Bishop Hill Cuadrilla's PR fail
Jul 29, 2013 Energy: gas Energy: oil As expected, the greens are trying to use physical coercion to prevent Cuadrilla going ahead with their test drilling at Balcombe. Over the weekend Sussex police reported that a number of people had been charged arrested, most of them subsequently charged with one offence or another.
Ezra Lynch, 31, a circus employee; Samantha Duncan, 29, of Beaconsfield Villas, Brighton, and Marcin Swiercz, 35, a handyman from London, have been charged They will appear before Crawley Magistrates on 14 August along with Mark Mansbridge, 51, a voluntary charity worker, of Paddock Road, Lewes; Nancy Walker, 25, of Over Street, Brighton; Richard Millar, 29, of Upper Gloucester Road, Brighton; Frances Crack, 31, a teacher, of Taffs Well, Cardiff, and Justin Preece, of Pontypridd, Mid Glamorgan.
Although this is not the full list, it is representative: none of those charged appears to have been from Balcombe itself. In fact the Sun reports the chairman of the parish council as saying that he didn't recognise many local people among the protestors at all.
It's fair to say then that the attempts to use physical force are the work of "usual suspects" - not that that evidence of the kind I have just outlined will weigh on people like Louise Gray of the Telegraph, who tweets that "You can't put a good middle class protest down".
As Nick Grealy is at pains to point out, Cuadrilla are aiming to extract oil rather than gas from the site, so the protests are a bit cockeyed. But there is little doubt that the greens see Balcombe as absolutely pivotal and their media campaign, aided by their integrity-challenged supporters in the MSM, is gearing up.
Meanwhile, Cuadrilla's Twitter feed has been silent since the protests began. You can't help feeling that the company is simply not geared up for this kind of a fight.
Reader Comments (100)
Reform trust funds and "charities"...
Organising illegal activites should get your chairtable status revoked.
Being arrested should see any benefits cut to minimum.
@Don Keiller
"Government Artists", drawing the dole. Aren't they supposed to be available for work or something? Would a white van with a crown and DWP on the side disperse them faster than the hordes of police?
"I told you so."
The greatest threat ever to Mother Earth and a couple of clowns turn up. Apparently would have been a few more, but the wheels fell off the car.
michael hart
Months ago on previous threads I warned that it would be much harder for Cuadrilla to operate in the UK than in the US, for a variety of reasons; political, legal, social and geological. This English tendency to go out and sit in front of the bulldozers is one of them.
Mike Jackson
"a small, vocal, politically motivated minority"
That's how I think of the spin sceptics.
Except not so small a minority if you ask the right questions:
"how many of you rate climate change as a major concern?"
"how many of you trust government policy on climate change?"
"how many of you trust EU policy on climate related issues?"
What a pathetically small turnout! And how embarrassing for the TV news reporters to have to front risibly tight shots of the small assembly whilst trying to convince their viewers that this was a serious demonstration worthy of their attendance and our attention!
Brighton rock heads all!
There are several oil wells in southern England. One, which has been there for well over forty years can be seen at 51 degrees 11m 26N and 59 m 26W just south of South Warnborough on the B 3349. The oil is piped from the site, probably to Southampton.
The site used to be signposted but, this has been removed, presumably for security reasons.
Nothing would please EMm ore than if we got up a protest of our own. What potential then to accuse the well-funded sceptics of conspiracy to pervert democracy. But we won't. Because there is no 'we'. And we don't work for Cuadrilla. And of course it is the papers and the telly who decide what gets reported and in what tone. You could turn out 5,000 pro-drillers and Sky News would not show it.
UK onshore oil without protest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytch_Farm
Existing Cuadrilla fracked gas site which is producing:
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/our-sites/elswick/
Rhoda:
Agreed on all that. And note that congenital meddling with the energy market, at every level, since the relative simplicity and purity of the Lawson/Thatcher days, tends to make a company like Cuadrilla far too much of a political animal for the common good. We're not on their side and we don't want them to have special tax breaks. We simply want our government to be a good steward of the riches that have been left to us through ancient carbon-based life-forms that have lived and died in this neck of the woods over countless millions of years.
How to achieve a level playing-field with so much shrill special pleading and decades of false belief about mankind's proper relationship to the natural environment? Dunno. But I'm sure it requires more than facility with economics. I'm going to need to read Rupert Darwall in full.
"And of course it is the papers and the telly who decide what gets reported and in what tone."
