This happened last Saturday December 1st, but I just now became aware of it. From their website the photo looks like a lot of people, but the video that follows shows it to be a rather modest affair.
I think they might be a bit unclear on the concept:
Thank you to everyone who turned out on one of the coldest days this year. With our 7.2m fracking rig, we took a clear message to Parliament – “No Fracking in the UK”, a message backed up by other actions around the country, and one that was picked up by the BBC (see here and here) amongst others. Not only that but there could hardly have been a more critical moment to stage a conspicuous show of opposition to the the government’s unfolding plans for an expansion of fracking and a new dash for gas.
And what did they do to warm up afterwards? Chances are they went to a nice fossil fuel (gas) heated pub or their home.
From the video, it looks like there might be 200-300 people at this “national” event standing out in the cold.
I wonder what sort of yelling we’d hear if they couldn’t retreat to a nice warm place afterwards, and they were forced to stay out in the cold for a few days to experience firsthand what they preach?
h/t to Fay Kelly-Tuncay via facebook
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Some people are born colour blind, they can only see black, white, green and red.
Life is tough. It is even tougher if you are stupid…………….John Wayne
The demonstrators will eventually get bitten by their stupidity.
I wonder, how many of these valiant and committed ‘green’ protesters run 4×4’s, own 48″ plasma TVs, provide computers/Ipads for all their kids and run the central heating 24/7 from Sept thru’ to May?
Most of them, I’d be willing to bet.
Civilization in a northern climate and it ain’t a commitment to green policies, civilization = cheap energy without one you don’t get the other.
Thank you to everyone who turned out on one of the coldest days this year – the irony is lost on us because we’re simple minded folk. With our 7.2m fracking rig, we took a clear message to Parliament – “We have no clue”, a message backed up by other actions around the country, and one that was picked up by the BBC (who else it’s a slow news day and climate is always good copy for the Guardian television) (see here and here) amongst others. Not only that but there could hardly have been a more critical moment to stage a conspicuous show of opposition to the the government’s unfolding plans for an expansion of fracking and a new dash for gas especially now it’s freezing cold and it’s no longer fashionable to attend CND marches.
Let’s see, there is a tax to drive into London. Who would pay to play? Very few…most here probably were paid to show up..live close by and.free London pale at the Shakespeare pub.
OT to the UK getting fracked-up: h/t the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
It’s Humongous: UK Shale Gas Deposit 50% Bigger Than Thought
“Date: 08/12/12
“Tim Webb, The Times
“The shale gas deposit around Blackpool is 50 per cent bigger than previously estimated, The Times has learnt. The news will put more pressure on ministers who are due to lift the ban on extraction as early as next week, to support what could prove to be a gas bonanza for Britain.
“Cuadrilla Resources, the exploration company backed by Lord Browne of Madingley, the former boss of BP, hit the headlines after it set off dozens of small earth tremors around Blackpool, resulting in fracking being suspended. … full story
Also from the GWPF: Nigel Lawson: New Energy Revolution Is Shaking Up Old World Order
“Date: 08/12/12
“Nigel Lawson, Daily Mail
“Thirty years ago, I was Secretary of State for Energy in Margaret Thatcher’s government, and one way and another I have been a close observer of the energy scene ever since. In all that time, I have never known a technological revolution as momentous as the breakthrough that has now made it economic to extract gas from shale.
…
“Until now, the West has been heavily dependent for its supplies of oil and gas on an unstable Middle East and an unreliable Russia. Crucially, all that has changed because gas and oil-bearing shale is scattered throughout the world — including in Britain.
“This has shaken up the old world order — and the global balance of power is being permanently transformed before our eyes .The dramatic news emerged a few weeks ago that the U.S. will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer in 2017.
“America is already the world’s largest natural gas producer, and it is estimated that, by 2035, almost 90 per cent of Middle East oil and gas exports will go to Asia, with the U.S. importing virtually none.
“For decades, the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, has had to shape, and sometimes arguably to misshape, its foreign policy in the light of its dependence on Middle East oil and gas. No longer: that era is now over.
“For decades, too, Europe has been fearful of the threat that Russia might cut off the gas supplies on which it has relied so heavily.
“No longer: that era will very soon be over, too.” full story
The discomfit couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people.
