Health experts and activists warning that fracking can promote serious negative health effects are facing government and market hurdles in their effort to protect people. Under the UK’s Climate Change Act, successive British governments are obliged to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, the current government, led by Prime Minister David Cameron, has pushed forward an Infrastructure Bill completely at odds with the Climate Change Act 2008. The Infrastructure Bill obliges governments to produce strategies for “maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum” and includes provisions “to introduce a right to use deep-level land” for “petroleum or deep geothermal energy.”
Rather than taking a precautionary approach to protect people and the environment from the possible severe effects of fracking, David Cameron has – quite irrationally – engaged in a publicity war for the fracking industry, and sought popular support for it by arguing that it “has real potential to drive energy bills down.” But, Cameron won’t listen to prominent health experts who have labelled fracking “inherently risky” for it potential health impact. Nor will he will explain how his attempts at eliciting public support for fracking by outlining economic gains square with those of Former BP chairman Lord Browne, now chairman of fracking company Cuadrilla, who has contradicted Cameron, indicating that there will be no downward trend on household energy bills in the UK as a result of gas and oil derived from fracking in the country. We cannot rely on our governments to provide solutions to the UK’s energy problems, nor to uphold their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In a report released this week, medical action charity Medact recommended a UK-wide moratorium — for at least five years — on fracking in England (it has already been banned in Scotland and Wales). The authors point out that fracking has the propensity to increase the risks of cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects. But the UK government has long preferred promoting the fracking industry over its reported deficits on health and the environment. In 2013, the government announced tax reductions on profits derived from fracking, from 62 percent to 30 percent. In January 2014, David Cameron announced that local councils would be able to keep 100 percent of business rates collected from shale gas sites, and later pushed for the adoption of the Infrastructure Bill. All this in spite of numerous warnings by experts and activists.
The UK government is far from alone in their support for “hydraulic fracturing” of shale formations (“fracking”), which other governments, including in the U.S., Canada, China, and Germany have also promoted. Fracking entails drilling and injecting water into the ground at a high pressure to fracture shale rocks and release the natural gas inside. The practice has been highly criticized for its high water use, impact on the environment as a result of high carbon emissions, water contamination, risk of causing earthquakes, noise pollution, and health effects.
Proponents of fracking argue that it can be conducted safely and will bring benefits in the form of energy that is cleaner in climate terms than coal and oil, lower energy prices, and local employment and economic development.
While a paper published in 2011, in the journal Climatic Change, found that methane emissions from shale gas fracking, “are at least 30 percent more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas,” governments continue the mantra that fracking produces cleaner energy. Further, initial benefits in the form increased local employment and economic development from the fracking industry later diminish as a result of deteriorating health, as well as noise and smell pollution breaking the social fabric of communities.
Given the significant environmental and public health implications of fracking, the authors of Medact’s report recommend a UK-wide moratorium on fracking, which they assert can create “multiple actual and potential sources of pollution.” They highlight that throughout the fracking process, “leaks of gas can occur across the entire process of extraction, treatment, storage and transportation.” The points of pollution include emissions from diesel engines, compressors and heavy transport vehicles; as well as the potential release of silica into the air. But the fracking process includes other “more significant airborne health hazards” and gas, fracking fluid, or wastewater can also contaminate surface and ground water leading to long-term health consequences. The authors of the report explain that:
Oxides of nitrogen, hydrogen sulphide, formaldehyde, benzene, ethylene, toluene, particulate matter and ground-level ozone are among the more significant airborne health hazards. Surface and ground water can also be contaminated by gas, fracking fluid, or wastewater which consists of original fracking fluid combined with a range of new materials generated from underground (including lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium; and naturally occurring radioactive material).
These pollutants have the potential to cause serious health defects. Further, the lack of a regulatory framework to protect the environment, as well as communities and individuals at risk is of serious concern in the UK. The Medact report authors state that the risks and serious nature of the hazards associated with fracking, coupled with the concerns and uncertainties about the regulatory system, indicate that shale gas development should be halted until a more detailed health and environmental impact assessment is undertaken. The lack of a regulatory framework is intentional, of course. The government seeks to provide an open environment for companies such as Cuadrilla to explore the UK for shale oil and gas, without government “interference” which should seek to protect people and the environment.
In the U.S., complaints of water contamination associated with fracking have arisen in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and West Virginia, with more than 100 cases in the last five years verified in Pennsylvania. In 2010, Cuadrilla Resources began drilling exploratory shafts into the rock at Preese Hall near Blackpool, in north-west England, to begin the UK’s first experiments with extracting gas trapped in formations of shale. Later, Cuadrilla temporarily suspended its operations as a result of two small earthquakes in the area. In the U.S., the Council on Foreign Relations cited reports that more than 100 small earthquakes were recorded in Youngstown, Ohio, in 2011; a remarkable number for a town that does not lie on a fault line. In Oklahoma, there has been an increase from just two earthquakes above 3.0 on the Richter Scale in previous decades, to 585 in 2014. It is estimate that this year, the southern central U.S. state will experience more than 800 earthquakes measured over 4.0 on the Richter Scale.
The potential increased risk of earthquakes, cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects coupled with the fact that methane emissions from shale gas fracking are at least 30 percent more those from conventional gas, highlights clearly the need for an immediate moratorium on fracking exploration throughout the UK, in favour of developing cleaner forms of energy going forward. The only way to challenge the hegemony of fracking as the “solution” to the UK’s energy problems is to support and participate in movements seeking new solutions to severe threats posed by climate change.
