There’s been a lot of hullabaloo in the UK over the Balcombe fracking protests. WUWT reader Eric Worrall writes in with this comparison photo.
Original picture source: http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-08-16/anti-fracking-activists-camp-without-permission/
Here is a tagged version of the same picture of all the plastic high tech synthetics used by anti fracking protestors in England, captured in a single photograph.
![frackpic[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/frackpic1.jpg?quality=83)
It really makes you wonder – do anti-fracking protestors think nylon tents, PVC groundsheets, and plastics grow on trees? No doubt the tents also contain high tech synthetic fibre sleeping bags, and gas powered camp cookers.
Do these hypocrites actually think about what sort of world they would have to endure, without the cheap hydrocarbons, and cheap plastic synthetics, the petroleum source of which they oppose?
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Neil says:
August 24, 2013 at 4:18 am
” You supported fracking under your own home? really? I really am suprised.”
Anti-fracker? Check.
“Also, tax breaks to petro companies? you serious? They have money coming out of their ears, robbing us at every turn ”
Normal people would call that selling a product; not robbery. Using the term robbery for an ordinary voluntary business transaction is a leninist tactic. So:
Leninist? Check.
les point acknowledged. But. they somehow seem hand in hand. you can be sure no fracking no pollution this way – I know that is a bit ‘wrong’ logically if you tease out the detail and seperate oil/gas/frack/well from toxic waste/well/dump, to lose the oil/gas, but …. the nature of man and his habits/greed/record – elsewhere there have been serious problems, the like of which is being experienced now and the ultimate consequence of which we have yet to deal.
Would you frack 1 mile from a village?
I would not, no matter how much I thought I knew, all due respect. We just don’t know enough, especially long term, to risk homes and families and communities
Even the people in the photo are, themselves, petro-products. Society could not support numbers sufficient to have allowed their birth and survival had it not harnessed ever more energy unto its service.
They are only there because the space between their ears tells them “fracking is bad”. Besides, camping out with their fellow idiots is fun. You can be sure they are also against all fossil fuels, which are “bad”, and in favor of “green energy” which is “good”. Besides, solar, wind, hydro, and geotherm energy is “free” energy. Peace, love, fairy dust, rainbows and unicorns are all we really need as human beings, and money is evil.
Greg says:
August 23, 2013 at 10:30 pm
“If they were protesting about drilling for oil your comments might make sense.
Since they are protesting about injecting chemicals into the ground to extract gas ( not commonly used for making plastics) your whole article is pretty STUPID and you allegations of “hypocracy” totally unfounded.
Looks like fracking debate is going to be a mindless left/right polarised issue devoid of facts just like climate.”
No Greg, looks like the debate is going to be mindless because commenters like you are ignorant of the facts and don’t care about facts anyway. Here is a link to perhaps one of your most trusted sources. Scroll down to ‘uses’ – you will be surprised that a lot of what you wear, use and eat has had nat gas in its production:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas
Did you know that fracking is also used for oil – in approximately 60% of wells worldwide – gotcha! It will certainly also be news to you that fracking was invented in 1865 in the US and has been a mainstay of the oil industry ever since. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking that is) replaced explosives in the 1940s.
The climate “debate” is precisely of this kind. At least it is very educational for those who do want to learn anything – few do in the anti-civilization cadre, sadly. I actually know a perennial protestor through one of my kids who had had horrible issues with her father (he was a real sob to be sure) and her omni-protesting had most to do with unresolved family issues like this. I think a fascinating exercise would be a survey of such a homely connection. On the climate debate: and where is that going these days? The same way that the movement protesting the coming anthropogenic deep-freeze in the 1970s.
Dirk – anti fracker?you just wade in with a comment like that after checking what? how mcuh did you read above?
I clearly state I woudl not frack 1 mile from a village. I also state indirectly, earlier, that I would not see a problem fracking long ways away from humans/homes/communities.
So what am I dirkh, just to be clear?
voluntary transaction? If you get someone hooked into a technology and then hoik up the price beyond all reasonableness – yep I call that robbery, and especially when other, amazing technologies have been silenced so that bigoil can continue to rob us.
Leninist?
5,4,3,2,1, eyes open, wide awake feeling refreshed. Come back next week for another session;-)
Haven’t the protesters gone home yet..?
And when they do, can we get some clear, untouched photos of the state which these – er – ‘environmentalists’ leave the ‘environment’ in..?
Apparently, those that don’t want any of this stuff to happen, can’t even take a joke about it.
