Paul Mobbs, of Mobbs’ Environmental Investigations and Research, reflects on a decade of inquiry into fracking for the first in an occasional series of long reads for the weekend.
Paul Mobbs
Approaching my tenth year of research on unconventional oil and gas in Britain, it has become clear that the true struggle has little to do with regulations, or technology, or the pursuit of fossil fuels, and everything to do with the failure of our national political dialogue.
2008 was a strange year. I was still in ‘follow-up mode’ to my 2005 book, Energy Beyond Oil, working on the energy and economic dimensions of environmental policy. It focused in particular on the role of resource depletion in driving technology, energy prices, and the economic process generally – something which would be hotly debated following the economic crash in September.
I’ve been ruminating on this recently as those same resource trends, which I saw around 2002/2003, are taking-off again now.
To the detriment of the “anti-fracking” argument, it is possible that within the next 12 months, probably within the next two or three years, energy and metals prices will spike as a (finally) growing global economy crashes into the finite reality of their supply.
Fathoming the purpose of the ‘13th Round’
The announcement in early 2008 of the new exploration licenses from the 13th Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round appeared to be a bit of a side-show. Something cooked up by the then newly-formed Department of Energy and Climate Change in response to the high oil prices of 2005 to 2008.
From mid-2008 I occasionally queried what the rationale behind the 13th Round really was. The answer came in an email in the middle of 2009.
I knew the work of Theo Colborn from my work on incinerators. Since the early 1990s she had been a wonderful source of information about incinerator emissions and, in particular, the hormone-disrupting effects of incineration by-products. It was for that reason I was on her email list.
In 2009 she began circulating information about her new research priority – fracking. Following the ‘Halliburton Exemption’ of 2005, hydraulic fracturing was taking off across large areas of the US with little public health involvement. Her first efforts to quantify what these sites were releasing appeared to stun even her seasoned view of industrial emissions.
For me it was a realization. At last I understood the 13th Round; fracking was coming to Britain.
I changed the focus of my work immediately.
From 2010 I started doing public sessions on the issue, communicating the information I had assembled over 12 months. By 2012, in the wake of the Preese Hall earthquake, public interest began to take off in Lancashire, and then South Wales and Scotland. In 2013, with Balcombe and other protests pushing the issue into the national media, my initial ‘bet’ on fracking becoming “the issue” seemed to be proven right.
If I am not persuaded by the official evidence it is because the official evidence is not objectively persuasive
My ‘business model’ is quite simple.
I find an issue that will be ‘important’ in the next few years. Then I research the issue. Then I run lectures at universities and workshops with local campaign groups to inform them. Out of that process I distil the essence of what makes the issue tick, and how to communicate it, and then I can write a book or articles about it.
That process has singularly failed me when it comes to fracking.
I’ve been trying to write ‘the book’ on unconventional oil and gas in Britain since 2012. I haven’t.
The problem has been – for all the statements, media coverage and political posturing – that the evidential basis of national policy did not correlate to the research evidence on fracking (unless, that is, you live in Scotland or Wales).
We are repeatedly told that the Government makes policy based upon ‘evidence’. If you spend time following the morass of statistical releases, Parliamentary reports and ministerial statements across various issues, you might believe that there’s far too much ‘evidence’ out there.
One-such example would be a House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report on ‘Behaviour Change’ published in 2011 (at the height of David Cameron’s “nudge” initiative). In that report they state,
“There are two reasons… why policies are not always based on the best available evidence: ministers are unaware of relevant evidence, or they are aware of the evidence but choose not to reflect it in policy decisions.”
Willing ignorance by the highest people in the land? Surely not!
The thing is, when it comes to ‘fracking’ in Britain, there are so many examples to choose from.
Pay-per-view policy
Take, for example, the Mackay-Stone report on the climate change impacts of shale gas extraction.
It was produced – without public consultation or review – in September 2013. I read it on the train on the way to speak at the Green Party’s conference in Brighton. What immediately struck me was that the ‘science’ didn’t seem, on the basis of what was published in the report, to add up.
The report, which is the cornerstone of Government policy on climate change and shale gas, has no objective basis. The data used in the calculation of impacts are demonstrably incorrect. More importantly the study quoted in support of that position, the 2013 Allen paper, has been discredited by subsequent research; the faulty monitoring equipment had malfunctioned when they measured emissions from the sites under test. And yet official support for the report, and the policy it underpins, continues irrespective of the “evidence-based” criticism.