One cannot rely on governments or markets to provide these solutions, they are the problem. There are a number of anti-fracking groups operating in the UK, from small direct action groups such as Reclaim the Power, to Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. In additional a number of groups are increasingly committed to highlighting the ways in which capitalism has fostered an environment that permits companies to run rampage over the earth in the pursuit of profits. New approaches are necessary.
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4 Comments
Joseph,
I generally agree with your argument. Nonetheless, you state “. . . it is less capitalism that is driving us to extinction . . .” (and wouldn’t that be good, sooner than later, for all other species!), then proceed to enumerate some of the more obvious functions and practices of capitalism: overconsumption [driven by endless marketing], production from non-local resources [with all attendant pollution, cultural destruction, genocide, and other crimes], and last but not least, profits. What you leave out — the absolute absence of corporate ethics that lead to exploitation of anything and everything, material or not, for profit in an economic system contrived for benefitting a few greedy humans at the expense of the rest of the planet — does not excuse the massive failures and crimes of capitalism.
Your argument, to me, does a fairly convincing job of providing evidence that capitalism is the primary force driving humans (and alas, many other species and ecosystems) to extinction. An economy designed and contrived to promote exploitation of people, materials, cultures, and even ideas, for profit, is absolutely what is driving life to extinction.
“One cannot rely on governments or markets ”
true
neither can one rely on greenpeace et alii as they do not take on the larger issue of animal agriculture since to do so would impact their fundraising capacity in a negative way…plus, they would open themselves up to terrorist charges in the US and possibly in the UK as well…and nobody talks about radical reductions in energy usage, as this would affect our lives in inconvenient ways; but this is the only actual remedy for what is a problem of immense over-consumption in all western developed nations, esp the US…humans may as well be listed as an endangered species at this point, because i don’t see us doing anything that would realistically address the real problem: our current energy-gluttonous lifestyle, which is off the charts…we instead banter about useless non-solutions like WWS, little more than a fairy tale to make us feel better as we blindly head off into an abyss…it is less capitalism that is driving us to extinction, and more our daily energy consumption, as well as over-consumption of goods produced from non-local resources, especially electronics, which are incredibly resource intensive to produce, and our predilection for tasty animal products at pretty much every meal, every day…
bottom line: put the blame where it resides the most: on us, the addicts, not on those who feed us the goods we binge upon on a continual basis…
where do those profits come from?
from us
I generally agree with Peter Warner. But what is lacking from Joseph’s comments usually is any kind of coherent solution to the massive problems we face. It is usually the easy position to take and say: we must all just spontaneously withdraw. There is nothing else going on offer here at all. It’s an incredibly depressing position to take, if not somewhat arrogant, particularly without offering any real coherent alternative and strategy to get wherever it is he would like to be.
“it is less capitalism that is driving us to extinction, and more our daily energy consumption, as well as over-consumption of goods produced from non-local resources, especially electronics, which are incredibly resource intensive to produce, and our predilection for tasty animal products at pretty much every meal, every day…”
By trying to establish it is “less capitalism” Joseph basically shows it is all about capitalism-as Peter Warner suggests above. But that’s all by the by really. Human beings have no privileged place in this world. The earth or universe cares not whether we are here. Many species often eat themselves out of existence or changing circumstances bring about their demise. Our “species-being”, unlike others, may have the ability to self reflect and change things for the better for future generations but we are struggling on this front, severely. And it’s not for want of trying. It’s not as if for, at the very least, the last 150 or so years concerned citizens of socialist persuasions have been fighting hard, sometimes paying with their lives, for a better world.
The forces of the BigDaddyWhiteGeezerPowerGrid have flexed their muscles via the bigger GUN that they have at their disposal and have run amuck causing unlimited devastation and destruction. The BigDaddyWhiteGeezerPowerGrid still has the upper hand and since the mid seventies really put it’s foot down as if to say, “that’s enough, you’ve had your 25 years of the “Golden Age of Keynesian Economics, now you’re just pissing us off.” As a result things don’t look good. As Klein suggests, we may only have 10 years. Paul Street, not prone to unhelpful pessimistic statements like those that Joseph makes, reduced that to 9 based on the publishing timeline of Klein’s book. Paul Street may also have suggested, in a way, “[m]aybe the chances of averting catastrophe are 1 in 10”. It wasn’t a definitive statement, really meant to make a point, and I wouldn’t hold him to it at all, but it does suggest things are not great and to me it leans towards the impossible (mainly the nine years), if history and the “lefts” inability to get a “firestorm of awareness” going which could lead towards a coherent strategy for change is a guide. But my own pessimism doesn’t warrant foreclosing on all hope. Impossible doesn’t mean give up. We still need coherent strategies and alternatives that provide us with possibilities. Positive and constructive ideas that generate energy and action, unlike Joseph’s that in no way provide anyone with any kind of direction to follow other than a unhelpful vague call for some sort of mass withdrawal. If anything, Joseph’s comments, through the psychological despair that they can foster, are far more likely to create the very scenario he seems to want to avoid. Although, even on that point, that he wishes to avoid the “abyss” scenario, I am not so certain. Joseph’s comments seem more in line with Zerzan and others of the primitivist persuasion.
Still would like to know how he powers up his computer!
“It’s not as if for, at the very least, the last 150 or so years concerned citizens of socialist persuasions have NOT been fighting hard, sometimes paying with their lives, for a better world.”