I use paper bags because trees come back faster than oil. I prefer cotton clothing over that synthetic crap that comes from oil and gas. I would very much like to be able to afford proper footwear that isn’t made from some form of synthesized oil and gas products but, when available, are outrageously priced due to the fact that they’re incredibly expensive to make. (I prefer pig and goat leather.) I have quizzed the meat managers of stores I shop at where their meat comes from and even though their stores are not aesthetically pleasing, I shop there anyway. (I don’t shop at Wallyworld.)
Energy does need to be less expensive. I enjoy the fact that I have the ability to refrigerate the food I do have to keep it from spoiling before I can eat it. Yes, I wish for others to also have this ability but, this does not mean I like all the demonized big oil companies. ( I do like Marathon.)
The free marketplace rules. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. If you do, your a hypocrite. Either that or, your too poor to do anything but that.
I have a better word. Dumbasses.
Neil: your
Would you frack 1 mile from a village?
I would not, no matter how much I thought I knew, all due respect. We just don’t know enough, especially long term, to risk homes and families and communities.
Yes, I would. In Medicine Hat, Canada, they frac in the city. Many other towns and cities too, around the world. Dallas, Hassi Messaoud, Gasharon, Los Angeles, etc.
We don’t know enough? We know more about geology than any other single area of human knowledge. Trillions of dollars have been spent studying this subject.
If you are saying we should NOT exploit the most studied subject, you are also saying we should not engage in activity in all the other areas, because we know even less.
Wow. That puts us back to before intelligence evolved.
Sadly I note in some quarters these people being associated with benefits.
Where in fact I think a number of poor can ill afford to see their energy bills rise
again and this fracking will help keep bills down. As would not being signed up
to the EU rules and fines for not getting a percentage of your fuel from so called green energy.
Of course while these people want to keep fossil fuels in the ground they forget that
if they got their way then they’d send us all back to the caves, well those that survived.
And of course they would have to kiss their plastic life style in bushes.
I think the woman has plastic sun glasses.
Hmmm, I am not suggesting this is the case, but just about everything I can see in that photo could have been made from bioplastic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic
Kajajuk says:
August 23, 2013 at 8:29 pm
“…So as a meat eater i can have no objections to the way animals are grown and harvested for food. That’s brilliant! As i use electricity, likely generated by nuclear power stations, mum is the word…shhhh”
Any thoughts on alternatives that work? Com’on Kajajuk, we see you regularly on WUWT re climate issues and you are likely on dozens of others protesting farming, fishing, railways, gluten, flight, powerlines, pipelines… Fracking has been going on since 1865 with no demonstrable dangers to the public. In 60years, there have been only ~70 deaths due to nuclear power generation, only 11 outside of Chernobyl, a Soviet-built plant with no safety features. The 56 who died from Chernobyl were the workers who bravely worked to contain the damage. What about the 4000 deaths estimated by the UN and other alarmist agencies to result over time?
https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/nuclear/chernobyl-25-years-laterhttps://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/nuclear/chernobyl-25-years-later
Chernobyl’s Legacy: A Final Word
“The ANS observed that “health effects and fallout distribution have been studied continuously since the accident, as they have been for atomic bomb survivors, and others who have received large radiation doses. The latest results show that the most important effect has been psychological, while physical effects are much less severe than originally estimated….”
A landmark 2005 study by the Chernobyl forum, comprised of eight specialized UN agencies and the (post-Soviet) governments of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine found that poverty, mental health problems, alcoholism, and tobacco pose far greater threats to human beings than radiation exposure….
In a poetic twist, the 1,660 square miles of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone has become one of Europe’s largest wildlife preserves. Local residents report lynx, wild boar, wolves, elk, deer, brown bears, bison, badgers, foxes, eagle-owls, and even Przewalski’s horse, a species supposedly extinct in the wild for some time. Given that the area is now heavily wooded and free of human predators, such a flourishing of wildlife should continue.”
To round it out, thousands die a year in coal, oil and gas and there have even been 4 deaths in California in solar installation.
Ignorant and proud of it
geeze les, I feel ‘we don’t know enough to do it near homes/families/communities/villages’ (whose water comes from underground locally)
To equate that with not wanting to use the technology at all? ! ?
I even indirectly state earlier that fracking well away from populated areas would be acceptable, in my opinion.
I am amazed that city and town areas are fracked below, if that is the right way to say it. But they don’t use local ground water (water under their city/town) for drinking.
I would be suprised if there were no long term problems arising from this. I am sure I could find some actual cases if I dug around on the internet a bit.
