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

Squirrelled
How often do you read articles about positive funding bias?
ie the research coming out saying just what the funders wanted rather than being impartial?
Just that I read about it most weeks.

Each paper and department needs to be assessed on its on funding and merits.

So how are you ever going to find anyone that has sufficient resources and expertise to investigate? You can throw funding accusations at pretty much any piece of research into contentious subjects. There are a lot of international bodies involved in the Durham research, but I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find links to IOCs somewhere along the line.

However, as an engineering geologist who has specialized in contaminated land I think I'm fairly well equipped to review these sorts of topics.

TBH I'd rather gas fracking wasn't investigated in the UK.
Oil fracking has quietly gone on for years and years and years in Dorset and there is plenty of data about what it does and does not do.

The dash for gas is not to the benefit of the UK.

So it would be better if the economy swung round behind forms of energy that will be on stream in less than 10 years yes Hinkley, you are a white elephant and that did not screw the planet.

We know what they are :there just needs to be political will.

talkin since you care, and not that it is relevant, I am involved with an environmental charity.
I am also a realist about what can be achieved, both technologically and politically and am also very wary that the cost of 'solutions' is often greater than the cost of dealing with the aftermath of the problem.

how does that sit with your denial of the threat of climate change ?

I have not denied the threat of climate change - I have read the reports and the truth is that there will be winners and losers. Overall it is most likely negative, but the costs of prevention are higher than the costs of adaptation.

The DECC, Environment Agency and BGS certainly are pro fracking . Amber Rudd is hardly cloak and dagger about it, the EA's previous Chairman was Chris Smith, who last year jumped over to a lucrative industry-funded post at the Shale Gas Task Force. His successor, Sir Phillip Dilley, comes from Arup, a firm previously contracted to Cuadrilla – where he is still listed as a trustee. The BGS gets much of it's funding from pro oil and gas lobby!

It's obviously a context that when you are in it, it's so hard to see how completely partisan it is! Carol, framing the debate in saying it's about lifestyle is quite something! Who's lifestyle? Those unaffected by the industry, those unaffected by clime change? Who can afford to adapt? Don't pretend it's for the good of many.

Actually if anyone is reading this thread and wants a summary of the arguments and counter arguments, Medact's rebuttal to UKOOG's criticism of their report is a handy summary of the arguments and counter arguments.

www.medact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Fracking-Rebuttal-WEB.pdf

(here's the original report too www.medact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/medact_fracking-report_WEB3.pdf)

Saw this this morning too progressivescience.org/index.php/2015/10/24/response-to-averil-macdonalds-guardian-article-on-women-and-fracking/

"No one is without bias, but it is important to see how people’s roles and ideologies influence their beliefs and assessments of evidence."

amen to that!

So, you have a huge group of technical experts who are well placed to quantify hazards and assess risk, but you still decide that it's all biased because some of the people / organisations have received funding from the oil and gas industry at some point in their lifetime?

Who else do you think is likely to have the necessary expertise and access to resources to conduct studies? Where do you think the well data comes from?

It's because THIS is 'science ' for girls......

Sorry...photo attached.

Squirrelled
The BGS is supporting its members' employment chances and is excited by all the fun mud logging it will entail.
They do not concern themselves with the impact on the climate.

DECC is entirely in the pocket of big industry - as will become clearer now that "secondments" have to be quantified as gifts under the new lobbying regulations.
The EA do as DECC tell them so their funding does not get cut.

Amber Rudd does what Gideon tells her.

Lots and lots of informed scientists are extremely concerned about fracking and the overall impact
but if they shout they risk their jobs.

Talkin you don't "join" the BGS and it has employees, not "members", I think you are getting mixed up with the Geological Society. I also think the BGS climate change research department might be a bit surprised to find out that they don't exist.

The last BGS guy I spoke to about fracking was an active supporter and on many research panels and part of the Governement's panel. He regularly speaks publicly in favour of fracking. I asked him if he'd read the Environmental Audit Committee's report or the New York Compedium and he said he hadn't because he know what he believes and didn't see the need.

His whole career is funded by fracking at the moment.

He can't see outwith that context.