//
Yep - The Guardian are still reporting it as a "Shale Gas and Fracking" story even though it is an unfracked oil drill. If they were interested they could find the details with 5 mins googling. The story would then become "Why are these protestors so badly informed?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/27/twelve-charged-sussex-fracking-protests
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/HSE-Permit-BAL-001-Non-Technical-Summary-v1.pdf
rhoda
In Trafalgar Square in 1971 I passed two dozen people around one of Landseer's lions protesting about something. That evening on the TV news it looked like thousands of people filling the square.
Similarly in Northern Ireland the riots on TV are surprisingly localised.
It's all in the camera angles.
I don't mind whether you demonstrate or not. I still doubt that Cuadrilla will make money under UK conditions. Note that Shell, with much more resources and risk tolerance, has decided not to attempt to frack here.
DNFTT
......a number of people had been charged, most of them subsequently charged with one offence or another.... ..should probably read:
"...a number of people had been arrested, most of them subsequently charged with one offence or another.
[Thanks, corrected 3.15pm. BH]
Not corrected, as far as I can see, on the main website....
["charged" has been struck out and "arrested" substituted. See above. BH. ]
EM
You having a problem with your attention span again? The world is full of politically motivated minorities — you are almost certainly one yourself. It's what they do with that political motivation and how they do it that matters.Be your age.
Shell's view from Matthias Bichsel, Projects & Technology Director, 13 June 2013:
http://www.shell.com/global/aboutshell/media/speeches-and-webcasts/2013/not-all-fields-are-created-equal.html
Publishing the names and address of those arrested has a distinctly thuggish feel about it. Who would do something like that ?
The police !
What a surprise. I would like the names and addresses of all the police yobs that cause trouble round here. If I wrote that to Sussex Police, no doubt I would get a gang of local morons at my door these days.
I went to a lawyer to take legal action for intimidation of my neighbours. He advised me it was too dangerous.
@Stuck-Record:
Do you have any links for that? Be very interested to read more.
50 years ago we didn't have the 'Instant-access-and-retrieve' technology of today. We were still listening to steam radio and the chances of newspaper archives having survived is approximately nil.
You'll just have to take my word for it.
Best regards.......
- Yes counter demo maybe unproductive as you say at this stage they are doing a good job of making themselves look ridiculous anyway.
- I would go down in a Jolly Green Bully Neutraliser superhero costume to protest about the Green's Bullying by using direct action and media manipulation to usurp the democratic process.
If you go to this webpage
https://www.gov.uk/oil-and-gas-onshore-exploration-and-production
and click on the excel spreadsheet 'basic onshore well data' under section 'Seismic and Wells'
you find the basic info on the 2159 onshore UK exploration wells drilled to date since 1902. The spreadsheet is in chron order as found, but can be filtered as desired. I think Balcombe will be the 2160th well spudded in the onshore and about the 9th onshore exploration well spudded this year, with absolutely no reason to be any more controversial than any of the other 2159 wells, other that being drilled by operator Cuadrilla, who hopes to evaluate a shale gas exploration play in Lancashire using fracture stimulation. Although this is a tried and tested completion technique performed in numerous UK conventional gas and oil wells, fracking is now stressed almost on a daily basis by the BBC as 'controversial'.
I consider the BBC primarily responsible for fanning the flames on this absurd incitement to protest, in some kind of green ideological depiction of conventional hydrocarbon resources as the personification of satanic evil.
You do not have any right to anonymity when you are arrested although the Conservatives are planning to change the guidelines so that you have anonymity when arrested but not when charged.
TerryS
I dislike the green lobby as much as anyone here. It is outrageous to publish names and addresses in a situation like this. It's inflammatory. They aren't locals and that could be an incitement to some people.
By coincidence I have just been helping a local policeman on my facebook page. It isn't personal.
Some interesting comments about the right to protest vs. the 'right' of ordinary citizens (especially the poor) to enjoy the benefits of affordable and reliable energy.
In my youth I protested about nuclear weapons, after the Cuban missile crisis. And was arrested and fined. As a youth, maybe I didn't get all the facts right, but I certainly didn't get them all wrong. I participated in non-violent civil disobedience and I had to pay the penalty. Probably didn't do any good but I feel absolutely no shame at having protested.
The interesting thing today is the extent to which the modern protest movements are full of disgruntled toffs, often protesting more about their equivocal feelings about Daddy, (something senior 'in the City') than they are about 'Fossil Fools' or GM crops or the G10 or whatever. In my day there were predictably the Commies, the Trots, the Quakers and so on, but also small contingents from the Young Conservatives and almost every other group you can imagine. Doesn't seem quite like that today.
