Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Josh Fox writing in The Guardian explains that anyone who doesn’t support Bill McKibben’s total ban on fracking is a denier – and mentions President Obama by name.
Fracking is a form of climate-change denial
Local communities are showing the courage to fight fossil fuel madness. We can all help them prevail.
Here’s one thing we don’t often want to admit: it is too late to stop many of the harshest and most destructive aspects of climate change from materialising. We’re out of time. Superstorms, droughts, floods, disappearing islands, coastlines and lost species are already here.
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Our movement and our scientists, by contrast, do have the courage to identify what needs to be done. Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, estimates that we have 17 years to replace all fossil fuel infrastructure with renewable energy. That means no new fossil fuel projects. Period. We burn down what we have, and we build renewable energy sources as fast as we can. That means no new pipelines, no new fracking fields, no new offshore drilling, no new tar sands or coal mines.
That would mean no new fracking in the US or the UK. You cannot be a climate leader and support fracking: it is a new form of climate denialism. One only has to look at the brave stand people all across the world are taking to fight fossil fuel developments to see the kind of courage our governments lack but that the future will demand. Britain has seen protests in Balcombe in West Sussex, and in Blackpool, while in the US we have had brave pipeline fighters in Nebraska and Standing Rock reservation, North Dakota.
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Last week, even as superstorm Matthew bore down on America’s east coast, Barack Obama said at the premiere of Leonardo DiCaprio’s new climate change film that keeping fossil fuels in the ground isn’t practical, and that we have to accept fracking as a way to cut emissions because “we have to live in the real world”.
The real world, I assume, is the one that science is describing – that says we cannot develop more fossil fuels. The world Obama is referring to is something else – a bubble – in which fossil fuel lobbyists obscure the will of the people under their superstorm of campaign cash and political influence.
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In my view this Guardian piece is yet more evidence that green fanatics simply cannot be appeased. No matter how far you bend over for them, and President Obama by any measure has been pretty accommodating to the green movement, they always want more.
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Amusing how the discussion is now purely about ad hominems instead of science.
??
The discussion of the alarmists. They act like children with a knee jerk reaction of “you stupid head” to everything that they do not like. The only difference is they use “denier” instead of “you stupid head”.
Sorry for the confusion – I sometimes put out a thought without any preamble which leaves others wondering what I am talking about. Thanks SMC for bringing up my opaqueness.
philjourdan,
Neither the Guardian and McKibben have offered any science to discuss.
They are religious fanatics demanding the world convert to the climatocracy.
The Guardian article has as much to do with science as a religious tract handed out on the street has to do with science. McKibben has as much to do with science as the sermon from a televangelist.
Obama, the real Flat Earth Society spokesman.
The Flat Earth Society: Still going strong.
Obama the spokesman, so what can go wrong?
All his “Carbon pollution”
is a Marxist collusion.
It’s food for the hungry, so let’s get along.
President Obama angrily blasted climate change skeptics during his energy policy speech Tuesday Jun 25 at Georgetown University, saying he lacked “patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real.”
“We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society,” Obama said. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”
O.K. I’ll bite. Who belongs to the true flat earth society? https://lenbilen.com/2013/08/05/obama-the-real-flat-earth-society-spokesman/
..Wow, great article, thanks..
Obama supports fracking?
I guess since he hasn’t tried to outlaw it all together, that means he’s a supporter.
Isn’t that the way the minds of fanatics usually work?
If you destroy the current infrastructure, where does the energy come from to develop any new infrastructure? Seems to me like a case of burning your bridges before you cross them.
“One only has to look at the brave stand people all across the world are taking to fight fossil fuel developments to see the kind of courage our governments lack but that the future will demand. Britain has seen protests in Balcombe in West Sussex, and in Blackpool, while in the US we have had brave pipeline fighters in Nebraska and Standing Rock reservation, North Dakota.”
These “people all across the world” are really a small bunch of radical Leftist environmentalists/alarmists. The author would have you believe that everyone in the world is onboard the anti-fracking bandwagon.
TA- great point- the climate obsessed delusion is multi-layered. They think they are part of some grand “people’s movement” and not the parasitic rent seeking motivated reasoning fanatics they actually are.
“We’re out of time. Superstorms, droughts, floods, disappearing islands, coastlines and lost species are already here.” Hmm, what happened to that 17 year grace period a few sentences back.
OK Bill, let’s see you prove that global warming has had anything whatsoever to do with droughts, floods, superstorms using empirical data.
How simple can it be. All the green heads stop using fossil fuel, then the fracking would not be needed.The peoble without electricity after Matthew are heroes and should celebrate all the fossil fuel they save, instead of wanting to get the electricity back.
I have not experienced any evil fossil fuel company that gave me free fuel to burn or use, so that i could destroy the climate.
Josh Fox was on BBC radio 4’s Today programme.
He said he’s an expert on fracking, he reads all the reports. He claimed there are 895 papers proving fracking is your worst nightmare.
He then went on to claim that groundwater sources are contaminated with benzene.
Has anyone ever told this celebrity village idiot that oil has to be refined to separate the fractions?