A considerable amount of people are aware that the world is approaching an accelerating climate breakdown. We also seem to widely agree that the extraction and consecutive combustion of fossil fuels is the main driver. Yet we allow those in power to keep extracting coal, oil
A considerable amount of people are aware that the world is approaching an accelerating climate breakdown. We also seem to widely agree that the extraction and consecutive combustion of fossil fuels is the main driver. Yet we allow those in power to keep extracting coal, oil and gas, year after year after year. But maybe things are changing. Lately, Europe has seen a surge of people taking matters into their own hands, by putting their bodies in the way of extraction sites. In the UK, one particularly nasty extraction method, known as fracking, meets serious resistance.
What is fracking?
Regular extraction means that fossil fuel companies drill wounds into Earth’s crust to plunder its age-old fossil remnants. These are then consumed to power modern human civilisation, creating greenhouse gases which boost the climate breakdown. The extraction plants in themselves are chunks of industrial abuse. Just as an example, the cement platforms on which the machines are installed are often the physical leftovers of what used to be a limestone landscape. Once populated by lush wildlife, the search for profit now coldly turn these landscapes into industrial wastelands.
Fracking adds on top of all of this blasts of water, sand, and a mix of potentially toxic chemicals into the drilling holes. By creating cracks, this helps the fracking companies drain bedrock which they might have previously considered depleted. The process requires massive amounts of water, and chemicals which risk contaminating surrounding ecosystems and the ground water. It also causes earthquakes which disturb both human and non-human life in the area.
The potential of fracking opposition
All this devastation has created a considerable public opinion against fracking. Most European countries have banned the practice, and wherever fracking is deployed it’s met with popular opposition. Although this fracking opposition is clearly welcome, views diverge when it comes to the positive question – “what do we want instead”? As of my personal interests in fracking opposition, it’s an extension of my general outrage against this exploitative society. I wouldn’t be satisfied simply by an end to fracking, with the rest of the fossil fuel economy intact. And although I strongly believe in anti-fossil activism, the power system of society is adaptable and complex. Huge issues would still remain if the activism results in a relocation of the environmental destruction. One typical reaction could be that western companies accelerate their exploitation of “biomass” in the global south.
After successful protests against nuclear power in Germany during the early 2010s, the political elite switched to brown coal instead. Many of the same activists who used to oppose the atomic energy are now involved in anti-coal protests. This highlights some dynamics of the destructive system.
On the other hand, what the wide negative opinion means is that fracking might make an easy first target. There is already a vivid resistance in place. Moreover, it may be harder than usual for the corporations to vilify the protesting environmental activists. Considering the murder of our climate, we need all disruption we can get to keep the fossil fuels in the ground. Anyhow, one country where the political elite has managed to keep fracking in play despite the opposition, is the UK. Let’s take a closer look at the struggle going on here!
Political struggle in the UK
In the UK, there is a political funding system letting political parties receive financial support from private donors. In practice, this mechanism allows big corporations to influence policy making so that it supports their interests. The frackogram reveals the extensive connections between government officials and the fossil industry. This type of mutual aid between the powerful is one important mechanism to consider for understanding how officially democratic governments can let companies get away with committing atrocities.
In 2015, the county-council of Lancashire in north-western England denied fracking 