The other major difference is that there was very little sympathy for 'ban the bomb' protesters in the media or (other than a left wing minority of the Labour party) in politics. Now, a large measure of media support seems assured and I think it is absolutely obvious that all the political parties (other than a small libertarian minority in the Tory party, perhaps) are actually quite pleased that 'protesters' descend on coal mines, power stations and so on. So we have had farcical 'actions' against protesters at Radcliffe Power Station, Kingsnorth Power Station, Drax and so on, where the Government has gone out of their way to undermine any attempt by the owners get violent vandals properly prosecuted or held to account for the damage caused.
And it is instructive to Google / Bing some of these protests. What about the Huntington Lane Surface Mine site where the protesters delayed a perfectly legal mining operation (and also remediated some ancient mining sites, full of old bell-pits and drifts which were a genuine safety hazard) for 18 months and at a cost of Millions? You have to go through dozens of 'protest' sites on Bing before even a report (by no means hostile) in the local rag can be found.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/2011/08/19/eviction-ends-telford-coal-protest/
(The secret of this particular eviction was to send in the bailiffs on the day there was a big pop concert nearby. Hence the comment “They came in with a full team of tunnellers and cherry pickers. They caught us a bit unaware because some had gone off site." It is easy to just dismiss these characters as 'rent-a-mob'.
When I was young, everyone (including me) accepted that whilst you had the right to protest, if you broke the law, you paid the penalty. That last bit seems today to have been largely forgotten.
But, of course, the most anti-social criminals of all aren't the unwashed characters at Balcombe or Huntington Lane. They are the members of the CCC who are deliberately hiking energy prices, trousering their profits, blaming the Energy Companies for profiteering and winking at the rent-a-mob protesters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdKns6z5YoM
Highly recommended...Frances is a 'triple threat' :-)
@ Duncan Jul 29, 2013 at 10:57 AM
He left - visibly upset. I was told off by the wife for being nasty to the nice man. All very strange.
*
This is great. If he was upset, he was thinking. He might just go do some research. Well done.
Well. The snapple crack pop comment of the day has to be from the comment thread under the Sun's piece in which a commenter proclaims:-
'Nothing worse than cereal protesters.'
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/5036334/The-rent-a-mob-squatters-and-dale-farm-veterans-hijacking-a-village-fracking-protest.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Features
Followed by someone else with another gem
'take away there benifits then they will have to get a job.'
Their names are unimportant (probably aliases anyway) but it is useful to publicise the fact that these "protesters" are not from the local area and are in fact self described "activists" who spend their lives moving between protest camps and various communes, "eco projects" and the like.
I remember when "Swampy"s 15 minutes of fame came to an abrupt halt after he appeared on HIGNFY where it was glaringly apparent to anyone watching that he was a complete idiot whose opinions were worthless.
It is a problem when our supposedly democratic systems are dominated by these types and the nimbys who oppose absolutely anything on principle, as it leads to such systems being simply fiddled and subverted by councils etc. to proceed with what they want and stop what they don't, so those with valid points to make about any given development are lumped in with the above and ignored.
'cereal protesters'? GM?
Osseo
"cereal protesters"
There's probably a grain of truth there.
Mike Jackson
Your comment is an early step onto that tempting slippery slope towards tyrrany, "the Greater Good".
When you start trampling the rights of individuals in the name of the many you drift away from democracy into one or other form of dictatorship.
Whether in the name of " the people" or "the state", individual freedom disappears.
"When you start trampling the rights of individuals in the name of the many you drift away from democracy into one or other form of dictatorship.
Whether in the name of " the people" or "the state", individual freedom disappears"
EM- I, as you surely do, know many individuals spread throughout a huge spectrum.
Is democracy so sacred that the rights of the few always overcome the rights of many?
If the few threaten the futures of the majority does that mean that democracy is antithetical to civilization?
If a vocal minority, however noble and pure their intentions, threaten me, my kids and their futures is a better option for democracy then please, slowly and one word at a time, describe why I should be coloured impressed.
Your staunch defence of the relevance of an opinionated, 'touchy-feely' class of individuals who value their misdirected views as being in the best interest of everyone just 'cos they know they're right cuts no ice with me mate.
I'm happy to let them alone and breath whatever they desire to inhale but claiming that they should control our destiny is beyond parody.
You want the inmates to control the asylum mate; not on our watch!
