Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Stick to the facts on fracking
Those opposed to the exploitation of the Karoo must use arguments based on science
ON MONDAY, Joburg shook from an earthquake originating in Botswana. My Facebook feed, biased towards comrades in the environmental sector, came alive with the theory that fracking in the central Kalahari caused the quake. Jeffrey Barbee, the director of AllianceEarth.org, wrote an article in the online publication, the Daily Maverick, on Tuesday that suggested fracking could be the cause.
However, the theory that drilling for shale gas sparked the earthquake is almost certainly false.
A seismologist at the University of Southampton, Stephen Hicks, has pointed out the magnitude 6.5 earthquake occurred at a depth of 30km and was an intraplate earthquake, likely due to push-andpull stresses coming from the East African Rift. In other words, not fracking’s fault.
The chief executive of the Botswana Geoscience Institute, Tiyapo Ngwisanyi, has adamantly stated that fracking wasn’t the reason for the tremors. Instead, the quake was a natural occurrence.
To extrapolate from the fact that fracking has caused earthquakes in Canada and the US and then conclude, as some have done, that Botswana’s quake was due to fracking is a dodgy piece of logic. A first-year philosophy student would be severely chastised for such a basic error.
That some eco-activists have made scientifically dubious statements about the quake represents one of two major failings of the campaign against fracking in the Karoo.
The other failing is an inability to address the broader anti-fracking campaign’s class and subsequent racial divides.
Will fracking pollute the Karoo’s water resources? Will it increase greenhouse gas emissions when we need to decrease them? How many jobs will it create? These and similar questions are legitimate and the answers need to be based on credible research.
For years, the debate around fracking in South Africa has been mired in a factual fog.
Shell commissioned Econometrix in 2012 to research the economic impacts of shale gas development. Econometrix concluded that the potential size of the shale gas reserve was between 20-50 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and that somewhere around 290 000 to 700 000 jobs would be created.
Hundreds of thousands of potential jobs from shale gas development is no small matter. For many people in South Africa’s rural areas, even the hope of work is better than constant and grinding poverty.
Late last year, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) published an in-depth study of shale gas development on behalf of the Department of Environmental Affairs.
The 1 400-page study concluded that the size of the reserve could be 20 tcf at the most and that there were very significant risks in regards to water quality, greenhouse gas emissions and agriculture.The CSIR also pointed out that the employment potential was considerably less than what Shell’s study stated. In order to mitigate the risks – for example, spillage of fracking fluid – the report suggested that the government regulates the shale gas industry.
To reduce the risks, the government would have to manage oil and gas companies considerably better than it watches over Eskom and Sasol. In an era of rampant corruption and the subsequent hollowing-out of the state, I reckon that regulation and enforcement will be a disaster.
We now have a scientific assessment that says the risks are high and the benefits are relatively low, especially in terms of jobs.
On March 30, Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane gave shale gas exploration the green light. Of course, the fact that the ANC’s Thebe Investment Corporation owns 28% of Shell South Africa had nothing to do with Minister Zwane’s decision.
When environmental activists make unfounded claims like fracking caused the quake, they too are departing from science, which is a gift to Shell. People and organisations campaigning against fracking lose credibility when they make hasty and incorrect scientific claims. The power to persuade the general public decreases with each falsehood. One of those unfortunate own goals.
Another unfortunate own goal was when, in 2012, the highprofile Treasure Karoo Action Group (TKAG) joined up with the conservative and politically orientated AfriForum to oppose fracking. The formal alliance between TKAG and AfriForum split the wider anti-fracking community and needlessly replicated the stark class and, by extension, racial divisions in the Karoo.
For a very long time, white farmers have treated the Karoo as a feudal enterprise with the non-white population filling the role of exploited serfs. The last 20 years have not seen the kind of substantial transformation of financial and power dynamics necessary to redress the long-term social, economic and psychological consequences of the past.Because of TKAG and AfriForum’s media presence and financial resources, one particular class in the Karoo tends to dominate the public debate, leading to community activists feeling, as a campaigner once told me, invisible. The irony is that if there ever was an issue in the Karoo that could bring farmers and farmworkers together, it is fracking. But it hasn’t: environmentalism’s social tragedy prefiguring Shell’s ecological tragedy.
Developing the Karoo doesn’t require fracking. Renewable energy, increased global branding of Karoo lamb and the promotion of tourism are all steps in the right direction. The Karoo is, after all, a beautiful place with lots of sun. The lamb tastes great.
So why take the risk that fracking will poison scarce water supplies, negatively impact the Karoo’s economy and increase carbon emissions? And if we really, really absolutely need gas, we could just import natural gas from Mozambique.
The case against shale gas in South Africa has never been stronger and it has nothing to do with the recent earthquake. And, despite Minister Zwane’s statement, there is still a long way to go before drilling commences. Yet the antifracking campaign is under threat. Not from Shell or factions within the ANC, but from environmentalists who either misuse science or ignore class and race issues.
● Tristen Taylor is a post-doctoral fellow in philosophy at Stellenbosch University. He was the project co-ordinator at Earthlife Africa in Joburg from 2007 to 2016.