There is something deeper at work here than fracking, its scientific basis, or even the idea of ‘objectivity’ born of the Renaissance half a millennia ago.
What we are up against is an almost mystical belief of the infallibility and indefatigability of the ‘political economy’ itself. The adherence to economic theory over all other considerations is at the heart of not just the Government’s recent fiscal austerity, but of almost all national policy since the 1980s.
On a parallel point, why has economic theory not changed since the crash of 2008? It’s because economic theorists don’t believe that a problem exists. Sound familiar?
Why are our politicians trusted less than estate agents?
In the wake of the widening gap between official assumption and evidential reality, our state has developed a deeper crisis of objectivity. That in turn is creating a crisis of public legitimacy that politicians appear unable to address.
Now think of this from another angle. If ministers deliberately ignore objective research evidence, arguably to the detriment of the nation, is that legal?
Government ministers have a legal duty of care to the public that over-rides their political responsibilities. And yet holding any legal sanction against the highest echelons of our political executive seems to be impossible. Consequently if inept ministers are ever forced to “do time”, it’s usually in the House of Lords.
That is why, I believe, the public are unable to exert any direct influence on our political executive.
It was the pursuit of that question which led me to Downing Street in March 2015, with ‘The Frackogram’, to force this point into court.
I willingly went to court. Then the charge was dropped a few weeks before the trial. DrillOrDrop report
It remains an open question, waiting to be tested by those who dare.
Brexit changes everything, except political indifference
It doesn’t matter whether you are for or against Brexit. The objective reality of Brexit is that it allows certain things to happen which could not have taken place previously. That is precisely why, for their own deeply held reasons, the supporters of Brexit support it and why opponents oppose.
The key question here: If our Government does not need objective evidence to make policy, what is the practical implication of that after March 2019?
Article written by David Cameron in The Telegraph, 11 August 2013. Link
Despite the lofty promises made to Parliament and the public in 2013, when David Cameron told us to “get behind fracking”; or in the other cases since where promises were made and broken, sometimes within just a few weeks; the Government have slowly rolled-back on many of the promised community protections to limit the impacts of oil and gas development.
The limits to that ‘roll-back’ are currently the minimum standards of European environmental law.
There is no reason why, post-Brexit, our Government could not decide to issue its own, thoroughly British “Haliburton Exemption” to large swathes of current environmental and planning law. Not just for fracking, but for other ‘essential’ industries like farming or waste disposal too.
Would our Government do that if it suited them, irrespective of the evidence against it? If you want to answer that question then I suggest that you read the Conservative Party’s manifesto for the 2017 election.
Whether you are for Brexit or not, the only thing preventing a British ‘Halliburton Exemption’ today is European environmental law. In a little over a year’s time that might not be the case.
Our focus is the key to creating change
Protesters on Frack Free Pickering march and rally Pickering, North Yorkshire. Photo: Frack Free Pickering
The unwelcome resolution to my failure to write ‘the book’ on fracking was that fracking was yet another case study on the failings of our political system. It was another manifestation, amongst many – from badger culls, to housing, to drugs policy – that results from the inability of our political class to deal with complex failure of their “business as usual” models in the face of empirical evidence to the contrary.
Forget Cuadrilla. Forget INEOS. Ask yourself this fundamental question: Do you trust your Government? If not, then what are you prepared to do about that?
I fully support the actions of communities to resist fracking developments. However, having reviewed the evidence of the last nine years, I believe that harrying fracking companies will not create the fast and significant changes in national policy we require – not just to end unconventional oil and gas, but to address the reasons for which they wanted it in the first place.
There’s a factor here that I believe our Cabinet ministers have failed to consider. As fracking companies push back against protest with injunctions and court orders, it will become less legally onerous to protest in the vicinity of Parliament that it will be at drilling sites.
To be blunt, I think our political executive is more than willing to let Jim Ratcliffe or Francis Egan be the focus of your rage.
Until we see the kind of sustained, disruptive daily protests within Whitehall that we see today outside drill sites, the political executive (as distinct from MPs and Parliament) will not feel the level of pressure required in order to focus their mind on this and other issues.
In conclusion
Addressing our common concerns on oil and gas development comes down to a very simple reality. It requires that we tackle the willing ignorance of our political executive far more than it does draining Cuadrilla’s or INEOS’ drilling budget through protest.