Entropic Man is so confused , he is putting forward the argument of his libertarian opponents.
Call me old fashioned, but for me, this is still highly relevant.
Samuel Johnson on Americans
"How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"
"Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty."
Still true today. Fewest holidays (except China) and highest incarceration rate on earth.
The freedom to exploit and enslave is what you get if you shut down collective action. I'm not advocating anything.
We get too much of our oil and gas from the Middle East, you know, that place where all the wars are. Renewables won't keep the lights on.
We need oil and gas. We will end up fighting in the Middle East to keep our lights on and our industry working.
Think of the children! Frack for Peace!
JF
Entropic we got a way of protesting without breaking the law.Next election we vote for mad Nigel.
Entropic would any of us be as welcome and tolerated on Enviromentalist Eco Climate alarmist websites as much as you are welcome and engaged with on here.
What we hate most about Climate Change hype .Fracking, Windturbines ,Sensitivity 97 % consencous blah blah all part of it .
Shutting down democratic free speech.
EM
I am almost inclined to forgive you for that "grain of truth" comment. Almost!
The most vociferous defenders of the rights of anti-social minorities (as in those opposed to the 'settled will' of society rather than those who are just "anti-social") are those who argue that groups such as the protesters we are talking about have some rights over and above those of the rest of us "because their hearts are pure".
Their ultimate aim is to overturn the established order and to replace it with a (almost certainly more dictatorial and unpleasant) social order of their own. My statement, which you chose to use in part as a swipe at sceptical bloggers, is a (I hope) reasoned defence of the status quo.
The individual's right to hold a different opinion, to express that opinion, to argue that opinion, to seek to convince others that that opinion is worthy of their consideration, is not under threat. When a group chooses to take violent action against the interests of the community as a whole (and violence need not be physical or aimed at individuals) in preference to reasoned argument then that group has crossed a line between what a free society is obliged to accept and what it cannot, in the interests of society, accept.
There is a line between liberty and licence.
The argument that acting for "the greater good" is somehow a step on the road to tyranny is false. Not confronting those who seek to undermine the well-being of the majority by force is a much greater step along that road since tyranny, almost be definition, is the subjugation of the majority by a minority whose views are not in tune with that majority. We know this disconnect exists because never in the UK have any of the political organisms which underpin "environmental" protests ever succeeded in scratching together any reasonable level of electoral support.
Representative democracy is not a perfect system but it is one that allows considerable freedom of expression and activity while accepting that "the greater good" is what must ultimately hold sway. Both it and modern civilisation are worth defending against the minuscule minority who have no time for either.
Julan Flood
We've been fighting over Middle East oil since WW1. It has just become more obvious lately.
I suspect historians will see the two Bush Iraq wars as Phase 1 and 2 of the first Planetary Resource War.
Mike Jackson. I dont think we are that far apart. I agree with most of your comments.
The problem comes when an undesirable but socially necessary installation is built on your doorstep. At that point a lot of previously socially responsible people turn NIMBY.
The other problem is "Who decides?" The majority of the voting population have installed governments with a greener agenda than you would prefer. Your own opinion is that this is not for the greater good. Which should prevail?
Jamspid
I've been tolerated on all sorts of sites across the spectrum, as long as I stayed polite. The times I've been thrown off, it has been because I lost patience and got too close to the blogger's personal sensitivities. I might get thrown off here yet, for telling terrible jokes!
Try it yourself. If you argue the topic and resist the temptation to make rude remarks about the people, you might do well. The sceptics I've seen thrown off SkS and Realclimate, which are scientific discussion sites, disappeared because they drifted away from discussion of evidence into political comments, ad homs etc.
EM
I take your point but I would respectfully submit (m'lud) that the argument you go on to make is not relevant.
I am depressed that the British electorate and its elected representatives have fallen for a lot of green malarkey but we have all fallen for other scams in the past and will again in the future. I think generating electricity using windmills is insane and will, if it carries on much further, have dire consequences for the well-being of the British people.
BUT that is their decision (not that they were presented with a great deal of choice) and they can come to their senses in 2015! Or not.
But the current situation has not arisen (or if it has, only tangentially) because we elected "the greenest government ever" but because somebody has discovered a (potential) long-term, local, substantial and reliable source of (relatively) low carbon energy.
And the enviro-fascists are pissed off as a result.
So if anything the situation is the result of government moving away from being as green as the activists would like.
