AIBU to think women are against fracking because of the science not because they don't understand!

[deeedeee]

'Many women are against fracking because they “don’t understand” the process due to a lack of education in science'.

That's what Prof Averil MacDonald, who works for the UK oil and gas industry, says is the reason women are against fracking.

There is clear scientific evidence of the hugely negative environmental, social and climate change impacts of fracking, but she clearly does not want to listen to that!

What could possibly have clouded Prof MacDonald's views on women's scientific judgement? Oh, wait a minute! She chairs the industry body industry body UK Onshore Oil and Gas which represents the views of the fossil fuel companies.

Read more here www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/women-dont-understand-fracking-due-to-lack-of-education-industry-chief-claims-a6705166.html

And just to add , the RS/RAE report from from 2012 is very out of date. The New York Compedium is current.

The RS / RAE report also did not consider any public health effects ( only health and safety of workers) . Pretty startling omission?

It also omitted to mention that the RAE’s ex-President is Lord Browne, CEO of Cuadrilla , the UK’s leading fracker. Lord Browne was head of the RAE – co-author of the report – until 2011. Browne owns 30% of Cuadrilla and works inside government as a non-executive director to the Cabinet Office.

I could also list business interests and other links of many other of the reports authors!

As I mentioned before, many "experts" in this field have had their education, research and careers funded by the Oil and Gas industry. That kind of context is difficult to shake.

Why do you think the New York Compedium , the research that led to a ban in New York State (concernedhealthny.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/PSR-CHPNY-Compendium-3.0.pdf) isn't independent?

I listened to Radio 2 last friday and they had a guy on explaining all about fracking and how it's all fine, bla bla bla, and they got on a wee biddy (no offence to the lady), who knew what fracking was, but was completely bulldozed by the"expert" into saying, "well, if they have to do it..". It was embarrassing and unfair on the lady, and unbalanced.

The New York compendium is not independent and only looks at studies that have reported potential health risks. None of the reports show any actual harm, just potential risks, many of which are caused by poor operation and/or breaking the law by miners.
Over 2,000 people a year die in the UK from traffic accidents, which is a multiple of the number of people who have had any harm from any mining, fracking or otherwise - why are you not advocating banning cars?

Again, why do you believe it is not independent Carol? show me the vested interest? show me why you believe this?

and you are quite wrong in your ascertains. Please back them up?

The Compendium compiles and summarizes hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and other important findings on fracking, showing the significance and extent of the evidence demonstrating risks to public health AND air and water quality, birth and infant health, the environment, and climate change. (concernedhealthny.org/category/press-releases/)

Do you actually believe that fracking in the UK will be immune to any poor practise by operators or any breaking the law by operators?

In the USA, the owner of the land owns all of the mineral rights under it : so landowners get handsomely compensated.

In the UK, the Queen owns the mineral rights under your house and can sell them to the highest bidder

In the USA the shale gas boom is already toppling due to the short life of wells and the extensive water pollution

Europe is too densely populated to cope with it.

Fracking brings into use fossil fuels which will contribute to catastrophic climate change.
The only way our children and grandchildren will have a decent chance at civilisation is for much of the remaining fossil fuel to stay in the ground unused.

20,000 jobs have been lost in the UK Solar industry since he May election.
Get those back and we will not need fracking.

Fracking in the US is slowing down because of the collapse of the oil price, mainly because the US has become self-sufficient in gas and oil because of fracking. This fall ion oil price is making us all better off, by reducing petrol prices and the price of all goods.
Europe is not too densely populated.

carol, you're exasperating. You continue to assert that none but you is right, but with no evidence and backing up of your opinions.

This is a very good article about the dichotomy of this kind of conversation (albeit one where both sides of the discussion are citing evidence ;-) )

theconversation.com/does-fracking-cause-cancer-and-infertility-49542

it contains this study

journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/publishahead/Unconventional_Natural_Gas_Development_and_Birth.99128.aspx

that shows of more than 10,000 babies born near fracking operations in Pennsylvania from 2009 to 2013 found that the 25% of mothers most exposed to fracking were 40% more likely to give birth prematurely than the 25% least exposed.

caroldecker
What about climate change?

she's going to say that unconventional gas is not as bigger Co2 producer as coal, and therefore fracking will help us transition to renewables. Or some such other paraphrased industry soundbite.. Without any actual evidence. Or acknowledgment of the counter arguments...

such as

1 - What about fugitive methane emissions? Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas then CO2.

2 - Any large scale extraction of shale gas in the UK is likely to be at least 10-15 years away. It is also unlikely to be able to compete against the extensive renewable energy sector we should have by 2025-30 unless developed at a significant scale. By that time, it is likely that unabated coal-fired power generation will have been phased out to meet EU emissions directives, so fracking will not substitute for (more carbon-intensive) coal. Continually tightening carbon budgets under the Climate Change Act will have significantly curtailed our scope for fossil fuel energy, and as a consequence only a very small fraction of the possible shale gas deposits will be burnable.

3 - A moratorium on the extraction of unconventional gas through fracking is needed to avoid the UK's carbon budgets being breached in the 2020s and beyond, and the international credibility of the UK in tackling climate change being critically weakened.

