All posts tagged Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth distorting the evidence for Fracking in the UK

Summary

Friends of the Earth have a webpage claiming to be “fracking facts”. The key points I make are.

  • The claims of dangers of fracking raise questions, that need to be answered before they can be considered credible.
  • The claim that fracking could affect house prices is totally unsupported.
  • The claim that shale gas will not significantly affect energy prices is based on out of date data. The British Geological Survey has shown that the potential of shale gas is huge. Friends of the Earth has played a major role in preventing that potential being realized.
  • FoE has consequently helped prevent shale gas from relieving the energy crisis brought upon by the Climate Change Act 2008.
  • Claims that pursuing shale gas in Britain will affect global emissions are pure fantasy. Also is a fantasy the belief that Britain is leading the way on emissions reductions. We ain’t leading if collectively the world is not following. The evidence shows clearly shows this.  

In the previous post I looked at how FoE blatantly mislead about an agreement they reached with the Advertising Standards Authority, which caused the unusual step of ASA Chief Executive Guy Parker issuing a strongly worded statement to defend the ASA’s integrity.

In this post I will look at FoE’s position on fracking, from Fracking definition? What does fracking mean? Read our fracking facts

I will look at various statements made (with FoE quotes in purple), showing how well they are supported by the evidence and/or providing alternative perspectives.

From the section What are the dangers of fracking?

Industry statistics from North America show that around 6% of fracking wells leak immediately.

—

Leaking wells lead to a risk of water contamination. Lord Smith, former chair of the Environment Agency, has said this is the biggest risk posed by fracking.

So it’s particularly concerning that the Government has now said it will allow fracking companies to drill through aquifers which provide household drinking water.

This raises some questions.

  • If leaks are a problem, with respect to fracking in the UK has this been risk assessed, with appropriate measures taken to prevent leaks?
  • Does that statistic of 6% allow for when there is natural leakage in the area of fracking leaking in the water supplies are venting into the atmosphere in the area where fracking is occurring? This was the case in the images of the flaming water faucet in the movie Gasland.
  • Have there been steps taken in the USA to reduce genuine leaks?
  • Has the proportion of wells leaking gas in the USA been increasing or decreasing?
  • Has the average amount of gas leaked been increasing or decreasing?
  • How when extracting gas from well below water aquifers, through a lined tube, that is both water-tight and gas-tight, is that gas (and fracking fluids) meant to leech into the water supply?

Then there is the statement without evidence.

Fracking could also affect house prices.

This was one of the issues FoE in its agreement with the ASA have the assurance not to repeat claims that fracking affects property prices, unless the evidence changes. Legally there might be cop-out where that assurance does not apply to claims made on its website. Literally, the statement is not untrue, just as the claim that a butterfly flapping its wings on the North Downs could lead to a typhoon in the South China Sea.

Would fracking bring down energy bills?

It’s very unlikely. Fracking company Cuadrilla has admitted that any impact on bills would be “basically insignificant”.

Claims that fracking would create a lot of jobs have also been overstated. According to Cuadrilla, each of its proposed 6-year projects in Lancashire that were recently rejected by the council would only have created 11 jobs.

The claim about Cuadrilla is sourced from an Independent article in June 2013.

“We’ve done an analysis and it’s a very small…at the most it’s a very small percentage…basically insignificant,” said Mark Linder, a public relations executive at Bell Pottinger who is also responsible for Cuadrilla’s corporate development.

The article later says

“According to Poyry, Lancashire shale gas production could also reduce the country’s wholesale gas and electricity prices by as much as 4 per cent between 2014 and 2035, which corresponds to an average saving of £810m/year,”

It is not surprising that shale gas developments in Lancashire alone will not have a significant impact on UK energy prices, especially if that is restricted to a few sites by one company. But over three years later the landscape has changed. The British Geological Survey has been publishing estimates of the quantities of shale gas (and oil) that exists beneath the ground.

