Tar Sands: A warning against fracking
Over the past few months a head of steam has built up around hydraulic shale gas extraction-commonly known as ‘fracking’. Many commentators have rejoiced in its status as a wonderfuel, able to meet our energy needs, being available in large easy to extract amounts and able to create vast profits which will help solve our energy problems. Best of all they claim it proves once and for all that the theory of peak oil was wrong: Oil and gas can go on propelling our world for ‘decades’ to come with no need for renewable energy or to change the way we live…..
Alas how wrong they are! Over the last twenty years many experts in the fields of energy and environmental science have put forward the theory of ‘peak oil’ whereby oil stocks will be used up because they are a non-renewable fossil fuel and due to the industrialization of more and more of the world, we will simply run out of oil. This theory still has much relevance today because as far as conventional oil supplies are concerned it is spot on, no new oil has been found for many years and our exponential use of existing supplies means it will indeed run out, sooner rather than later. At this point it would have been prudent for all those who are concerned with energy provision and the environment to redefine our energy needs so as to move away from fossil fuels to renewable and energy efficiency. Unfortunately such is the power of the fossil fuel (fool?) lobby there has begun a desperate search for more oil rather a rational examination of alternatives and realignment of energy provision. It is as if am alcoholic bartender having drunk his bar dry now decides rather than sobering up to boil up the pub carpet to get out the last dregs of beer. There is no better example of this than Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada. Here is the perfect showcase for what fracking really means for the environment and the people that live near ‘extracted lands’ Since the 1940’s Shell has been extracting oil and gas from this region but in the last decade these processes have been speeded up so as to extract the maximum amount of fossil fuel from the area. The result has been environmental devastation on an unprecedented scale with vast swathes of the territory becoming heavily polluted and the local population, largely indigenous native Canadians having their ancestral lands violated, their rivers made unfishable and their health seriously damaged. Of course this is all trumpeted as an economic ‘miracle’ by those making vast profits from the extraction, whilst among workers on the ground there are higher than average mortality rates due to the endless road journeys to and from the extraction sights. Still convinced fracking is such a good thing? And then there is climate change: Oil is literally fueling climate change and the amount of oil and gas being pulled out of the ground and then clogging the atmosphere with greenhouse gases at Tar Sands is staggering: Canada’s emissions rose 26% between 1990 and 2005 and are continuing to do so. Our obsessive love of fossil fuels (and the profits therein) are destroying the biosphere and leading to the horrendous weather extremes that are now becoming weekly events. For instance in South Wales over the last couple of weeks the temperature has risen from -5 to +15 in the course of 3 days, hardly ‘normal’ weather for January. There is no need for fracking in South Wales. The natural sources of energy derived from wind, wave and solar could easily provide energy for all our needs if harnessed properly with none of the heavy pollution associated with fracking ( it’s interesting that those who are routinely opposed windfarms on grounds of ‘pollution’ have little to say about shale gas…) We must resist this form of energy generation both globally and locally if we are to create a sustainable society, a green collar economy and tackle climate change-Fracking, the new fools gold needs to buried in the shale where it can do no harm and it’s proponents need to put their efforts into sustainability and not destruction in the name of profit.
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