@DirkH .. i’ve lived in canada .. -28 deg .. yep cold ..but a dry one then try a north sea blow in -2 rain not snow cutting thru ya .. so even if you have layers on the cold still gets thru ..
it’s always damp here reason why houses are not made of wood ..damp and cold come over try it ..
befor ya speak ..
and as to fracking we had it stopped near blackpool .. but yank money has made it start again .. lobbest= bribes .. but they wont see till to late
Not very many, but more “fruitckakes” in one place than I would have expected.
A somewhat slightly related protest on the other side of the world, in 40C+ heat: pindanpost.com/2012/12/09/hot-is-better-than-cold/ part of an effort to protect the most significant dinosaur trackways ever found.
Link failed, trying again, http://pindanpost.com/2012/12/09/hot-is-better-than-cold/
Surprised this was mentioned here, considering it was primarily a protest against fracking. Not something I’d be in a rush to disagree with them on, despite their normal focus on ‘climate change’.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15547283-livestock-falling-ill-in-fracking-regions#.UMPQShoFs8w.email
Ok, I’m going to give you Blokes from the UK a Christmas present. Something that has made many a cold winter night on the mountain top much more tolerable. ANTI-FREEZE
The quickest way to make your own anti-freeze … hide her nightie.
>>I fully agree that Brits are wimps and should experience some real cold.
>>They don’t even know what winter tyres are.
Winter tyres do not work well in the UK. Over the last 30 years there has been precious little snow, and even then only for short periods. Winter tyres when temps are above 7 degrees are acrually dangerous, as they have less grip, and UK winter temps were often above 7 degrees.
It is only in the last 3 years that the UK has had ‘severe’ winters with temperatures below zero for extended periods. But it was so unusual that it was not forecast (by those who know exactly what is going to happen to the weather in 100 years time), and nobody was prepared. Heathrow, for instance, had only 1/4 the snow clearing equipment of Schiphol. EasyJet had only stored 3 days worth of de-ice fluid, so convinced they were by the BBC promise of temperatures being 6 degrees higher in the near future. Needless to say, the airline ground to a halt for four days in 2010. Silly ‘cool dude’ pirrocks that they are at that airline.
.
And on another topic, another thing these idiots at the demonstration do not realise, it this not simply about heating. A barrel of oil contains 100,000 man-hours of energy/work. It this this ‘slave labour’ of ‘oil slaves’ that makes our lives so rich. Ancient Rome ran a very successful and rich empire on real slaves (and a few horses), to do all the donkey work. Instead, we have harnessed our pseudo-slaves, in coal, oil and gas and the many machines they run, to create an equivalent empire.
Without this energy, everything grinds to a halt, and I do mean everything. It these ‘oil slaves’ that allow such vast populations to exist around the world. Without this energy, and the goods, water and food that it supplies to us, some 5 billion or so people will die. And no amount of wind turbines or bio fuels will save them.
.
DirkH says, December 8, 2012 at 12:58 pm
Are they foreigners, planted by OPEC nations?
Well kind of, take a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Bennett
Just another bat shit crazy ex-Guardian eco-luddite imported from down under for us to ignore. Agenda 21 indoctrination must have been first rate down there a few years back. Yawn.
Dennis says: December 8, 2012 at 10:51 pm
Surprised this was mentioned here, considering it was primarily a protest against fracking. Not something I’d be in a rush to disagree with them on, despite their normal focus on ‘climate change’.
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15547283-livestock-falling-ill-in-fracking-regions#.UMPQShoFs8w.email
__________________________________
Stupid study. Nobody even took fracking muds and exposed them to cattle in controlled conditions, nor investigated how much fracking mud was released into the environment. How can they then say that fracking muds are the cause? Pure speculation.
It is in a farmer’s interest to say that the drill-rig killed his cattle (rather than his badly maintained and stagnant ponds), because they get compensation. And note the concerns of airborne contaminants, rather than ingested contaminants. Sorry, but if that was a problem, rig workers would be falling down dead left, right and center. But they are not.
While it is good that someone monitors the fracking fluids, to ensure no unesessary contamination of the environment occurs, this ‘study’ does not do that. Simply speculating about dead animals, when farm animals die all the time, brings environmentalists into disrepute. It makes them look like Luddites, rather than concerned scientists.