The figures are at first hard to comprehend. They are large numbers in units of measure that ordinary people (even people with some knowledge of the field) find hard to comprehend, let alone put into some perspective. In my view, the figures need to be related to annual British consumption. Page 8 of the DECC UK Energy Statistics, 2015 & Q4 2015 estimates gas demand at 794 TWh in 2015.

The BGS uses tcf (tera cubic feet) for its’ estimates, which (like a domestic gas bill) can be converted from TWh. The 794 TWh is about 2.7 tcf. Not all shale gas is recoverable. In fact possibly only 10% of reserves is recoverable on existing technology, and depending on the quality of the deposits.

There are also shale oil deposits, measured by the BGS in both barrels and millions of tonnes. Refinery production (a rough estimate of consumption) was 63 million tonnes in 2015. I will again assume 10% recovery, which may be overly prudent.

The biggest shock was published just a few weeks after the Independent article on 27th July 2013. The size of the Bowland shale was truly staggering. The central estimate is 1329 tcf, meaning enough to satisfy 49 years of current UK gas demand. Potentially it is more, due to the depth of deposits in many areas. No significant deposits of oil are thought to be present

On 23rd May 2014 BGS published the results for the Weald Basin, a large area in the South East of England. Whilst there were no significant deposits of gas, the central estimate of 591 million tonnes is enough to supply the UK for one year.

On 25 June 2014 the Welsh Government published the estimates for Wales. The main gas deposits are thought to be in Wrexham/Cheshire and in South Wales and estimated about 65 tcf, or just over two years of UK demand. (Strictly the Welsh estimate is somewhat below this, as Wrexham is on the Welsh border and Cheshire is an English county. )

On 23rd May 2014 BGS published the results for the Midland Valley of Scotland. The central estimate for shale gas was 80.3 tcf (3 years of UK demand) and for shale oil 800 million tonnes (15 months of refinery production).

Most recently on 13th October 2016, BGS published the results for the Jurassic shale of the Wessex area. Central estimate for shale oil was 149 million tonnes, equivalent to three months of UK refinery production.

In all, conservatively there is estimated to be sufficient gas to supply the UK for over 54 years and oil for two and half years. The impact on supply, and therefore the impact on jobs and (in the case of gas) on energy prices, demands on the ability of businesses to profitability develop these resources. As has happened in the USA, the impact on jobs is mostly dependent on the impact on prices, as low prices affect other industries. In the USA, industries that are sensitive to energy prices (or use gas as a raw material) have returned from overseas, boosting jobs. FoE has played no small part in delaying planning applications with spurious arguments, along with generating false fears that could have made regulations more onerous than if an objective assessment of the risks had been made.

Fracking can’t help any short term or medium term energy crisis.

Even if the industry was able to move ahead as fast as it wants, we wouldn’t see significant production until about 2025.

This is actually true and up to date. If it were not for the Climate Change Act along with eco-activists blocking every move to meet the real energy demands in the most affordable and efficient way possible, there would be no prospective energy crisis. In terms of shale gas meeting energy demands (and gas-fired power stations being built) FoE should claim some of the credit for preventing the rapid develop of cheap and reliable energy sources, and thus exacerbating fuel poverty.

Will fracking help us to tackle climate change?

Shale gas and shale oil are fossil fuels. They emit greenhouse gases. Avoiding the worst impacts of climate change means getting off fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Scientists agree that to stop dangerous climate change, 80% of fossil fuels that we know about need to stay in the ground.

Setting up a whole new fossil fuel industry is going in completely the wrong direction, if the UK is to do its fair share to stop climate change.

The hypothesis is that global emissions lead to higher levels of greenhouse gases. In respect of CO2 this is clear. But the evidence that accelerating rate of rise in CO2 levels has led to accelerating average global temperatures is strongly contradicted by real world data. There is no scientific consensus that contracts this conclusion. Further there is no proper scientific evidence to suggest that climate is changing for the worse, if you look at the actual data, like leading climate scientist Dr John Christy does in this lecture. But even if the catastrophic global warming hypothesis were true (despite the weight of real world data against it) global warming is global. Britain is currently emitting about 1.1% of global emissions. Even with all the recently discovered shale gas and oil deposits, under the UK is probably less than 1% of all estimated fossil fuel deposits. Keeping the fossil fuels under British soil in the ground will do nothing to change the global emissions situation.  Britain tried to lead the way with the Climate Change Act of 2008, in committing to reduce its emissions by 80% by 2050. The INDC submissions leading up to COP21 Paris in December 2015 clearly showed that the rest of the countries were collectively not following that lead. The UNFCCC produced a graph showing the difference of the vague policy proposals might make.  I have stuck on the approximate emissions pathway to which the UK is committed.

