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The eco warriors, like all fanatics, dislike discussion. They are right. Always.
Yesterday I made a comment on a Facebook post of someone who is ardently against the plan for fracking in Fife. I respect anyone who has firm convictions but the respect diminishes when common sense is lacking. Her post was to protest about the lack of interest of Fifers in the recently awarded fracking licences. She’s furious there are a lack of objections to the plans and refuses to accept the answer that obviously people aren’t concerned.
I did attempt to ask if she thought fracking would be more damaging to the environment than the thousands of windmills which have been thrust upon our beautiful countryside, but there was no response.
The above prompted me to suggest this post may be of interest to those of us who are concerned with the Scottish Government’s green policies. It is a global poll carried out by the United Nations.
Recently China, in order to preserve its industries, stated its use of fossil fuels would peak in 2030. It appears Obama is quite happy with China’s stance. Westminster has been quiet in the hope that the greenies will not introduce mass protests against China and India’s policies of building unlimited coal fuelled power stations.
In the comments of my recommended article, I note that several people are concerned about the effect the warmest agenda will have on our future trust in science.
I believe that the only hope for science, academic institutions, as well as government, and the mainstream media is a full and honest exposure of what has been fabricated by the so called “environmentalist” movement. The failures, deceit, and plundering by previously well respected academic institutions is appalling. A gentle “sweeping under the rug” is not going to bring respect back to these once leading monuments of the free world. I don’t believe the mainstream media will ever recover. Only a complete and open reversal will offer any chance of that but I will not hold by breath.
If the above graph (taken from here) is anything to go by most of us aren’t interested in action on climate change. That’s not good news for countries but of course it will be celebrated in environmentalist quarters. They are free to continue destroying populations.
It’s time we decided to bring a halt to those spreading their false science. Climate change may not be important in the many people’s everyday life priorities but the fanatics must not be given free reign. We must care in order to protect the future of honest scientists the world over.
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17 comments:
Tragically the science and truth surrounding climate change has become devalued, debased and obscured to the point where it is now almost meaningless and lost in the mist of totally unscientific argument and counter-argument.
The science of this subject has been under attack on three fronts –
From scientists themselves, who committed the ultimate sin of allowing emotion and personal preferences to cloud their interpretation of the data.
From big business which is driven purely by financial return regardless of what side of the argument the fall on, or of the wellbeing of any nation and its population.
From the politicians, who are driven solely by ideology and dogma and will not be persuaded otherwise by argument or fact.
We could start tilting at windmills but sadly both sides of the argument are so driven by their own interests that they are unlikely to stop and listen to any individual or group of individuals.
There was an anti-fracking rally at Grangemouth at the week-end which was live-streamed but you probably won`t hear about it in the mainstream.
There are a lot of people concerned about fracking and the subsequent pollution of groundwater. They are not all troubled by global warming - now called `climate change` because the globe has not been warming for the past 18 years.
I agree that the IPCC has disgraced itself and brought the scientific community into disrepute.
It is always dangerous when science and politics are mixed.
Video here http://new.livestream.com/IndependenceLive/events/3637434/videos/70578461
There was even a special word for the type of "science" claimed in support of the unproved hypothesis of catastrophic man-made global warming (aka "climate change"). It was called " post-normal science"). Because of the supposed " tipping point" which the earth was approaching, all sorts of unsubstantiated alarmism was justified.
When I discovered that the "Policy Makers' Summary" of the 1995 IPCC report had been shamelessly doctored, I thought " surely the game's over" - but it wasn't. Then the revelations of " Climategate" revealed the manipulators desperately trying to rig the evidence which did not fit their computer programmes - and still it goes on. I fear that too many people are making too much money out of us now in a political/scientific/financial caucus that nobody has the power to depose.
To give but two examples - Samantha Cameron's dad trousers around
£1000 per day from his subsidy/wind farm and
Mrs Nick Clegg ( under her Spanish maiden name) works for a company that makes wind turbines. There used to be a song with verses which ended " My gosh, how the money rolls in" . I am sure it applies to members of other parties and their friends and relations too. Politicians with "Green" investments can actually vote themselves rich
Hi Rosie
The link to the UN survey is:-
http://data.myworld2015.org
What is interesting is that if UK votes are filtered, action on climate rises to 8th from bottom.
Of the 34,024 votes, 80% (27,287) are from those professing to be educated 'Beyond Secondary'.
If an educationally representative sample of UK respondents were to be used, I suspect climate priority would reflect the global priority.
I attended an interesting talk by Professor Peter Styles of Keele University about fracking.
He made some good points. There is a moral argument for getting fuels from 'home' and not exporting problems abroad. There is a 'greenhouse gas' argument too for being local - all pipelines leak and the longer the pipleline the greater the lost gas. He argues that burning the gas here has less effect than the leaked gas on a Russia-UK pipe.
As to the dangerous chemicals, he made up a flask of typical fracking fluid and took a taste as he did it. The only ones he didn't go for were sand and washing-up liquid, which he said his kids had dosed him with enough for a life-time. He pointed out that fracking cracks can't propagate significantly in a vertical direction by simple physics, and that they are way below the water table. Earthquakes can never be significant in the UK because the country isn't big enough. There is just so much energy that can be held in a strained rock before it breaks; big earthquakes come from big rocks and the UK fault lines are just too short for that.
