Fracking - the general discussion.

[stavros]

Not that it helps the underlying situation at all, but I suppose May hasn't put up much of a pseudo-green front, as Cameron did. Witness also the Heathrow decision and the seemingly everlasting freeze on fuel duty.

 

[editor]

Great news. And fuck the original judge.

Three protesters jailed for blocking access to a fracking site have had their sentences quashed by the court of appeal, which called them “manifestly excessive”.

Sir Ian Burnett, the lord chief justice, said: “We have concluded that an immediate custodial sentence in the case of these defendants was manifestly excessive.

“In our judgement the appropriate sentence was a community order with a significant requirement of unpaid work. But these appellants have been in custody now for two weeks, the equivalent of a six-week prison sentence. As a result, and only for that reason, we’ve concluded that the only appropriate sentence is a conditional discharge.”

The activists, Simon Blevins, 26, Richard Roberts, 36, and Rich Loizou, 31, were jailed after a four-week trial last month led to their convictions for causing a public nuisance for a protest at Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road site in Lancashire.

The packed courtroom erupted with applause and some supporters began singing
after the decision was announced.

Loizou’s father, Platon, said: “Justice has been done today. We shouldn’t be here in the first place, but justice has been done.”

Court quashes 'excessive' sentences of fracking protesters

 

[DexterTCN]

Original judge's wife is connected to fracking, isn't she?

 

[yield]

Original judge's wife is connected to fracking, isn't she?

Robert Altham's parents and sister according to the Mail

Judge who jailed Fracking Three has family links to oil and gas firms | Daily Mail Online

 

[DexterTCN]

Yeah...he should be disbarred or disrobed or whatever it is.

Not that it makes any difference to your fracking, sadly.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Yeah...he should be disbarred or disrobed or whatever it is.

Fired, when it happens to an ordinary mortal.

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah...he should be disbarred or disrobed or whatever it is.

Not that it makes any difference to your fracking, sadly.

Disrobed and whipped through the streets of lancaster

 

[teqniq]

As the fracking protesters show, a people’s rebellion is the only way to fight climate breakdown | George Monbiot

 

[yield]

As the fracking protesters show, a people’s rebellion is the only way to fight climate breakdown | George Monbiot

As for the economic elite, as the consequences of their own greed and self-interest emerge, they seek, like the Roman oligarchs fleeing the collapse of the western empire, only to secure their survival against the indignant mob.

An essay by the visionary author Douglas Rushkoff this summer, documenting his discussion with some of the world’s richest people, reveals that their most pressing concern is to find a refuge from climate breakdown, and economic and societal collapse.

Should they move to New Zealand or Alaska? How will they pay their security guards once money is worthless? Could they upload their minds on to supercomputers? Survival Condo, the company turning former missile silos in Kansas into fortified bunkers, has so far sold every completed unit.

ffs

On 31 October, I will speak at the launch of Extinction Rebellion in Parliament Square. This is a movement devoted to disruptive, nonviolent disobedience in protest against ecological collapse. The three heroes jailed for trying to stop fracking last month, whose outrageous sentences have just been overturned, are likely to be the first of hundreds. The intention is to turn this national rising into an international one.

This preparedness for sacrifice, a long history of political and religious revolt suggests, is essential to motivate and mobilise people to join an existential struggle. It is among such people that you find the public and civic sense now lacking in government. That we have to take such drastic action to defend the common realm shows how badly we have been abandoned.

Might go on the 31st
Hope dies, action begins: an interview with RisingUp's Gail Bradbrook

RisingUp was established in 2016 after a dialogue between activists from Earth First!, Occupy, Plane Stupid and Reclaim the Power.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Blackpool hit by four earthquakes just days after fracking started again in the area | Metro News

They nearly lasted a week without causing any earthquakes

 

[SpookyFrank]

The latest quake in Blackpool has reached 0.5 on the richter scale, enough that they're obliged to stop work and check the site.

 

[Sprocket.]

They are that greedy for quick profits they cannot and do not want anything to stand in their way. Including Blackpool by the way this could go.

 

[Pickman's model]

the entire thing's fucking stupid and any country with a halfway decent legal system would install people who want to frack down by the shale and then blast high pressure water at them.

 

[Sprocket.]

There are plenty of old coalmine shafts around we could push the daft bastards in to!

It’s times like this I really miss Schnews.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Latest quake in the Blackpool area was 0.8. Work at the Preston New Road site has now been halted.