The FoE is basically objecting to fracking to keep up the appearance that the UK is “doing its bit” to save the world from catastrophic global warming. But in the real world, global warming ain’t happening, neither are the predicted catastrophes. Even if it were, whatever Britain does will make no difference. FoE attempting to deny future jobs growth and stop the alleviation of fuel poverty to maintain the fantasy that Britain is leading the way on climate change.

 Isn’t it better to have our own gas rather than importing it?

…….

If we went all out for shale, our gas imports would stay at current levels as the North Sea supply declines – and imports could increase by 11%.

This claim, without any reference, is based likely based on the same out of date sources as below. If FoE and fellow-travellers kept out of the way with their erroneous legal challenges and distortions then shale gas has a huge potential to cause imports to decline.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 08/01/2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change Analysis, Climate Change Economics, COP21 Paris, Eco-Fanatics, Fracking, Global Warming, Public Relations and Climate Change, Shale Gas, Spin (Propaganda), UNFCCC
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 08/01/2017

https://manicbeancounter.com/2017/01/08/friends-of-the-earth-distorting-the-evidence-fracking-in-the-uk/

Friends of the Earth still perverting the evidence for fracking harms

Yesterday, the Advertising Standards Authority at long last managed to informally resolve the complaints about a misleading leaflet by Friends of the Earth Trust and Friends of the Earth Ltd. This is no fault of the ASA. Rather FoE tried to defend the indefensible, drawing out the process much like they try to draw out planning inquiries. From the Guardian

“After many attempts by Friends of the Earth to delay this decision, the charity’s admission that all of the claims it made, that we complained about, were false should hopefully put a stop to it misleading the UK public on fracking,” said Francis Egan, chief executive of Cuadrilla. …..

According to the BBC

Friends of the Earth (FOE) must not repeat misleading claims it made in an anti-fracking leaflet, the advertising watchdog has said.

The fundraising flyer claimed fracking chemicals could pollute drinking water and cause cancer and implied the process increases rates of asthma.

The charity “agreed not to repeat the claims,” the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.

All pretty clear. As the BBC reports that the eco-worriers are not to be told that they are misleading the public.

Donna Hume, a campaigner for the environmental charity, said it would “continue to campaign against fracking” because it was “inherently risky for the environment”.

……..

Ms Hume said Cuadrilla “started this process to distract from the real issues about fracking” and was trying to “shut down opposition”.

“It hasn’t worked though. What’s happened instead is that the ASA has dropped the case without ruling,” she said.

“We continue to campaign against fracking, alongside local people, because the process of exploring for and extracting shale gas is inherently risky for the environment, this is why fracking is banned or put on hold in so many countries.”

Donna Hume was just acting as mouthpiece to the FoE, who issued a misleading statement about the case. They stated

Last year fracking company Cuadrilla complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about one of our anti fracking leaflets.

But after more than a year, the complaint has been closed without a ruling.

The scientific evidence that fracking can cause harm to people and the environment keeps stacking up. Friends of the Earth is not alone in pointing out the risks of fracking, to the climate, to public health, of water contamination, and to the natural environment.

ASA Chief Executive Guy Parker, took the unusual step of setting the record straight.

But amidst the reports, the public comments by the parties involved and the social media chatter, there’s a risk that the facts become obscured.

So let me be clear. We told Friends of the Earth that based on the evidence we’d seen, claims it made in its anti-fracking leaflet or claims with the same meaning cannot be repeated, and asked for an assurance that they wouldn’t be. Friends of the Earth gave us an assurance to that effect. Unless the evidence changes, that means it mustn’t repeat in ads claims about the effects of fracking on the health of local populations, drinking water or property prices.

