much longer term jobs than a quick boom and bust economy in the gas industry plus when you look at these these small number of jobs which are consistently overstated by the gas industry and you look at all of the of the ecan are economic drivers that gas drilling destroys for example in new york state top two industries agriculture and tourism nobody wants to take a vacation in a gas field it's not a healthy environment to be producing food in a gas field we're talking about contamination of the water supply we're talking about a thirty billion dollar treatment facility that would treat new york city's water a world these are the the wrong questions in the wrong numbers we're talking about it's not about gas versus coal. it's about fossil fuels and continuing our

addiction and dependency on them ok if it's not gas viruses viruses. the fracking what people say it is about is energy independence which is very important in terms of foreign policy and foreign domestic issues to have energy independence and a lot of people are saying that this as paving the way for that here in the u.s. well as you just pointed out it's the number one export which means that this is nothing to do with energy independence they're proposing pipelines that cut across the southern tier of new york state one of them is called the ironically the constitution pipeline which is to connect frac gas fields n.p.a. . that have been the places which you had so many problems and send that gas to liquefied natural gas plants that are there are being proposed along the coast of the eastern seaboard to sell the gas in europe this is a developing country exploitation model this is their business model their business

model is to take the resources from the united states care less about what they contaminate and sell it overseas for a higher price that is the model and anybody who says it's about energy independence can be corrected by understanding that the only true energy independence is with renewable energy we can't export the sun and we can't export the wind so you're saying that year you're saying we can become one hundred percent energy efficient strictly on wind and solar as we have we can be we can run the world in renewable energy ok went to an amazing front page scientific american article by professor mark jacobson at stanford in which he lays out exactly the way that we can get the world's energy from renewable energy and we're talking about building an enormous infrastructure of pipelines compressor stations all the natural gas infrastructure which is polluting and emits leakage as i pointed out earlier for a short lived resource which. we know it's going to be contaminating the places

where it is developed it doesn't make any sense we have the technology now to move towards renewable energy going we need is the political will we need actual leaders who will bring us into the twenty first century and say well actually. sorry last last question here josh because we are at a time so basically do you want to see a fracking hydraulic fracturing eliminated well this is the last i mean we have to end our dependency on fossil fuels for so many different perspectives from the perspective of climate change from the perspective of water contamination from the perspective of our own to of our democracy one thing that we haven't looked at enough is the fact that these fossil fuel giants influence policy enormously they spent seven hundred forty seven million dollars lobbying congress to get the same drinking water act exemption that is you contamination of our democracy this is so absolutely we need to seize fracking and we also need to make very very strong moves away from fossil fuels in general. thanks thank you very much for coming on

the show that was activist and filmmaker josh fox director of gas plant thank you i said that this is a make or break moment for america's middle class the policies the president put in place did not make america create more jobs and most of all how to generate good little class jobs matter of fact he made it harder for america to create more jobs our economy will be truly helping you tell we were first that much longer. profile erosion of middle class jobs middle class income. i want to make it once again america once again the most attractive place in the world for job creators and it's not just because i like job creators because i love jobs. well it was an economic rap battle of epic proportions to bend their wing down to a different futures on stage right now preaching tax breaks for small businesses

and a complete repeal of obama's health care plan stage left president obama has been begging for one more term to finish what he started although they disagree on the means both agree that the state of the economic union is weak but let's break down just how bad things are just last week there was a spike in americans applying for unemployment aid as hiring remains sluggish according to the federal reserve's americans have seen their wealth plummet forty percent between two thousand and seven and two thousand and ten and it's looking bleak for college grads fifty percent of them cannot get jobs more than seven out of ten teens without a job this summer to talk more about the state of the economy and where it's headed nomi prins joined us earlier she is the senior fellow at demos and author of the book black tuesday i first asked what she thought of obama's speech here's her take . i i honestly think it's an example of talking rather than doing we we've seen

this from obama in the pre-election campaigning last time he's been in post election mode campaigning really since then and certainly has ramp that up recently and i think that's really where he's continuing to to put his efforts into words and sort of gestures without without content at least without really understanding what needs to be moved in order to address this economy one of the main things for example was yesterday's. love fest between the senate and j.p. morgan c.e.o. jamie diamond where there was really no indication that there was a relationship between what happens with risk taken by the largest bank and the rest of the american population and i think obama lives in that same disconnect and i want to take a moment we actually have a clip from both obama and romney delivering their speeches today let's take a listen first to president obama. when the polls. were.