He had quite a common sense approach, saying that one could stop using fossil fuels but then one should hand over cars, clothes, laptops etc.!
To reassure people he said that the UK regulations had changed and that now micro-seismology was used, basically listening to the rock going ping, which allows real-time monitoring of where the cracks are.
Unfortunately, not all professors can be trusted these days. It means we have a responsibility to do our own research.
The gas is trapped within the shale underground which is blasted apart in multiple places using millions of gallons of water under high pressure. Introduced into the water are fracking fluids - a cocktail - some of which are toxic. The industry says it can get all this water back and dispose of it safely, but it cannot. As well as that, chemicals bound within the rocks are released due to this process. Some of them may be radioactive. These dangerous chemicals find their way into the water underground but where it travels after that cannot be controlled.
Everywhere this industry has fracked it has left behind an ecological disaster. There is plenty of evidence coming out of the USA and Australia - but not from the governments or the industry itself - from the people whose lives have been ruined. It would be foolish to ignore it. Once your local water supply is contaminated, there is no going back. You have to start buying bottled water and the price of your house falls. It becomes impossible to escape. What is worse, here in Scotland, the areas to be fracked are the most highly populated.
@ Alice 16:58
".... using millions of gallons of water under high pressure. Introduced into the water are fracking fluids - a cocktail - some of which are toxic."
1. Probably all of Rosie's readers have a medicine cabinet in which are fluids with warning labels "Do NOT exceed the stated dose". The stated dose may be as little as 10ml.
2. Over 400 deaths occur in the UK every year from ingesting DiHydrogen Monoxide, yet many folk allow their children to orally sample it. And undiluted, too!
Please, a sense of proportion & risk is needed for every aspect of modern life. It is, after all statistically dangerous to walk across the road.
Fracking is not a new technology, it has been used in Scotland for over 50 years.
Rocks are not 'blasted' apart by high-pressure water. Shale is an impervious rock and because of that it is capable of holding oil and gas within micro-bubbles. The shale layers are hundreds of metres below the water table, virtually by definition, as they form an impermeable layer.
Modern fracking techniques involve drilling and multiple-lining a vertical bore into the shale layer then steering the drill sideways. Multiple horizontal runs can be made from the same drill shaft. Fracking fluid consists primarily of water, sand, weak acids, glycerine and detergent - nothing that you wouldn't put down your own sink. The fluid is pumped into the shaft and pressurised. This fractures the adjacent rock connecting up the isolated pockets of hydrocarbons. The weight of the rock above ensures that the cracking doesn't significantly propagate upwards and will, indeed, close up the fractures if it wasn't for the injected sand. UK regulations prohibit fracking near known fault lines. As the crack front extends the pressure in the fluid drops. By monitoring this change in pressure it is possible to tell imediately if any unknown fault lines have been encountered. Similarly micro-siesmology 'hears' where the fracture front is and can pick up any anomalies that would indicate faults in the rock. The fracking liquid has nowhere to go, except back up the original drill bore. The shale is impervious after all. Impervious rocks are not water soluble, that is why they are impervious, so it is difficult to see why toxic chemicals would be suddenly disolved into the fracking fluid. In any case as previously explained the fluid is returned back up the bore shaft for processing. There is no reason to waste fracking fluid and every good reason to re-use it. More water is used to irrigate the UK's golf courses than would ever be used by UK fracking.
I think I would rather believe a professor of geology in the UK than car-driving, synthetic fabric wearing, laptop using activists in Australia and the USA.
JRB I would like to enhance your comment regarding scientists themselves to include financial gain as part of their ‘personal preferences’.
I heard about it Alice and had a little discussion with someone on Facebook. What I can’t understand is why people are against fracking yet never said a word when millions of tons of concrete were being deposited in the ground to support wind turbines.
Is it too late Edward? I’d like to think it’s not but fear, for the reasons you mention, it may be.
Hi Joe. Where did you find that? I looked for ages!
We’re a tiny set of islands yet we behave as if we can save the world from ‘climate change’. Ridiculous.
Jim S, that would have been a very interesting talk and I agree with the points made.
The funny thing is that Fifers made a reasonable living from coal for many generations. I never heard one complaint about mining from them and I lived just a river’s width away.
You’re right Alice and for that we must thank the internet.
I know two ‘wrongs’ don’t make a right, but let me again mention coal mining. In Fife populations were built around the mines and various gases were constantly present.
Also, what about the damage the millions of tons of cement is doing in our soil? Maybe wind turbines aren’t quite build in people’s back gardens (yet) but there is evidence out there that the concrete is damaging our soil and this may well contaminate our water supply in the future.
Sound rather similar to fracking doesn’t it?
What do you suggest? We import our gas?
DiHydrogen Monoxide, good point Joe. Thanks.
JimS, I appreciate the time you’ve taken to given such detail. Thanks.
I dislike wind turbines too, but wind turbines kill birds, not humans. That is the difference.
Please, look at the evidence coming from Australia and the USA.
This is not a silly word game. If we do not approach this with the due seriousness and research that the subject deserves, we fail our children and grandchildren who will never know what water is - as a human right.
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