Friends of the Earth has said we “dropped the case”. That’s not an accurate reflection of what’s happened. We thoroughly investigated the complaints we received and closed the case on receipt of the above assurance. Because of that, we decided against publishing a formal ruling, but plainly that’s not the same thing as “dropping the case”. Crucially, the claims under the microscope mustn’t reappear in ads, unless the evidence changes. Dropped cases don’t have that outcome.

The ASA, which tries to be impartial and objective, had to take the unusual statement to combat FoE deliberate misinformation. So what is the scientific evidence that FoE claim? This from the false statement that ASA was forced to rebut.

The risks of fracking

In April 2016, a major peer-reviewed study by research institute PSE Healthy Energy was published in academic journal PLOS ONE, which assessed 685 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature from around the world over 2009-2015 and found:

  • “84% of public health studies contain findings that indicate public health hazards, elevated risks, or adverse health outcomes”

  • “69% of water quality studies contain findings that indicate potential, positive association, or actual incidence of water contamination”

  • “87% of air quality studies contain findings that indicate elevated air pollutant emissions and/or atmospheric concentrations”

I suggest readers actually read what is said. Hundreds of studies cannot identify, beyond reasonable doubt, that there is a significant large risk to human health. If any single study did establish this it would be world news. It is just hearsay, that would be dismissed by a criminal court in the UK. A suggestion is from what the  PLOS-ONE Journal does not include in the submission criteria, that is normal in traditional journals – that submissions should have something novel to say about the subject area. As an online journal it does not have to pay its way by subscriptions, as authors usually have to pay a fee of $1495 prior to publication.

But this still leaves the biggest piece of misinformation that FoE harps on about, but was not included in the ruling. Below is the BBC’s two pictures of the leaflet.

foe-false-fracking-leaflet-bbc

foe-false-fracking-leaflet-bbc2

It is the the issue of climate change that goes unchallenged. Yet it is the most pernicious and misleading claim of the lot. If fracking goes ahead in the UK it will make not a jot of difference. According to the EU EDGAR data the UK emitted just 1.1% of global GHG emissions in 2012. That proportion is falling principally because emissions are rising in other countries. It will continue to fall as emissions in developing countries rise, as those countries develop. That is China, India, the rest of South East Asia and 50+ African nations. These developing countries, which are exempt from any obligation to constrain emissions under the 1992 Rio Declaration, have 80% of the global population and accounted for over 100% of emissions growth between 1990 and 2012. I have summarized the EDGAR data below.

ghg-ems-annnon

So who does the FoE speak for when they say “We could trigger catastrophic global temperature increases if we burn shale in addition to other fossil fuels“?

They do not speak for the USA, where shale gas has replaced coal, and where total emissions have reduced as a result, with real pollutants falling. There the bonus has been hundreds of thousands of extra jobs. They do not speak for China where half of the global increase (well 53%) in GHG emissions between 1990 and 2012 occurred. They cannot speak for Britain, as if it triggers massive falls in energy costs like in the USA (and geologically the North of England Bowland shale deposits look to be much deeper than the US deposits, so potentially cheaper to extract) then industry could be attracted back to the UK from countries like China with much higher emissions per unit of output.

Even worse, F0E do not speak for the British people. In promoting renewables, they are encouraging higher energy prices, which have lead to increasing fuel poverty and increased winter deaths among the elderly. On the other hand the claims of climate catastrophism from human emissions look to be far fetched when this century global average temperature rises have stalled, when according to theory they should have increased at an accelerated rate.

Kevin Marshall

Update 7th Jan 11am

Ron Clutz has posted a good summary of the initial ruling, along with pointing to a blog run by retired minister Rev. Michael Roberts, who was one of the two private individuals (along with gas exploration company Cuadrilla) who made the complaint to ASA.

The Rev Roberts has a very detailed post on the 4th January giving extensive background history of FoE’s misinformation campaign against shale gas exploration in the Fylde. There is one link I think they should amend. The post finishes with what I believe to be a true statement.