4 - Also, investment in unconventional gas is displacing investment that should be going into renewables.

But carol (and others) will just say no you're wrong, it's safe, it is clean and anyone who disagrees is ludricous and hysterical . Ignoring the increasing amount of bans and moratoriums around the world. Ignoring the increasing evidence of the harm fracking causes. Ignoring the clear climate change science. Not citing any evidence apart from reports funded and commissioned by industry or by those with links to industry.

Because she and others can't see past the oil and gas industry's rhetoric.

Yawn, are you back again OP, to increasingly stamp your foot because people don't believe what you are spouting?

i'm not stamping my foot, or any other belittling language you are wanting to use.

I am simply arguing my position, in a calm and reasonable way, backed up by government reports and independent science.

and you are somewhat proving the point of the OP, that people (women or otherwise) and belittled and ridiculed for their completely reasonable logical arguments.

I happen to know Averil and know that what she loves most is publicity.
I'm not sure that Reading will be too pleased with this article by one of their emeritus professors.

Gas fracking is not the answer to anything.

If the amount of money spent on lawyers and consultants for fracking was spent on battery technology, then the worth of the UK's solar industry would dwarf in in a matter of months.

The fact that the car tax on a Porsche is the same as that on a Prius just shows how badly awry the priorities of the current government have become.

quite talkinplease.

Speaking as a strong supporter of clean and renewable energy, and as a practical person, I actually don't hate fossil fuels, as they've been relatively cheap, and widely available, and incredibly convenient. What I don't like are the externalities of fossil fuel consumption, such as the degradation of air and water quality, the risk to public health, the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and the deals our government gives to the companies who extract our natural resources in order to make huge profits from petroleum extraction.

I don't like the fact that we've essentially subsidized pollution and provided huge loopholes for taxes and corporate responsibilities. I don't like the fact that unfounded fears are peddled (of loss of jobs or economic growth) as a way to maintain the status quo, and I don't like the lack of energy and fuel choices that our historical focus on the lowest hanging fruit has constrained us to.

The fact is, our entire system was built on fossil fuels. And those fuels have brought us considerable benefits. That's why the system is set up to structurally favor fossil fuels and discourage alternatives.

But new solutions are emerging. And the costs of maintaining the status quo are becoming ever more apparent. A transition to a low carbon economy is not only possible, but increasingly plausible.

deeeDeee Thank-you for answering on my behalf - very kind, utterly wrong, but very kind.
I too would love to live in a world where all energy comes from the fairies and is free for everyone.
However, in the real world, we will not move to a significant % of energy from renewables in the next 30 years because the technology does not exist and it is too expensive. If you look at the UK (and Europe) CO2 emissions over the last 20 years, they have increased based on what we consume, but we have out-sourced this to manufacturing overseas, much as we are with the current steel problem. All this does is make the UK worse off and increase CO2 production/environmental damage as it is performed in countries with worse rules.
The only country to genuinely reduce CO2 use is the USA, but using fracking.

Interesting research article, but it does not conclude your summary. It actually concludes that:

• It showed some correlation between distance from fracking wells and pre-term births, but not statistically significant and only in some years studied.
• There was no correlation between distance and low birth weight, low AGPAR scores or small for gestational age
• This could have been caused by traffic density unrelated to the wells
• They did not speak to any of the women, so were unable to adjust the model for things such as alcohol
• They did not record where they lived during pregnancy, so only calculated distance based on date of birth, not during gestation

IE - haven't a clue what the impact is, if any, but fracking may impact health.

The only country to genuinely reduce CO2 use is the USA, but using fracking.
Utter and complete piffle

Carol, are you aware that you are patronising and ridiculing me too? I never once said I wished to live in a world where energy comes from the fairies.

Alternative technology does exist. In who's context is it too expensive? Depending on whose script you buy into the story looks different.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/22/wind-and-solar-power-likely-to-match-gas-on-cost-by-2020-say-uk-climate-advisers

There are real alternatives to fossil fuels in terms of electricity generation and feedstock that require investment. This will not happen while the systems in our economies are built around continuing fossil fuels and investment is distracted by the false idea of "transitioning".

Whether the US has "genuinely" reduced it's CO2 is another contentious debate. It has simultaneously reduced it's emissions whilst increasing it's extraction www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/26/bill-mckibbens-graph-of-the-year/. It's export and economic slight of hand, climate accountancy and mumbo jumbo as a policy. But it is again another "script" for people to buy into to make believe that you can lower emissions by extracting and burning more fossil fuels.

Btw that wasn't my conclusion, that was the article's author Professor Andrew Waterson's conclusion. You could take your differing interpretation to him? Did you notice that he "is not currently a member of any political party, industry association or environmental or community group and takes no funding or consulting monies or any other monies from either the industry or its critics". He may well be more neutral than you and less invested in upholding a particular script.

I just took the conclusion from the actual research paper, not someone writing about it.