With Brexit, and in particular the ‘Henry VIII powers’ that will enable ministers to make new laws without the assent of Parliament, what ministers might do in the name of ‘Brexit’ could deprive people across Britain of the freedoms they have today. For the environment, it could usher in a new era of destruction not seen since the expansion of factory farming in the 1970s and 1980s.
What matters here is ‘evidence’, or rather, the willingness of the Government to choose ideology over objective evidence when writing regulation.
If politicians, with deliberate intent, refuse to consider the objective evidence on the impacts of fracking, then they are not going to change policy irrespective of the amount of evidence we give them. Fracking fits an ideological purpose; it needs no objective evidence to support it.
That will not change until widespread and disruptive protests begin to impact upon the political executive itself. Not just on the issue of fracking, but on the many other issues for which ample research evidence exists on the disconnected basis of national energy and environmental policy.
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Categories: guest post
DRILL OR DROP? 
I suggest that we are seeing the industry ramping up their activities in an attempt to stretch the protesters and thereby minimise their impact. I agree with your findings and recommendations, for I have for some time pondered on how we can have more impact. One further suggestion is for protesters to swamp their local MPs at their surgeries which is easier to organise than mass demonstrations at Westminster. But I agree we need those Westminster demonstrations. Evidence based policy is anathma to individuals in this government, as evidenced by probably the majority of their policies. The state of democracy in the UK, and especially in England, is going downhill rapidly under this government.
You’ve basically just said… ‘Because there are so few anti fracking protestors we’re screwed unless draw up new tactics’ !
I’ve been saying this for ages. It’s the same with the Labour Party and Momentum, they have a hub that’s created literally thousands of fake profiles to appear larger than they are. They post all over social media but this will ultimately lead to digging their own grave as my side will make sure the far left NEVER get into power. The next election will see Corbyn beat for the last time and the moderate Labour MPs will regain control of the party. We just need rid of both Corbyn and more importantly Red Len over at Unite.
I imagine nearly all antis are Corbyn supporters hence I take extra pride in making sure you fail.
I’ve taken screenshots of this guy for the anti scrapbook as he fits the credentials perfectly.
“they have a hub that’s created literally thousands of fake profiles to appear larger than they are. They post all over social media but this will ultimately lead to digging their own grave as my side will make sure the far left NEVER get into power.”
Well well, or rather not very well well, now there is a typical multiple potty set calling someone else’s kettle black as the deface of blades?
It is always amusing, if not alarming, to see how the anti anti mind set works. It is a case of classic guilty transference onto others to disguise their own transparent underhand and underground activities.
We have seen the same blatent attempts in USA to blacken President Donald Trumps name with fake Russian collusion accusations and the outright lie of participation in Russian espionage in the recent elections.
Whereas the actual investigations proved time and time again, that not only were the accusations faked up attempts at political assassination, but that what the evidence turned up was that it was the Clinton’s were in connivance with the FBI, CIA, NSA and the Clinton Foundation to commit treason with Russian drug and criminal organisations themselves and to use that as an attempted treasonous coup on the entire American population. look at the FISA memo, the Q Anon reports and many independent reports, you wont find any of those objective reports from the all ready compromised lame media.
The knowledge that it is the anti anti onshore ohandgee industry propaganda clone machines that pepper this site, and i assume many others with fake id’s. And then accuse everyone else of doing that same thing without the slightest shred of evidence?
Frankly I know nothing of these other party political organisations and nor do i want to. That whole scenario is a debased sick game and is just about as dirty as it can get, and i suspect, far dirtier and more debased on all sides than we could possibly imagine or want to imagine without requiring a vomit bucket nearby.
There are far deeper, and far more fundamental forces at work there than these pathetic simplified childish opinions from the anti anti dwindling camps can possibly understand or even begin to address. There are probably few who really understand the forces involved and what they are up, or down to, and those that do, and are brave enough to attempt to inform the public, don’t live very long. If you don’t believe that, then look up the George Webb site: ( https://www.youtube.com/user/georgwebb ) and many others, follow the links.
That is indicative of the mindset displayed on this forum from the anti anti faction that crops up with unwelcome and unsolicited regularity. And that is the ever more nasty internecine warfare between political factions and attempts to scar everyone else with their own knives.
It is a sorry state of affairs that such political hatred should be voiced in such extremist tabloid farcical terms, and it displays a simplistic one dimensional naivete that beggars rational belief.