Leaflet omits main reason for opposition is Climate change

https://www.foe.co.uk/page/no-fracking-lancashire

The link is just to a series of posts on fracking in Lancashire. It is one of them is

Lancashire fracking inquiry: 3 reasons fracking must be stopped

The first reason is climate change. But rather than relate emissions to catastrophic global warming, they point to the how allowing development of fossil fuels appears in relation to Government commitments made in the Climate Change Act 2008 and the Paris Agreement. FoE presents their unbalanced case in much fuller detail in the mis-named Fracking Facts.

Update 2 7th Jan 2pm

I have rechecked the post Cuadrilla’s leaflet complaint is closed without a ruling, while evidence of fracking risks grows, where Friends of the Earth activist Tony Bosworth makes the grossly misleading statement that ASA closed the case without a ruling. The claim is still there, but no acknowledgement of the undertaking that F0E made to ASA. F0E mislead the public in order to gain donations, and now tries to hide the information from its supporters by misinformation. Below, is a screenshot of the beginning of the article.

by manicbeancounter on 06/01/2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Costs of Renewables, Public Relations and Climate Change, Science & Non-science, Spin (Propaganda)
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 06/01/2017

https://manicbeancounter.com/2017/01/06/friends-of-the-earth-still-perverting-the-evidence-for-fracking-harms/

Insight into the mindset of FoE activists

Bishop Hill comments about how

the Charities Commissioners have taken a dim view of an FoE leaflet that claimed that silica – that’s sand to you or me – used in fracking fluid was a known carcinogen.

Up pops a FoE activist making all sorts of comments, including attacking the hosts book The Hockey Stick Illusion. Below is my comment

Phil Clarke’s comments on the hosts book are an insight into the Green Activists.
He says Jan 30, 2016 at 9:58 AM

So you’ve read HSI, then?
I have a reading backlog of far more worthwhile volumes, fiction and non-fiction. Does anybody dispute a single point in Tamino’s adept demolition?

and

Where did I slag off HSI? I simply trust Tamino; the point about innuendo certainly rings true, based on other writings.
So no, I won’t be shelling out for a copy of a hatchet job on a quarter-century old study. But I did read this, in detail
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n5/full/ngeo1797.html

Tamino’s article was responded to twice by Steve McIntyre. The first looks at the use of non-standard statistical methods and Re-post of “Tamino and the Magic Flute” simply repeats the post of two years before. Tamino had ignored previous rebuttals. A simple illustration is the Gaspé series that Tamino defends. He misses out many issues with this key element in the reconstruction, including that a later sample from the area failed to show a hockey stick.
So Phil Clarke has attacked a book that he has not read, based on biased review by an author in line with his own prejudices. He ignores the counter-arguments, just as the biased review author does as well. Says a lot about the rubbish Cuadrilla are up against.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 31/01/2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Eco-Fanatics, Science & Non-science
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 31/01/2016

https://manicbeancounter.com/2016/01/31/insight-into-the-mindset-of-foe-activists/

Shotton Open Cast Coal Mine Protest as an example of Environmental Totalitarianism

Yesterday, in the Greens and the Fascists, Bishop Hill commented on Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascists. In summing up, BH stated:-

Goldberg is keen to point out that the liberal and progressive left of today do not share the violent tendencies of their fascist forebears: theirs is a gentler totalitarianism (again in the original sense of the word). The same case can be made for the greens. At least for now; it is hard to avoid observing that their rhetoric is becoming steadily more violent and the calls for unmistakably fascist policy measures are ever more common.

The link is to an article in the Ecologist (reprinted from Open Democracy blog) – “Coal protesters must be Matt Ridley’s guilty consience”

The coal profits that fill Matt Ridley’s bank account come wet with the blood of those killed and displaced by the climate disaster his mines contribute to, writes T. If hgis consicence is no longer functioning, then others must step into that role to confront him with the evil that he is doing. (Spelling as in the original)

The protest consisted of blocking the road for eight hours to Shotton open cast coal mine. The reasoning was

This was an effective piece of direct action against a mine that is a major contributor to climate disaster, and a powerful statement against the climate-denying Times columnist, Viscount Matt Ridley, that owns the site. In his honour, we carried out the action as ‘Matt Ridley’s Conscience’.

