Decision on fracking will damage our climate
WITH Parliament breaking up, the government has been “putting out the rubbish”with announcements that are likely to cause a stink, either because they are rejected by those affected or because when examined they prove to be mirages - not there when you get up close.
An example of the former is the final granting of permission to Cuadrilla to begin full-scale fracking at Preston New Road in Lancashire. This will lead to slower conversion to clean renewables as our progress to decarbonise slows.
This is either the madness of contrarian reality deniers or suggests some darker reason for promoting corporate venturing over local democratic rejection, scientific expertise and economic analysis which can point to renewables becoming cheaper and cheaper and gaining an ever increasing share of the market.
Against this, fossil fuels will become ever more problematic to extract and sell as assets become unexploitable, insurance costs rocket and pension funds and other investors take fright and divest.
Of course, the fires on the moors aren’t just due to climate change, but with the tragedy of dozens killed by runaway fires in Greece, fires above the Arctic circle in Sweden, and dozens dying and 22,000 hospitalised from heat in Japan, it is clear that it is a major contributory factor.
And in addition to this, more than 70 people have died this month in Quebec with Ottawa reaching a humidity equivalent of 47C, Tblisi in Georgia 40.5C, Chino outside LA 48.9C, and Algeria may have seen 51.3C.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer and one drought doesn’t show a fundamental change. But it isn’t just one drought and it isn’t just now.
We all live on the one Earth and if our government won’t protect our pensioners, children and grandchildren from heat; our air, water, and wildlife from pollution; our homes, countryside and villages from falling values, they cannot be surprised if protests escalate, perhaps turning nasty. W Black, Hulme