all of those. right where there is kind of how to some of his achievements let's take a listen to what mitt romney at the say a lot of people have had some real tough times and the policies the president put in place did not make america create more jobs as a matter of fact he made it harder for america to create more jobs all right where they're hilarious on in attack mode as expected but know me if we can compare and contrast i mean who is the right track and in the end is there really a difference in their messages. well first of all i'd say that it's a bit unfair well it's politics of course but to say that what obama has done has detracted from jobs i think you know in terms of creation of jobs the fiscal

stimulus package that happened at the onset of the crisis was perhaps useful and maybe it did keep jobs from being lost i know that the white house's line and what would have been lost without that additional money we don't know but we do know that in general the job situation remains believe the nature of the quality of jobs which neither obama nor romney are really discussing in any of their messages remains bleaker than than the number of unemployed people and that people who do have jobs are finding it difficult to make ends meet and difficult to keep up with the inflation of regular costs such as health care such as food such as education and so you have to look at those broader issues and it doesn't seem like in this fight between i did this and i save the auto industry which it was helpful to get money into the auto industry and it has turned around to some extent but that's one industry of one in one component of america and there are broader issues across the country now don't know me there's

a little bit of irony and the speeches that were delivered today. and it could be a bit of a problem for obama given the irony of this speech two years ago bill clay and deliver this speech in two thousand and ten the speech was delivered in the same exact place that president obama gave his speech today at the community college bill clinton said quote the democrats are saying something like this we found a big hole and we did not do that we've been not dig we didn't get our failed in twenty one months but at least we quit digging give us two more years and if it doesn't work vote us out well nomi here we are two years later the economy is getting any better so the time to vote him out. i i actually think he will be voted out but you know that remains to be seen what happens with who we know in the election i think a lot of that is because of the job situation of the general economy and i think that a lot of people in this country are really sick of hearing words and not seeing real

fundamental change around them you know that was a promise it was hold it was change it was different it was new it was bright and it and it hasn't been that. not only has it not been that there's been this real backing off from from fighting the fights like for example against the banking industry to make it more equitable for more people to have more foreclosures restructured rather than you know see people in these year a year and a half long fights with their banks and so forth there's there's a lot of things that could be done at the bottom level to really shore up. economics personal economics for individuals that haven't been done that a point kind of been ignored at this point and that has been a real failing all right and he also wanted to bring this to light nomi recent government data shows that it's the middle class that is suffering the most with american wealth plummeting forty percent wanted to take a look at this chart that illustrates this who you can see in the u.s. job creation from two thousand and seven said today obviously when the financial

crisis hit in two thousand a job creation plummeted and record numbers and then in two thousand and ten started to make a bit of a comeback but then you see the charcoals on the come back is slowly adding them down once again so no i mean like what has contributed to this trend and do you expect it to continue. one of the things that contributed to the uptick was the fact that for a moment the financing engine of the country the banking system had received an enormous amount of guarantees of cheap loans and so forth and that was booing to some extent some of the money they would be able to lend on toward the larger corporations that they hired a little bit but on the middle sized corporations and certainly the smaller businesses that amount was stifled and that's where we saw the biggest job losses and we continue to see no job gains that hasn't changed what has changed in the last two years is that the crises the problems the fraud all of the way

in which the system the financial banking system has operated has reemerged into the light j.p. morgan again chase's loss that came to light the other day was just one example of an inherent amount of risk that is out there when there's risk in the banking system they don't want to lend they certainly didn't want to lend to small businesses to begin with now they're reticent about the larger businesses that's going to lead to more job cuts and more job increases no matter what the policy is in government unless there is some focus as to what's going on with this financing engine and this is all affecting the average citizen no we have this economic downturn shaped everything from owning a home to building retirement how has this affected on a mass scale the livelihood of american citizens. well for one thing and we look at these stats that in just three years the median net value the net wealth of of a family in the united states is down by forty percent that's significant that

means that people who had saved money into retirement whether it was in their home or whether it was in different types of investments are now facing either not being able to retire not being able to retire and have health care or have health problems they can't afford to fix and all those sorts of issues on the older person side on the younger person so the youth coming into this this system and this job market there they don't have summer jobs the fact that they don't have summer jobs means they can't put themselves in line for future jobs that don't even exist anyway so you have this whole sequence from from the young to the old of people that because of this flailing depressed economy can't either continue on with their lives or start their economic lives and then you have everybody in between that's trying to straddle middle age as well as deal with aging parents as well as deal with what happens when when their children don't go to college or can barely afford to go to college or they have to come up with some obscene amount of loans to get there and they come out and don't have jobs so on every level of the the economy on every level of age on every level of different types of backgrounds this economic

