This week’s release of “Promised Land,” with Matt Damon and Frances McDormand as representatives of a natural gas extraction company trying to persuade residents of a farm community to permit drilling, should inspire viewers to find out more about the controversial practice of “fracking.”  You can watch the 2010 documentary, Gasland, online.

And there are a number of books on the subject like Shale Gas: The Promise and the Peril, this progress report from EPA, and this report from the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources as well as a fascinating episode of This American Life.