The mine produces about one million tonnes of coal a year out of 8,000 million tonnes globally. The blocking may have reduced annual output by 0.3%. This will be made up from the mine, or from other sources. Coal is not the only source of greenhouse gas emissions, so the coal resulting in less than 0.004% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Further, the alleged impact of GHG emissions on the climate is cumulative. The recoverable coal at Shotton is estimated at 6 million tonnes or 0.0007% of the estimated global reserves of 861 billion tonnes (Page 5). These global reserves could increase as new deposits are found, as has happened in the recent past for coal, gas and oil. So far from being “a major contributor to climate disaster”, Shotton Open Cast Coal Mine is a drop in the ocean.

But is there a climate disaster of which Matt Ridley is in denial? Anonymous author and convicted criminal T does not offer any evidence of current climate disasters. He is not talking about modelled projections, but currently available evidence. So where are all the dead bodies, or the displaced persons? Where are the increased deaths through drought-caused famines? Where are the increased deaths from malaria or other diseases from warmer and worsening conditions? Where is the evidence of increased deaths from extreme weather, such as hurricanes? Where are the refugees from drought-stricken areas, or from low-lying areas now submerged beneath the waves?

The inability to evaluate the evidence is shown by the comment.

Ridley was ( … again) offered a platform on BBC Radio 4 just a week before our hearing, despite his views being roundly debunked by climate scientists.

The link leads to a script of the Radio 4 interview with annotated comments. I am not sure that all the collective brains do debunk (that is expose the falseness or hollowness of (an idea or belief)) Matt Ridley’s comments. Mostly it is based on nit-picking or pointing out the contradictions with their own views and values. There are two extreme examples among 75 comments I would like to highlight two.

First is that Matt Ridley mentioned the Hockey Stick graphs and the work of Steve McIntyre in exposing the underlying poor data. The lack of a medieval warm period would provide circumstantial (or indirect) evidence that the warming of the last 200 years is unprecedented. Gavin Schmidt, responded with comments (5) and (6) shown below.

Schmidt is fully aware that Steve McIntyre also examined the Wahl and Amman paper and thoroughly discredited it. In 2008 Andrew Montford wrote a long paper of the shenanigans that went into the publication of the paper, and its lack of statistical significance. Following from this Montford wrote the Hockey Stick Illusion in 2010, which was reviewed by Tamino of RealClimate. Steve McIntyre was able to refute the core arguments in Tamino’s polemic by reposting Tamino and the Magic Flute, which was written in 2008 and covered all the substantial arguments that Tamino made. Montford’s book further shows a number of instances where peer review in academic climatology journals is not a quality control mechanism, but more a device of discrimination between those that support the current research paradigm and those that would undermine that consensus.

Comment 6 concludes

The best updates since then – which include both methodology improvements and expanded data sources – do not show anything dramatically different to the basic picture shown in MBH.

The link is to Chapter 5 on the IPCC AR5 WG1 assessment report. The paleoclimate discussion is a small subsection, a distinct reversal from the prominent place given to the original hockey stick in the third assessment report of 2001. I would contend the picture is dramatically different. Compare the original hockey stick of the past 1,000 years with Figure 5.7 on page 409 of AR5 WG1 Chapter 5.

In 2001, the MBH reconstruction was clear. From 1900 to 2000 average temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere have risen by over 1C, far more than the change in any of century. But from at least two of the reconstructions – Ma08eivl and Lj10cps – there have been similarly sized fluctuations in other periods. The evidence now seems to back up Matt Ridley’s position of some human influence on temperatures, but does not support the contention of unprecedented temperature change. Gavin Schmidt’s opinions are not those of an expert witness, but of a blinkered activist.