As far as the nimbies are concerned, they are always with us. My experience of development matters, which is reasonably extensive, is that in face of the facts (all the facts) and where the necessity has been proved most people are reasonable. The fuss at Balcombe will die down because the activists have shot themselves in the foot (this is drilling for oil not fracking for gas, and they have simply reacted to the word 'Cuadrilla' like a dog reacts to the word 'walkies').
On your question of "who decides", the answer is that local people through their local councils decide unless there is an over-riding strategic (local or national) reason to overturn a local decision. Natural resources are slightly different; you can only dig them out from where they are but as a general rule good will on all sides usually wins out.
I'm afraid in the context that we are talking about there is one group for whom good will as an alien concept — and I don't mean the developer or the local people!
Re Rights of Citizens and not wishing to sidetrack the debate too much so snip if you want to Bishop.
During Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill's little spat I was commuting along the A52 (now Sir Brian Clough Way) between Derby and Nottingham. For the beat part of a year at the junction with the M1 there were police patrol cars in position to intercept the Flying Pickets (miners not the accopella group).
Now this has always left me feeling uneasy, although I'm not in favour of pickets preventing those who want to work working, I didn't like the erosion of the right to protest. The violence of the pickets was not perhaps enough of an excuse particularly as it hasn't been used against violent protestors since. Perhaps the working class are not so well protected by those with influence as other groups.
I dont know if anyone's read it. Here you'll find what Cuadrilla told the people of Balcombe.
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/our-sites/balcombe/
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/FINAL-boards.pdf
http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Statement-to-Balcombe-Parish-Council.pdf
On that basis, the visiting protesters are more likely to protesting about Cuadrilla's activities generally. The Balcombe site is just convenient.
EM
I refer by honourable friend to the answer I gave some moments ago. Pavlov would be proud!
Lord Howell's attack of foot-in-mouth disease wont help.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23510479
Mike Jackson
The protesters do seem to be reacting without thinking.
Sandy at Jul 30, 2013 at 5:55 PM..
Yes, I agree. The authority will justify their power by the circular argument of being the authority - so long as the alternative to the authority are restrained from exercising their potential power.
This is how I disagree with Mike Jackson. Laws made for dealing with a specific problem are self-justifying.
Such lawmakers have no need to set themselves limits.
For the best of intentions and the greater good, of course.
Could someone please arrange for the arrested activist Frances Crack to be locked up with Entropic Man?
Frances Crack Protest Song
(one or other would be converted or killed)
The AGW/enviro extremists are demonstrating magical thinking on a grand and apparently violent scale.
They are implying, by their own actions, that somehow physics are diffferent in the United Kingdom, and that drilling will somehow destroy the environment. Everywhere else in the world where responsible drilling takes place, the environment does just fine. yet somehow things are different in the UK. If drilling takes place, somehow the apparently different physics of the UK will lead to some sort of disaster.
Yet these same people are promoting wind turbines that in fact do destoy the environment. so their magical thinking not only leads them to making non-rational conclusions about oil, but also regarding wind and the environment itself.
And their increasingly threatening and violent actions show that their abilities to engage in rational civil disputes, much less to be swayed by facts, is really quite limited.
The following post was put up on the current Balcombe thread. I think it is one of the most informative comments yet on the fracking issue.
It really begs the question why no-one*, especially Cuadrilla, has not done a bit of legwork to get the real picture. It would surely be a worthwhile investment for them to fly over one or two of the local officials and companies to show the number of wells, what a completed site looks like, and so forth.
The post:
"For what it's worth: I live in Fort Worth, Texas, a city of about three quarters of a million people that sits atop the Barnett shale (where the fracking business really got started in earnest). There is a fracking site less than a mile from our house and about one-quarter mile from a friend's house. We hardly noticed it going in and, as far as I know, no one in the area has been seriously bothered by it: no excess noise, earthquakes, water or gas pollution, etc. There are at least 4 or 5 sites within three miles of us, all within heavily populated areas and with similar results. You can drive thorough most of these areas and, unless you're looking closely, not even notice the production sites. You might want to suggest to your government people concerned with these issues to come over here and look into the real situation as it exists on the ground rather than in the imagination. I'm sure city/state officials would be happy to talk to them about the extensive regulations that have been put into place to ensure these results.
Aug 4, 2013 at 4:58 PM | Unregistered CommenterKeith Jackson"
* To be fair, Nick Grealy has been making this point persistently on his blog, including pics of completed sites, etc.
Posts are cheap and no one reads this anyway, which is just as well as most comments seem to be ill informed tripe.