I would seriously challenge the claim that ‘we know more about geology than any other single area of human knowledge’ – that just cannot be true. Trillions of dollars notwithstanding.
Geological time scales is a phrase use to identify the geological changes over long times, eons and millions and billions of years even.
What can you tell me of the effects of fracking in 30 years time and longer timescales (people can live in a community area for hundreds of years) on subsidence, ground water pollution, radioactive gas seepage (radon), toxic substance migration along multiple fault lines, soil effects…
there really is a lot we don’t know here – not worth the risk any where near a populated area, or area where we get a natural resource dependent on cleanliness of the ground below.
Reminds me of an article I found looking at Joe Bastardi’s tweets.
http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2013/08/20130817-090033.html
You must remember, these protestors are pawns! They are manipulated and as sheep following their shepherd, they trust their leader without reservation. (The difference is a shepherd cares about his sheep.)
It goes beyond just liking protesting. They are manipulating people for their own advantage.
“Neil says:
August 24, 2013 at 5:44 am
What can you tell me of the effects of fracking in 30 years time and longer timescales (people can live in a community area for hundreds of years) on subsidence, ground water pollution, radioactive gas seepage (radon), toxic substance migration along multiple fault lines, soil effects…”
WHOA! I assume you are talking about the UK, where is your evidence of radon gas seepage is due to fracking? If you look at real science, rather than propaganda, you will see almost all of the UK is affected.
Pearse, fracking since 1864? you know how twisted it is of you, your logic, to try to bring that into the present day context.
And to claim what you claim about Chernobyl is outrageous. You either believe the bullsh*t in the papers or you somehow found this out? You make no mention of the birth defects, deformities, miscarriages, etc that the radioctive leak caused – to bring it down to death figures is so wrong of you and an insult to those sufferers. you know the saying: ‘lies, damn lies and statistics’ well you’ll never know the actual truth about Chbyl.
Thorium is the way to go. Was the way to go 60 years ago. Suppressed but gonna come back big.
Posted too quickly…my last post should have read…
WHOA! I assume you are talking about the UK, where is your evidence of radon gas seepage is due to fracking? If you look at real science, rather than propaganda, you will see almost all of the UK is affected by radon seepage in areas where fracking is not in operation.
“Neil says:
August 24, 2013 at 5:57 am
And to claim what you claim about Chernobyl is outrageous. You either believe the bullsh*t in the papers or you somehow found this out? You make no mention of the birth defects, deformities, miscarriages, etc that the radioctive leak caused – to bring it down to death figures is so wrong of you and an insult to those sufferers.”
Where is your proof? It sounds like you were not in the UK at the time and simply “believe” some media sources.
Neil says:
August 24, 2013 at 4:06 am
You wrote:
quote scientific american
“In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted,” said Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for 25 years as a technical expert with the EPA’s underground injection program in Washington. “A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die.”
[Self snip]
“A ProPublica review of well records, case histories and government summaries of more than 220,000 well inspections found that structural failures inside injection wells are routine. From late 2007 to late 2010, one well integrity violation was issued for every six deep injection wells examined — more than 17,000 violations nationally. More than 7,000 wells showed signs that their walls were leaking. Records also show wells are frequently operated in violation of safety regulations and under conditions that greatly increase the risk of fluid leakage and the threat of water contamination.”
Rotator cuff surgery has a success rate of about 85%. Should we stop this practice?
The story is getting more exposure…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2401253/Fracking-Benefits-council-house-non-stop-partying-Tough-old-life-protester.html
I am so glad I am no longer a UK taxpayer!
patrick, radon gas seeps thru the rock and soil as you know. I asked what effect fracking would have on that now, 30yrs time 100yrs time? Fracking releases gas, yes? so what would it do to the radon gas ‘issue’? I don’t know. I’ve seen no study, I don’t claim anything. But I will say that I think it will have an effect, on older places anyhow. New homes have radon barriers in areas affected by radon. What is possible is that radon is permitted through fractures to places it has not previously been found.
Alex, isn’t it just the benign flip side to the reality of the other side where big money buys everyone and profit rules. People should have a say, voice their concerns. Just because you foiund one or two habitual protestors….. its a bit like people on this forum – armchair nitpicking around an otherwise serious and sensible debate
excuse should read ‘some people on this forum’
Their iconic Guy Fawkes mask is molded of plastic.
Would they use Guido so, as he was known, if they knew his fate awaits them?
“Neil says:
August 24, 2013 at 6:06 am”
If you live in the UK, don’t move to Cornwall! You will have a hard job stopping the granite from “polluting” your living!