Schmidt’s comments on hockey stick graphs are nothing compared to comment 35

The Carbon Brief (not the climate scientists) rejects evidence that contradicts their views based on nothing more than ideological prejudice. A search for Indur Goklany will find his own website, where he has copies of his papers. Under the “Climate Change” tab is not only the 2009 paper, but a 2011 update – Wealth and Safety: The Amazing Decline in Deaths from Extreme Weather in an Era of Global Warming, 1900–2010. Of interest are two tables.

Table 2 is a reproduction of World Health Organisation data from 2002. It clearly shows that global warming is well down the list of causes of deaths. Goklany states in the article why these figures are based on dubious assumptions. Anonymous T falsely believes that global warming is curr

Figure 6 for the period 1990-2010 shows

  • the Global Death and Death Rates per million Due to Extreme Weather Events
  • CO2 Emissions
  • Global average GDP Per Capita

Figure 6 provides strong empirical evidence that increasing CO2 emissions (about 70-80% of total GHG emissions) have not caused increased deaths. They are a consequence of increasing GDP per capita, which as Goklany argues, have resulted in fewer deaths from extreme weather. More importantly, increasing GDP has resulted in increased life expectancy and reductions in malnutrition and deaths that be averted by access to rudimentary health care. Anonymous T would not know this even if he had read all the comments, yet it completely undermines the beliefs that caused him to single out Matt Ridley.

The worst part of Anonymous T’s article

Anonymous T concludes the article as follows (Bold mine)

The legal process efficiently served its function of bureaucratising our struggle, making us attempt to justify our actions in terms of the state’s narrow, violent logic. The ethics of our action are so clear, and declaring myself guilty felt like folding to that.

We found ourselves depressed and demoralised, swamped in legal paperwork. Pleading guilty frees us from the stress of a court case, allowing us to focus on more effective arenas of struggle.

I faced this case from a position of relative privilege – with the sort of appearance, education and lawyers that the courts favour. Even then I found it crushing. Today my thoughts are with those who experience the racism, classism and ableism of the state and its laws in a way that I did not.

That reflection makes me even more convinced of the rightness of our actions. Climate violence strikes along imperialist lines, with those least responsible, those already most disadvantaged by colonial capitalism, feeling the worst impacts.

Those are the people that lead our struggle, but are often also the most vulnerable to repression in the struggle. When fighting alongside those who find themselves at many more intersections of the law’s oppression than I do, I have a responsibility to volunteer first when we need to face up to the police and the state.

Faced with structural injustice and laws that defend it, Matt Ridley’s Conscience had no choice but to disobey. Matt Ridley has no conscience and neither does the state nor its system of laws. Join in. Be the Conscience you want to see in the world.

The writer rejects the rule of law, and is determined to carry out more acts of defiance against it. He intends to commit more acts of violence, with “climate” as a cover for revolutionary Marxism. Further the writer is trying to incite others to follow his lead. He claims to know Matt Ridley’s Conscience better than Ridley himself, but in the next sentence claims that “Matt Ridley has no conscience“. Further this statement would seem to contradict a justification for the criminal acts allegedly made in Bedlington Magistrates Court on December 16th
that the protesters were frustrated by the lack of UK Government action to combat climate change.

It is not clear who is the author of this article, but he/she is one of the following:-

Roger Geffen, 49, of Southwark Bridge Road, London.

Ellen Gibson, 21, of Elm Grove, London;

Philip MacDonald, 28, of Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, London;

Beth Louise Parkin, 29, of Dodgson House, Bidborough Street, London;

Pekka Piirainen, 23, of Elm Grove, London;

Thomas Youngman, 22, of Hermitage Road, London.

Laurence Watson, 27, of Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, London;

Guy Shrubsole, 30, of Bavent Road, London;

Lewis McNeill, 34, of no fixed address.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 29/12/2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Degenerating Climatology, Eco-Fanatics, Hockey Sticks, Rule of Law, Spin (Propaganda)
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 29/12/2015

https://manicbeancounter.com/2015/12/29/shotton-open-cast-coal-mine-protest-as-an-example-of-environmental-totalitarianism/