Two members of the Southwark group became workers for Frack and Go, during their gas exploration adventure earlier this week. True to form, they arrived at the crack of dawn to erect a fake drilling rig on Knutsford Heath directly opposite George Osborne's conservative constituency office – one of the potential fracking sites he has earmarked for exploration of shale gas in the UK. Greenpeace workers quickly rebranded the building as Frack and Go's headquarters - putting up signs to appologise for the inconvenience and provide a complaints hotline that went directly to Mr Osborne's office. Once the scene was set, the frackers went about their work,- reading theodolites, drinking tea and extracting imaginary gas behind the recently erected harris fencing. As the drilling commenced thumping machine noises were blasted from the onsite sound system accompanied by the reassuring hammer blows and tapping of the workers. It wasn't long before the press and police visited to find out what was going on.
In case you're not up to speed on this one Fracking involves drilling deep into the ground, then pumping millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the hole under high pressure to release the gas or oil reserves trapped in the shale beneath. Noisy, polluting and unsightly recent scientific research indicates that fracking can be as bad as coal in terms of emissions and despite Mr Osbourne's statements to the contrary, is unlikely to reduce the energy bills of anyone in the UK. Even the government's own advisors have stated it as being "completely incompatible" with the nation's legally binding carbon emissions targets. Fracking has already started in Lancashire and is due to resume after a small earthquake was recorded near Blackpool in 2011- hmmm, very reassuring!
Interest was high – as the Frack and Go technicians went about their work, twiddling knobs and scribbling notes on our clipboards, the BBC, ITN, The Guardian, and a host of other media organisations filmed, photographed and talked to the workers and the locals at the scene. Even the sun came out for us and the local cafe started selling 'frackjacks' to support the cause!
We packed up with no arrests -having raised awareness locally of what George was planning for the area – and were accosted by a man from the Flyde anti fraking group who had driven all the way from Blackpool to meet us. They have first hand experience of this form of extraction and are one of many communities in the UK starting up resistance groups – Sussex, Ireland, Somerset, Dorset - in fact 64% of Britain has been granted licences for exploration already. It's really quite scary the extent of this, and amazing how few people actually know what it is! For more information look here
Watch the film of the action!
Comments