Dear Frack-Offers,
I'm going to assume that the majority of you do not live in a cave or wooden hut, wear hemp and wool only and use candles (beeswax not paraffin) for lighting. I'm going to assume you own a phone, probably traveled to your protest site by a means of transport that wasn't walking or bareback horse riding and have drunk out of a plastic bottle at some point.
We live in the Oil Age, just as our ancestors lived in the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Almost every part of our modern lives is fueled in some way by oil. It is unfortunate but many of the wonderful things about life today, plastics, medicine, the internal combustion engine require drilling for oil. And yes, it is a finite resource. But tell me, if we do not drill for oil in this country, under some of the strictest laws and regulations on the planet, where would you like to get your oil from?
Your answer would probably be either, 'nowhere' or 'not here'. Neither of those are particularly selfless recommendations. Until we perfect cold fusion or whatever is the next big breakthrough in energy we need oil. Yes, we should recycle, lower our energy usage and really think about whether driving to work and school is necessary but we will still need oil even if that is the case. Just less of it. (If, by the way, you are part of the NIMBY lot, I've nothing to say to you except people in Saudi Arabia probably don't like having whacking great oil refineries all over their landscape).
Now to the crux of my letter, so I hope you're sitting comfortably,
I am a geologist. I have study geology formally for five year of my life and have held a keen interest in it for probably nearly 15 years. I don't say this so I can pretend I am qualified to pass judgment on the situation. No, I tell you this to prove I am a scientist and apply logic, knowledge and the scientific method to things and that my knowledge is mainly based in geology.
Here's a home truth: Fracking causing earthquakes because any breaking of a rock below ground produces thermal and seismic energy which we would call an 'earthquake'. But, do you know how big an earthquake has to be to actually be felt by a human? 2 on the Local Magnitude (Richter) Scale. Do you know what size most fracking earthquakes are? In the negative numbers, -2, -1 etc. Richter, who made the Local Magnitude scale thought that any earthquake less than 1 (a size only rarely felt by humans) would be so insignificant as to not be relevant.
Now, the larger quake in Blackpool I can't pass much comment on as I've not read any literature on the causes of the quake or what people think happen but that kind of event is not likely and not supposed to be a regular event when fracking happens. Besides, the UK government is currently enforcing a policy of no fracking. I mean, what more do you want? As old and as fractured as Britain is, it is also extremely well mapped, geologically. A company knows what they are drilling into and, wait for it, will always mitigate risks to the environment, people and their workers because they are legally obligated to do so, and also for the sake of any future contracts they may wish to acquire.
Cuadrilla is not fracking at the site you are protesting. They are drilling an exploration well for oil and even admit the site might not go into full scale production at all. Also, and this may have escaped your notice, the company does not possess a licence to frack at the site.
Please, go home. Leave Cuadrilla alone. Groups like the RSPB who have real concerns about drilling occurring within protected sites I sympathize with. After all, once a nature reserve has an oil well developed on it, there isn't a nature reserve there any more. And yes, mechanisms must be put in place to protect against contamination of ground water. But the type of individual who is prepared to brake into private property and use bully tactics through volume of numbers to get what they want, regardless of the cause, I do not sympathize with. I'm sorry.
Might I suggest you take a holiday to Dorset and visit the coast around Wytch farm instead?
Yours,
LostTimeLady, geologist
Here is the permits that Cuadrilla has for the site at Balcombe, East Sussex: http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/our-sites/balcombe/
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