The past few weeks has seen the publication of a range of research on public attitudes to fracking, health implications, pollution issues and regulation, along with the competing roles of fossil fuels and renewables as energy sources.
A Europe-wide public attitude survey suggests people in Lancashire think shale gas will bring some of the benefits being promoted by the UK government. But they are also concerned about risks raised by fracking’s opponents.
The more people know about fracking, the more likely they are to oppose it, according to the results of a government survey released today.
The government will not win public support for fracking by behaving like a salesperson for the technique, a new study has concluded.
A small but influential group of people have changed public perception against shale gas, Cuadrilla’s commercial director told a committee of MPs this afternoon. Tony Carruthers blamed anti-fracking campaigners for what he called “ridiculous scaremongering” and said their propaganda had been “extraordinarily successful”.
Alex Kirby, of the Climate News Network, reports on a new study which warns that fracking will not rescue us from climate change because increased production of gas and rising demand for it will result in higher, not lower emissions. The argument that fracking can help to reduce […]
17th June 2014 Paul Mobbs, an environmental researcher, told last night’s We Need To Talk About Fracking debate that the government was using “dodgy dossiers” to try to persuade people that fracking was safe. Ministers’ “placatory words” had “absolutely no substance whatsoever”, he said.
7/2/14 Less than a third of people support fracking for shale gas, according to the latest survey of public attitudes commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change. Just 27 per cent of the 2,110 people surveyed said they supported “extracting shale gas to generate the UK’s […]
A geophysicist has questioned government assurances fracking is unlikely to contaminate groundwater supplies. David Smythe, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics at the University of Glasgow, told a public debate on fracking in Lewes the assurances were informed by evidence from the US that was not relevant to Britain. Professor […]
15/10/13 Any decision about fracking in Northern Ireland should be a matter for the Executive as a whole, says the Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster. Her comments follows a debate in the Northern Ireland Assembly where the Minister of the Environment assured assembly members that in the absence of evidence […]