[Cho:] Welcome back. Fracking it sounds like a dirty word. And for many people who care about the environment, well, it is. Fracking involves pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into underground shale to extract natural gas. Our next guest, Oscar nominated actor Mark Ruffalo, is very concerned about the harm that critics say fracking can do to the environment. He will be making his case in about an hour on the steps of New York City's city hall. So tell me, what will you be doing in about an hour there?
[Mark Ruffalo, Actor:] We are doing a press conference to announce the Watertodemic which is a community in Pennsylvania that about a year ago the DEP for Pennsylvania said that their water was contaminated by oil and gas by hydro-fracking. So on November 30th, the DEP of Pennsylvania allowed Cabot to stop bringing fresh drinking water.
[Cho:] So explain to us, because there are a lot of people who have heard the term "fracking" or "hydro-fracking"
[Ruffalo:] Yes.
[Cho:] but they're not entirely sure what it is. Explain to me what it is and why is it so damaging in your estimation to the environment?
[Ruffalo:] Well, there is something they call shale and inside the shale, which lies about 5,000 feet below the surface of the earth is gas, natural gas pockets. And they they drill a hole 5,000 feet down and another 5,000 out horizontally and they put about seven million gallons of fresh water infused with about 150,000 gallons of cancerous and endocrine-disrupting chemicals. And they blast this at such high pressures that it actually cracks the bed rock and allows the gas to percolate up to the surface. But what we're doing is just taking seven million gallons out of our fresh water supply. There's only 2.5 percent of the water in the world is fresh water. That's all the fresh water we'll ever have and they're lacing it with these contaminates that comes up with heavy metals and radiation and can't can't really be remediated.
[Cho:] You know the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says Cabot Oil and Gas has provided clean water by drilling new wells and putting in treatment systems. And what do you say to that?
[Ruffalo:] Well, the whole aquifer is contaminated. It's not for no reason that all of the families along one road who've all had wells had all been contaminated.
[Cho:] In fact I want to show this video, again. We last spoke to you and director Josh Fox back in February about the movie Gasland. This documentary where when you look at the at the video there, it shows residents of Dimock, Pennsylvania and they can actually, as you see there, light their tap water on fire because of the methane gas that leak under to the water supply. I mean, is that still going on there?
[Ruffalo:] Yes. Their wells are still percolating methane and that will never be probably in their lifetimes will not be remediated. Once methane enters an aquifer like that at such high volumes it's almost impossible for it to
[Cho:] What is happening to the health of these people as a result?
[Ruffalo:] Well, their children have who have been bathing in it. Now they haven't been using this water for almost two years because the DEP has been delivering them water. But when they were using it, their children were breaking out with skin rashes. One of Craig Soughtner's daughter was passing out in the shower from the high levels of methane and other chemical gases. And pets have died all over Pennsylvania from this. It's nasty stuff.
[Cho:] You know, there are so many causes out there. Hydro- fracking necessarily isn't the most obvious one. I mean, you're a Hollywood actor and you're very busy. Why, why did you get so involved with this? Why so passionate about it?
[Ruffalo:] Well, I live there. I live in that area and, you know, to me, we're facing this era of extreme energy extraction whether its tar sands or hydro-fracking or mountaintop removal and all of these things destroy our water and they tie very nicely into this idea that climate change is real. And water happens to be one of the victims of climate change and the and the extreme extraction methods that we now have, that we're now engaging in and it has to be stopped. It's time for us to move forward.
[Cho:] Can't let you go without asking you a little bit about work.
[Ruffalo:] Ok.
[Cho:] Of course I remember you most recently in your Oscar- nominated term in "The Kids are All Right." Spectacular performance.
[Ruffalo:] Thanks.
[Cho:] What are you working on now?
[Ruffalo:] I just finished a movie called "Thanks for Sharing" with Tim Robbins and Gwyneth Paltrow.
[Cho:] Written by Steve Blum.
[Ruffalo:] Yes that's right, who who wrote "The Kids are All Right". And I'm going on to do a movie with Luis Lateria called "Now you see Me."
[Cho:] And also in "The Avengers." A little role in there.
[Ruffalo:] Yes I have a little role in "The Avengers".
[Cho:] All right, Mark Ruffalo great to see you again.
[Ruffalo:] Thanks. Nice seeing you.
[Cho:] Happy holidays.
[Ruffalo:] Thank you so much.
[Cho:] Coming up after the violent protests and the civil unrest, tourists aren't exactly flocking to Egypt. So, can Egypt recover? We'll have a live report a little later on in the program. We're back after this.