The Guardian article starts

'Onshore wind and large solar farms are likely to be competitive on cost with gas-fired power generation by the end of this decade, according to the government’s climate change advisers, but only if gas pays its fair share through a carbon price.

thus the only way to make it competitive is to increase the cost of gas through a tax. This may be the right answer, but proves my point that costs will increase for energy.

Your Prof Watterson also stated:

Public health professionals need to be impartial but should be precautionary and not neutral..about fracking

So, in his own words, not neutral and precautionary - thus against.

The precautionary principle was standard good practice in risk management rather than a political position. A sensible approach to be used with an emerging technology.

Why should energy be cheap? It isn't cheap in terms of impact! If tampons are taxed, then surely so should be carbon?

and yes what scooby said, a process as new as fracking for shale gas, one that studies are only just emerging about in the last couple of years about the effect on public health , SHOULD be subject to the extreme caution that the many bans and moratoriums around the world are suggesting. or is public health unimportant than maintaining economic ideology?

Thankyou for engaging sensibly Carol, I appreciate it!

Domestic energy is taxed (5% VAT, same as tampons) regardless of the source. The question is whether cheap fossil fuels should be taxed to promote higher cost renewables and load the cost onto the consumer, renewables should be subsidised to push costs onto the taxpayer, or neither.

Pushing the cost onto the consumer is unpopular, remember the fuss about higher energy costs and Ed Milliband's pledge to cap prices - all now died down because costs have fallen due to lower fossil fuel prices. This does at least encourage lower usage.

Pushing the cost on the taxpayer is bonkers because it does not effect behaviour and usage and is not paid by those who use more energy.

In a closed economy, either of these solutions would work because they would encourage the use of renewables and reduce fossil fuels.

However, we do not live in a closed economy and one of the reasons our manufacturing industry is smaller and suffering is because energy is cheaper abroad, using coal fired power stations - all we are doing is exporting our pollution, mainly onto poorer people who suffer more.

As far as precaution is concerned, I agree with this, but the anti-frackers have gone too far. Nothing is totally safe, 20 people a year die falling out of bed, 2,500 left-handed people die a year using right-handed products.
Fracking has not killed anyone and there is no statistically significanty evidence of anyone harmed by fracking, despite many reports saying it may be dangerous to health. The USA has very kindly set-up a real life experiment and, with some tweaks to the rules about storage and disposal of water used, shown that it is safe for the benefits it provides.

Fracking has also enabled the USA to become a net exporter of oil (or would if it was allowed) which will reduce money going to the middle east and arming the delightful people who live there.

As far as co2 is concerned, there is still much debate about what the impact of a warmer world will be and whether it is a net benefit/harm to the UK and the rest of the world.

Overall, I believe that the benefits strongly outweigh any negatives and scare-mongering does a disservice to proper debate.

cheap fossil fuels

No fossil fuel is cheap if you do a cradle to grave analysis
because fossil fuels are

• non renewable
• causing global warming
• the cause of much war and corruption

The up front costs of renewables (solar, tide, wave, wind) are higher, but the cradle to grave costs are significantly less
as there is no cleanup,
there is no requirement for exploration
there is no pollution once they are in operation

Nuclear is best consigned to history as the cleanup costs are so astronomical, no producer has accepted even a valuation of them

Fracking has also enabled the USA to become a net exporter of oil
No. It has not.
The USA does not export oil.

So fracking has distorted the US energy market
and buggered the emmissions for other countries because the USA is dumping cheap dirty coal into Europe Germany in particular
and had no net improvement at all

The US does export oil - there are some exceptions to the export ban (long standing swaps with Canada and the recent deal with Mexico, plus export of some Alaskan crude oils) and during the first half of 2015 the US exported around half a million barrels a day. There is currently talk in Congress about lifting the export ban.

Fracking has significantly boosted oil and gas production in the US, making it self sufficient and both the world's biggest producer of oil (2014 data) and the world's biggest exporter of refined oil products.

and has resulted in it dumping unwanted coal at basement prices on the rest of the world
resulting in no net loss in emissions

ONLY Moving to renewables will save the planet from utterly catastrophic climate change

• although its already too late for most of the world's coastal megacities
• too late for much of the Southern US
• too late for much of the Gulf
• too late for much of the far east

as the rising temperatures will render them effectively uninhabitable

Talkin - as I said, would export if they were allowed.

Exploration costs of fossil fuels are built into the cost of them.

War and corruption are linked to fossil fuels because of the countries where they are produced - fracking in the USA, UK, Europe, China and Japan would not cause wars and would reduce those that exist due to less money for corrupt regimes - hence fracking improves on the current position.

Pollution is much less clear-cut as the costs are unknown - renewables do cause pollution however, in terms of visibility.

There is also the huge problem of baseload energy for when it is windless and dark, and transportation of energy, because electricity is not portable.

renewables do cause pollution however, in terms of visibility
please elaborate / explain?

the huge problem of baseload energy
Nope. The tide does not stop.

because electricity is not portable.
Nope.
Electricity is highly portable - the grid
it is storage that is the issue - and as I said way up thread

if a fraction of the money spent on consultants for fracking was spent on battery storage technology, that problem would be solved in a couple of years

Wall batteries are already affordable for those in remote areas as they are cheaper than diesel in the long run