So we see these over emotional tirades of one sided disinformation emerge to attempt to paste anyone with the their own activities.
It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so horribly transparent and so utterly utterly insulting.
As Paul Mobbs says, its ideology, which, taken to the apparent extremes displayed by some here, a lack of any rational sustainable ideology other than an irrational greed and self destructive nihilistic hatred for anything that opposes the debased greed and profit at the expense of everyone and everything around them.
The trouble is, if you want to tear something down, what you need is a logical and rational methodology to replace it with, we saw what happened with Iraq when that was either ignored, or worse,deliberately prevented.
If we are going to have the present regimes fall apart around our ears, and we dont seem to need to be doing that, they internal divisions seem to be quite ready to do it themselves, good riddance to all of them, we need to have a complete rationale in place ourselves to free everyone from the downright slavery we all suffer from now.
And it is that, the freedom for everyone to be the best they can be, and to attain something real and intelligent and use the freely given energies that surround us and benefit us and for future generations to inherit and make a truly worthwhile civilisation. Not this present attempt to propagate and preserve their totalitarian tin pot dictators to ransack and despoil this planet for short term illusions of monetary wealth and power.
Yes, i agree Paul Mobbs, thanks for your post, the operators are unapproachable and unaccountable, they hide behind their carefully manufactured illusions and are protected by government forces who are similarly not available for comment in all but brush off announcements.
I said this a while ago, that the only chance to attain even a degree of accountability is still central government and the ongoing internecine warfare that is the conservative party.
If it is ideology, then that is what must change, and that is where they are weakest also. Convictions have more than one connotations?
Well, it seems we are in for a bit of a cold snap, or at least that is what Teresa May and Boris Johnson think?
Time for our sunday song i think?
With Deepest Apologies to the estate of David Bowie
And in sincerest gratitude for his song:
“The Bewlay Brothers”
slightly altered to fit the circumstances of course.
————————————
“The Barclay Bankers”
And so the story goes
They wore the clothes
They said the things
To make hope seem improbable
The whale of a lie
Like they hope it was
And the Goodmen of Tomorrow
Had their feet in the wallow
And their heads of Law
Were police shorn
And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust
While the world was asleep
To their blatent lust
Lying, they swirl through the streets
Like a crust on the sun
The Barclay Bankers
On their Wings that Blank
Flashing teeth of Brass
Standing tall in the dark
Oh, And you were Gone
Hanging out with your Dwarf Men
We were so turned off
By your lack of conclusions
We were Shale and you were Frack
So you could scream,
And still no facts,
Unbelievable
And they frightened the small children away
And your talk was old
And dust would flow
Thru your veins and Lo!
It was midnight
Through The Back o’ the Boardroom Door
Like the grim face
On the Cathedral floor
And the solid book we wrote
Cannot be found today
And it was Stalking time
for the Moonboys
The Barclay Bankers
With your Fracks on the march
In the Devil-may-be-here
But He can’t sing about that
Oh, And we were Gone
Real Cool Traders
We were so Turned On
You thought we were Frackers
Now the dress is hung,
The ticket pawned
The Fractor Max that disapproved the facts
Is melted down
And woven on the edging of my pillow
Now my Brother plays upon the Rocks
He could be dead, He could be not
He could be You
He’s Chameleon, Comedian, Carillion and Capita
“Shooting-up Lie-in-the-Sky”
The Barclay Bankers
In the feeble and the Bad
The Barclay Bankers
In the Blessed and Cold
In the Crutch-hungry Dark
Was where we played our Walk
Oh, and we were Gone
Kings of Oblivion
We were so Turned On
In the Mind-Warp Pavilion
Display me Police and Make me Lie
I’m starving for me Gravy
Leave me shoes, and door unlocked
I might just slip away
Just for the Day, Hey!
Please come And Play, Hey!
Please can We Say, Hey!
Dont Come Today, Hey!
Please Go Away, Hey!
Please Go Away, Hey!
Please Go Away, Hey!
Have a great Sunday with families and friends and tomorrow, is a another frack free day!
It is normal for minority groups whose views are not embraced by the majority government to feel disenfranchised. Yet the foundation of this article, the idea, ” that the evidential basis of national policy did not correlate to the research evidence on fracking” simply does not comport with reality. The vast majority of empirical data and independent scientific research asserts that fracking entails risks, but that those risks can be effectively managed using best practices. This evidence would include reports from the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC); the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering; the UK Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM); the Scottish Government’s Independent Expert Scientific Panel, Public Health England, BGS, the National Academy of Sciences, the US Geological Survey, the California Council on Science and Technology, the EPA, Wyoming’s Dept of Env Quality, US Dept of Energy’s National Technology Laboratory, to name several.