If there are specific compounds in fracking fluids that are a hazard, lets identify and eliminate them (there are plenty of alternatives), rather than making unsubstantiated generic claims designed to close down this valuable (or vital) industry.
.
Made such a big impact in the UK that I never heard about it until you posted about it.
Nor had I heard of the green party woman.
It would be very interesting to get an article from a group such as this one who consistently protest against such sources of energy as fracking, nuclear and coal power.
Most interesting of all would be to hear where exactly our power is going to come from in future if you exclude those three options. Britain is a highly developed country with some 60 million people and rising sharply. Renewable sources do not begin to cover our needs
Tonyb
Goode ’nuff says:
December 8, 2012 at 11:02 pm
My dog doesn’t wear a nightie 🙂
There are over 20,000 wells fracked in the Barnett Shale in Texas, without any significant problems. Yet another inconvenient truth.
DirkH says:
>Are they foreigners, planted by OPEC nations?
Probably not. But they might well be Brits paid by OPEC nations. A lot of the funding for the green groups comes from OPEC to eliminate competition by production in other countries.
flea rider says:
December 8, 2012 at 5:52 pm
“@DirkH .. i’ve lived in canada .. -28 deg .. yep cold ..but a dry one then try a north sea blow in -2 rain not snow cutting thru ya .. so even if you have layers on the cold still gets thru ..
it’s always damp here reason why houses are not made of wood ..damp and cold come over try it ..
befor ya speak ..”
Thank you, thank you… I’ve lived in Hamburg through the winters after the Double Dip La Ninja, 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 and if you want to see a windy city that is not called Chicago visit Hamburg.
And the Hamburgers were utterly unprepared for the ice and snow that befell them that winter – because like the Brits they have very mild winters in general.
So yes I do know the -2 c North Sea blow, thank you very much, and it don’t impress me much. Wimp.
“and as to fracking we had it stopped near blackpool .. but yank money has made it start again .. lobbest= bribes .. but they wont see till to late”
I wish you a nice survival in the winter running on wind turbine power while you protest against global warming. Thanks for making my point.
Silver Ralph says:
December 9, 2012 at 12:16 am
“Winter tyres do not work well in the UK. Over the last 30 years there has been precious little snow, and even then only for short periods. Winter tyres when temps are above 7 degrees are acrually dangerous, as they have less grip, and UK winter temps were often above 7 degrees. ”
Good argument.
flea rider says:
December 8, 2012 at 5:52 pm
DirkH is German. It gets damned cold, snowy and damp there too!
DaveE.
Silver Ralph says:
December 9, 2012 at 12:16 am
“And on another topic, another thing these idiots at the demonstration do not realise, it this not simply about heating. A barrel of oil contains 100,000 man-hours of energy/work. ”
While I agree with the argument, 100,000 is a little high. One barrel of oil produces about 1,700 kWh equivalent.
http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/units.html
(That person uses the term “CO2 pollution” ; he/she/it is at an American institute of higher learning and obviously has learned the current dogma well. Kudos for that.)
The Oil Drum has an insightful comment estimating the work a human can perform in a year at 187 kWh: (the second answer to the question on that page)
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4315
So one barrel of oil is equivalent to roughly 9 person-years of bodily work output. The Oil Drum emphasizes that that work would have to include extensive resting periods to achieve maximum sustainable output so I guess the work hours would be comparable to a nine to 5 job; let’s say 1600 hours a year.
Which results in:
One barrel of oil is equivalent to 14,400 person-hours of bodily work.
One thing that is clear is that the new enhanced frac(tur)ing techniques are nearly doubling recoverable reserves in almost all fossil fuel fields that it has been tried on – oil and gas.
Its here to stay and “peak oil” is now pushed off several decades. Prices will probably moderate as it is used more and more and as experience in individual pools is gained on how to use most efficiently.
It has already impacted the natural gas industry in a big way. Prices are down and flat. Noone is planning new LNG facilities. Drilling is way down in areas which are far from the main markets in favor of new natural gas sources which are closer to market.
The protestors will delay and stop it in several places around the world and these jurisidictions will not benefit from the new technique like other places will. Temporary bans are already in place in some jurisdictions. These places will become more inefficient in the world economy and will go the way of Greece and Spain. C’est la Vie.