The Environmental Audit Committee report findings are pretty standard stuff - requirement for full regulatory regimes, EIA, monitoring, protection of groundwater source zones and AONBs, operator insurances, legacy provisions, need for further research etc. It probably wouldn't tell him anything he didn't already know.

You're assuming that his viewpoint is skewed by research funding. What about if he genuinely believes in the scientific integrity of whatever research he is carrying out? Or is that not allowed?

as I said to him at the time, after watching his presentation that said fracking was a common process that had been done in the uk for decades and would provide cheap energy and jobs, he's either ignorant or a liar. and does not read against his bias.

we must be thinking of different Environmental Audit Committee

the one I mean says

"Shale fracking should be put on hold in the UK because it is incompatible with our climate change targets and could pose significant localised environmental risks to public health."

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/environmental-audit-committee/news/environmental-risks-of-fracking-report/

Lifestyle and economics are linked - the UK today is very different to the UK of 1850. We are economically much better off than before, but that has led to a degradation of the environment.
The question is do you want to go backwards or forwards - more importantly do you want the poor to go backwards or forwards.
I get the impression that you like the idea of subsistence farmers scratching a living in Africa and Asia, whilst you live a comfortable life in the UK.

Again Carole, stop patronising and ridiculing those with a differing opinion.
to be anti unconventional gas doesn't make one a luddite or hippy or a hopeless dreamer FFS. Stop peddling the myth it does!

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.

and that doesn't involve unconventional gas.

Ok, examples of 'huge loopholes for taxes and corporate responsibility' in the UK.
Cost estimates of alternative energy compared to current price of oil and gas please.

No, Deee, it is the same report. There is discussion in the report of the potential local impacts on human health, but nowhere in the text of the report or in the conclusions does it say that it should be put on hold due to risks to human health. The main objection is that burning shale gas will cause the UK to exceed its carbon targets, and the report states that further research is required to quantify environmental risks.

Fracking is a scientific/ engineering thing but it is also a social and political thing. It is one thing to trust the science but another to trust the application and management of this science. Personally I do believe that an individual fracking well can be managed sufficiently to be safe enough if the risks are assessed and managed according to best practice. The problem is that it will never be just one well. To extract shale gas from the Bowland Shale for example will require many, many individual well pads. That's when the shit will really hit the fan. Drilling companies will have a foot in the door and then people won't know what's hit them. If nothing else the sheer number of wells and infrastructure required to sustain them is really going to start to piss a lot of people off. But by then it will be too late. No one seems to think about that. So people who understand the science only really understand part of the process - what about the rest of it - the real life practicalities?

scooby
Thankyou for saying what I was trying to

its the "big picture" side that the pro fracking people forget

the impact of fracking on wind and solar and wave and tide

the impact of fracking on the price of coal and oil and conventional

the impact of fracking on climate change

the impact of fracking on sea level rise

the engineers might be happy just looking at their little bit
I'm not

Yes TalkinPease there are many dimensions to it.

Bottom line is however, that despite all of those things you mentioned being really important, the only time many people really get distressed by it is when an application to drill is proposed near their home or near a place that is dear to them. At the moment for most people fracking is remote activity that happens somewhere else. People think that it will not happen near to them because planning permission won't be granted, because they live in a protected area, because no one would be stupid enough to allow a highly industrialized risky activity near homes, schools and places where people shop and work. But that's simply not the case - there is very little that communities can do to stop it.

Carol

busy this weekend and not much internet signal so not comprehensive but...

re- loopholes

elj.sagepub.com/content/17/1/8.full.pdf
www.planningdemocracy.org.uk/tag/canonbie/

and scooby there is very little that communities can do to stop it......

There is SO MUCH communities can do to stop this! They just need to stand up and speak with one voice and say no. In Scotland community campaigners have made sure the SG have implemented moratoriums on all forms of unconventional gas. If there is no social licence then these companies can be delayed enough for the ponzi scheme to be unprofitable and they will move elsewhere.

Maybe I should clarify what I meant - the usual means communities use to prevent unwanted developments such as objecting to planning permission do not work as new planning legislation is skewed in favour of the oil/gas companies in the name of "the greater good" for the country.