On the other side of the debate, their are studies, often funded by anti-fracking causes, which purport to support the idea that fracking has caused harm to public health. Not a single one of these studies has provided data that proves causation, however, which is why scientists within government agencies and the ASA, after studying and reviewing this data carefully, have always concluded that it does not provide evidence that fracking is causing systemic harm.
Lastly, there is overwhelming evidence supporting the public health benefits of fracking. Not only has the practice led to dramatic decreases in pollutants in the US (Co2, particulate matter, sox, nox, mercury) but it has had a significant positive impact on general quality of life due to increased wealth, access to inexpensive and abundant energy, growth and employment opportunities. These impacts have been felt globally due to the success of fracking in the US and elsewhere as energy markets are interconnected. The UK has certainly benefited and will continue to benefit from lower gas prices as a result of the shale revolution. This has made it much easier for the country to displace coal-generated production and to lower harmful emissions.
Because your basic premise is faulty, Paul, it is very good news that you never wrote that book. It would have been a serious waste of your resources. You are better served taking a deep read of some of the independent research out there (not the academic work that is most often supported by anti-fossil fuel groups) and also noting the fact that millions of wells have been fracked all over the world for the last sixty years, and the negative environmental consequences have been quite isolated while the positive impacts have been overwhelmingly widespread.
Thanks!
Applause
“On the other side of the debate, their are studies, often funded by anti-fracking causes, which purport to support the idea that fracking has caused harm to public health. Not a single one of these studies has provided data that proves causation, however, which is why scientists within government agencies and the ASA, after studying and reviewing this data carefully, have always concluded that it does not provide evidence that fracking is causing systemic harm.”
That’s an interesting accusation BeatShaleToday? does that result from simple blind bias, or, now what is your favourite terminology in this respect, or rather lack of it? Oh yes, direct causative systemic proof?
Do you have any of that incontrovertible proof for that statement? Or is that simply more of the same anti anti empty plastic waste rhetoric that regularly washes up onto the clean and pristine beaches of Drill Or Drop in the tide of conversations along with the poisoned wildlife of reason and the choked and imprisoned birds of freedom of protest, speech and action?
Do tell?
Eatkaletoday. You can add to your long list of reports the recent independent inquiry into the safety and practice of fracking by Australian Northern Territory Parliament. It is pretty saying the same thing as other reports. Risks exists but can robustly mitigate by regulation and available engineering practice and industry good practices.
Thanks, TW. Noted.
“Risks exists but can robustly mitigate by regulation and available engineering practice and industry good practices”
BTW, if we every come across such a mythical fantastic beast as a single example of a well regulated good engineering practice in this reality of onshore ohandgee operators, we will be sure to let you know?
Would a bubble wrap unicorn courier do? Or perhaps an LHV full of pixie dust might serve to transform the somewhat ugly beast reality of the inadequate, secretive and dismally incompetent onshore ohandgee operators that do exist, into that, what was it? Oh yes, that overused Thatcher era word, “robust” state? Which always sounded to me like a broken robot, but not as feasible nor as long lasting?
Naive triumphalism doesn’t win votes though GottaBeKidding. Do you have any other strings to your bow?
The one little snippet that had some interesting correlation, is that after “nearly 10 years” of this sort of debate, and no benefit analyses, there are still less than ONE THIRD of the surveyed audience against fracking in the UK.
Demonstrates what a sensible population we have in the UK (mostly) who are not easily fooled. To think that taking the fight to the politicians will gain traction under these circumstances is just ridiculous, and/or desperate.
Better grasp whatever crumbs of comfort you can find Martin and step up your mission to keep people clueless about the reality, which I suspect is why so many people are still undecided. But there are many more people against than for and if you did a Brexit style referendum your side is finished.
Clueless people are undecided? Somewhat patronising. No requirement for a Brexit style referendum-the decision has been made already.
Looking at recent inaccurate posts on this site I do find it amusing that you can claim any mission to keep people clueless comes from anyone but the antis.
I certainly don’t require crumbs of comfort. This is an article about 10 years of failed activity by the antis.