Words: Paul Seaman. Photo: Greenpeace
Greenpeace has taken the fracking debate to the heart of Westminster, erecting a 10m high dummy fracking rig in a corner of Parliament Square.
Work started in the early hours of the morning, with hoardings erected labelled “Frack and Go – your friendly local frackers” and apologising for any inconvenience “while we frack”.
“The rig emits a realistic flame which is firing up every hour using bio ethanol, while flood lighting and the sound effects of drilling and lorries are reverberating around the House of Commons,” Greenpeace said.
One of the protesters at the site, Tina Rothery, writing for the Huffington Post says:
“We’re planning to stay here all day in protest at government plans to force fracking on communities across the country. Today we want to show David Cameron’s government – this is what it feels like to have the shale gas industry pushed on you against your own will.
“The fracking rig we’ve built outside of Westminster today isn’t real. By the end of the day our protest will be over and our point will have been made. But in Lancashire, and in so many other towns, the threat remains a reality we’re forced to live with every single day.”
The demonstration was timed to coincide with the opening of the Blackpool Planning appeals concerning fracking applications at Roseacre and Preston New Road.
Categories: Opposition, Uncategorized
DRILL OR DROP? 
One of the issues that few are picking up on in the media and challenging – is the fact that MPs and industry are promoting shale gas on the basis it will provide energy for generations to come and 40 years etc. Then they have the audacity to go on to state they support renewables and are concerned about climate change. The reality is that using any form of fossil fuel for generations and 40 years is NOT compatible with tackling climate change and could never be considered to be a bridging fuel. They are masquerading behind the very real threat of climate change to peddle this fossil fuel – a disgrace.
Excellent work.