Fracking suspended following earthquake

 

[cupid_stunt]

0.8 is tiny & not enough, we need a couple of small ones around 2.0 to get the site closed down completely, like the Blackpool earthquakes that closed down the Preese Hall drilling site.

 

[SpookyFrank]

0.8 is tiny & not enough, we need a couple of small ones around 2.0 to get the site closed down completely, like the Blackpool earthquakes that closed down the Preese Hall drilling site.

They got up to 2.3 first time round. And the quakes so far recorded have been small but consistently increasing. IIRC the Richter scale is logarithmic so a small increase is bigger than it looks. From 1 to 2 would be a 10x increase in strength.

This is only one well mind you, if they achieve a financially viable gas flow there will be dozens of wells in the area.

 

[cupid_stunt]

There was a second 0.8 quake yesterday...

Scientists have listed another tremor near the Preston New Road fracking site - equal to yesterday’s quake which registered 0.8 on the Richter Scale.

The earthquake is the 14th recorded by the British Geological Survey and the joint biggest since fracking began last Monday.

Following yesterday’s tremor, work was halted for 18 hours. However, today, at 10.55am another 0.8 tremor was recorded by seismic experts. The previous days event happened at around 11.30am.

Second ‘0.8 quake recorded at fracking site

 

[cybershot]

If ever there was a face palm moment.

 

[brogdale]

If ever there was a face palm moment.

Reckon they're deliberately creating swarms of 'micro-quakes' (that cause "no damage") to support their recent 'lobbying' of the tory minister.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I doubt mere earthquakes will be permitted to stop this enterprise in the long run. As we see above, any inconvenient rules can simply be changed. A fair few have been already, and changes already in the pipeline (sorry) include giving fracking developments 'permitted' status, ie not requiring local authority planning permission. The same status which currently applies to garden sheds. This will save central government the minor inconvenience of having to overturn local planning decisions which have been arrived at after months of consideration, consultation, expert testimony etc etc.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The government has dismissed a proposal to create a binding olbigation for frackers to clean up their sites.

Taxpayers to pay for fracking pollution if companies go bust

e2a: That was from years and years ago, my bad.

Still, another good example of how the fracking industry has the government by the short and curlies.

 

[A380]

They need to stop this now. Preston could be destroyed by an earthquake and, aside from the human costs, the damage could run to several hundred pounds.

 

[Sprocket.]

They need to stop this now. Preston could be destroyed by an earthquake and, aside from the human costs, the damage could run to several hundred pounds.

So long as the Grade II listed bus station remains untouched, it was a hard battle saving it from wanton demolition.

 

[Sasaferrato]

Seems like fracking has been around for a while...

Earthquakes in the UK | Earthquakes | Discovering Geology | British Geological Survey (BGS)

We have had earthquakes in the UK up to about 5.4, with no structural damage below 4 or so. The 0.4 'earthquakes' recorded (too small to be felt) are several thousand times less than 4.0. There is an awful lot of hysteria over very little. If you want to mount a campaign over fracking, fair enough, but to suggest that huge earthquakes will ensue is risible.

 

[DexterTCN]

Seems like fracking has been around for a while...

Earthquakes in the UK | Earthquakes | Discovering Geology | British Geological Survey (BGS)

We have had earthquakes in the UK up to about 5.4, with no structural damage below 4 or so. The 0.4 'earthquakes' recorded (too small to be felt) are several thousand times less than 4.0. There is an awful lot of hysteria over very little. If you want to mount a campaign over fracking, fair enough, but to suggest that huge earthquakes will ensue is risible.

No fracking in Scotland though, is there Sas?

 

[Sasaferrato]

They need to stop this now. Preston could be destroyed by an earthquake and, aside from the human costs, the damage could run to several hundred pounds.

That is about on par with the 'Two Ronnies', 'In a rail accident today, a Scotsman travelling from Glasgow to London lost the entire contents of his luggage. The cork came out.'.

 

[Sasaferrato]

No fracking in Scotland though, is there Sas?

Yet. The Brigadoon Bullshitters will be gone at the next election.

 

[DexterTCN]

Yet. The Brigadoon Bullshitters will be gone at the next election.

They stopped fracking so easily you have to wonder why others haven't been able to.

 

[Sasaferrato]

They stopped fracking so easily you have to wonder why others haven't been able to.

They are wedded to restrictive legislation. I would love to see an incoming government overturn all of the SNP legislation in a single bill.