depression has a tremendous visceral impact and certainly a lot of people are getting disillusioned i guess with the way things are going in this country and you mentioned earlier j.p. morgan chase to talk about what's happening there you know c.e.o. jamie dimon testified before the senate he talked about the two billion dollar loss and credit derivatives what did you make of his testimony. as i mentioned before it was kind of a love fest between the senators and him and it seemed to me like at the end of the day there were no. admonishments for the risk that he took he hand waved the fact that you know i've got it under control now it was only two billion but guess what that position made billions before that and then it lost two billion so we're kind of ok and i've got it and it's fixed and it's under control and for the most part with the exception one or two senators who dug in a little bit into that attitude that was ok and the other thing that went on in that hearing yesterday was senators posturing for whether or not they should

regulate or not regulate the financial industry and the ones they were predominantly republicans they were republicans actually who didn't want to have any additional regulation or actually asking jamie diamond to support their view so the thing totally disintegrated the hearing into jamie dimon says that it cost him a billion dollars to use the new regulations from dodd frank you know we're worried about two billion he lost in trading but hey you lost a billion and regulation so that must be equivalent and it just it just went into all sorts of rounds which had nothing to do with looking at the structural problems in the banking system the fact that j.p. morgan chase among other banks exists on zero interest rate policy from the fed the fact that that zero interest rate policy does not get brought down into people trying to refinance their homes or go to colleges or build small businesses or maintain jobs that it kind of stays there with the banks are putting on to reduce positions and none of that was addressed yesterday and i think it's interesting that you call it a love fest in the end i mean what does this all have to say about the strides that

the u.s. has made since the economic crisis began back in two thousand a year saying that regulation is almost nonexistent. but i'm in love with there was a regulation passed the dot frank bill but it hasn't changed anything you know you look at the biggest banks they have twenty percent more derivative derivatives exposure than they had pre the two thousand and eight crisis they are taking large positions that are swinging back and forth and saying it's ok hm being allowed to say it's ok they're not restructuring loans that any kind of rate that really helps people and when the people do and when vigils do want their loans restructured they have to go into default first and be on a very in stable situation before they can even get twenty people on the phone and then five want to answer them to restructure and you have a situation where jobs are not being created at a pace that will help the economy grow where businesses aren't able to hire new people or keep the people they have where people who are unemployed are unemployed

longer and losing more benefits where it's more expensive to go to school where you can't write downs i mean on any number of things we're just in a worse position than we were going into the crisis the only institutions in a better position are the banks right now me a pleasure to have you on the show as a way of that was no me a person senior fellow at demos and author of the book black tuesday well if you're sick of getting spammed all the time brace yourself it could get a lot worse microsoft and yahoo are actually selling your personal information to the highest better and that seems to be political ads our producer andrew blake during the earlier and broke down the process take a listen until now just within the last couple of weeks and couple of months pro publica and the new york times or to the big outlets who have actually tried to shine a little bit of light of what's been happening and actually been happening all the way back to around two thousand and four presidential race and we're seeing a lot of it lately and what's happening is yahoo and microsoft in particular as well as a couple other companies what they are doing is that they're going to third party

companies to take personal user info that you willingly voluntarily hand over when you create accounts with them they're taking that information they're matching it with information that you wouldn't. expect them to have because they don't and political campaigns are spending lots and lots of money to get these personalized profile so that they can then target specific audiences so you might you know just like how i know sometimes i accidently go on your computer and i log on to your facebook and i post a bunch of annoying things. mr issue ads which i know you like your shoes but if you go on my it's just you know i don't want to know it comes out. that's a family program. anyways presidential candidates and smaller candidates to you know all sorts of elections they're putting lots of money into these campaigns and they're using some of that money to go out there and buy ads that will target specific people whether it has something to do with gender or shopping habits it's one thing but they're not just selling retail products here they're not selling you

shoes they're selling you the future of the country that they're selling you policy they're selling you ideologies that's not how that works out ideology there you go there you go so a lot of people don't realize this right now and it's completely completely legal for now and some are saying it might actually be working in some cases i mean and if you go back and look at the recall election in wisconsin from last week we know we don't know but we have a lot of people saying that money can buy votes then that was just direct advertising what about when this money is you know going to cater specifically liz wall or andrew blake that money is going to buy both votes if you ask me was more likely to so i need and they obviously this can be used to influence of voters. is this another example that money can buy politics i know you mean this is in the wake of super pacs and unlimited spending and record spending and elections is this

yet another example of that i mean it's too early to really say and like i said this is only been going on for a couple of years and obviously with the pace of technology it's becoming more and more rampant and you know i do. i want to say we're in be able to tell with the two thousand and twelve presidential election because they say that the entire election came down to some sort of micro-targeting michel martin eating trying to be ridiculous but down the road are we going to see this if it keeps continuing is it actually going to have an effect on the way people vote is very well may be and the way they do this is they will start following the customers start following their online habits and they'll see what they do online they'll match it up with their account information their is it code their shopping history their education their income all these factors and they'll go ok i want to make sure that people in zip code two zero zero zero five that are undecided for the upcoming election that went to a for you.