A
new pamphlet – Fracking Capitalism – exposes
the unholy alliance that wants to bring this risky business to a community near
you. Politicians are bribed with promises of jobs, tax revenues, political
donations and cheap energy, and unite with the corporations to try to convince
people it will bring lower fuel bills - it won't and we explain why.
In a chapter entitled “Trapped by the corporate-state
web”, the pamphlet reveals how the connections between lobbyists, former BP
chief Lord Browne, government departments and ministers got the moratorium on fracking
lifted. New licences are being granted, tax breaks announced and the planning system
brought into line with the needs of the frackers.
Yet even this is not enough for prime minister David
Cameron who told journalists: “On fracking, we do need to take action across
the board to help enable this technology to go ahead. There is a worry people
are going to have to go through so many different permits in order to start
fracking that they simply won’t bother, so we need a simplified system.”
So the government may its reserve powers to decide
permits at ministerial level, cutting out the troublesome and slow-moving local
authorities, and community opposition.
In Scotland too, it is Holyrood that will decide and
the SNP government has unconventional gas in its sights. A little publicised
section of its policy paper Maximising
the return from oil in an independent Scotland states:
New global opportunities have
emerged around the recovery of unconventional oil and gas. Given the skills,
technology and expertise which resides in Scottish companies, the development
and recovery of these resources could potentially offer significant benefits
for the Scottish oil and gas supply-chain. However, it will also be important
to develop an improved insight into the wider economic impacts of global unconventional
reserves on conventional markets.
Get it? The worry is not that global fracking
will wreck eco-systems, fresh water supplies and speed up global warming – just
that it might produce so much cheap gas that Scotland's oil and gas industry
will suffer. But to offset this, Scotland can become a global fracking technology
powerhouse!
Imposing fracking has devastating consequences for communities
and their environments, and it will speed up climate change. The pamphlet calls
it The road to ecocidal suicide and
details all the evidence.
Fracking Capitalism shows how these ecological considerations are
secondary in an economic system driven by profit and shareholder value. Industrialising
with fossil fuel energy has caused climate change, and fracking is just the
latest chapter.
Research published this week in the magazine Climatic Change traces responsibility
for greenhouse gas emissions over the last 100 years to just 90 corporations.
They are one third corporate giants like BP, Chevron and Exxon-Mobil, one third
nation states like China and Russia, and one third state-owned (or formerly
state-owned) companies such as British Coal. It is a who's who of the
corporate/state web that rules our lives.
Fracking Capitalism offers an alternative to staying on this path – an
action plan for the eco-social crisis these giants have created. Going beyond
building resistance to fracking, to creating a movement to put power firmly in
the hands of presently powerless communities, is what is proposed.
A World to Win wants to hear what you think about these
ideas and stands ready to work with individuals, campaigns and movements for
this kind of fundamental change.
Get your copy of Fracking Capitalism
today.
Penny Cole
Environment Editor
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