Bishop Hill Showdown for the greenshirts
Sep 11, 2013 Energy: gas Greens The protestors at Balcombe apparently failed to clear the roadside outside Cuadrilla's site in Balcombe yesterday, putting them in breach of an official instruction to do so. The council have now instituted court proceedings to begin forceable removal.
West Sussex County Council today (Tuesday) confirmed that it has now instructed its agents to seek an order for possession which will lead to people, roadside tents, canopies and caravans being removed on the B2036 London Road, Balcombe, in an area close to the site where energy company Cuadrilla is completing exploratory drilling work.
The Council, as the Highways Authority, is taking the action over increased concerns for the safety of all road users.
In related news, those delightful environmentalists have taken to verbally abusing the locals:
Fed up with them. Received verbal abuse yesterday lunchtime. Not nice people. #balcombe
Smelly, obnoxious, threatening soap-dodgers who are trying to destroy jobs and take us back to the Middle Ages. What's not to like?
Reader Comments (35)
The gift to the climate blogger that keeps on giving. I can't blame you Bish :)
"Smelly, obnoxious, threatening soap-dodgers who are trying to destroy jobs and take us back to the Middle Ages. What's not to like?"
Maybe it's too cold for them in them in the Modern Period...
I cannot find it in my heart to condemn such an...ahem...disparate group out of hand and wholesale.
However, I do find myself curiously unmoved to indignation when others do it.
They have a right to protest..but....essentially...they have made their point and should now move on. The publicity they are now getting is bad publicity. Can they not see that? And if they can, what does that say about the present events and motivations?
If they cannot...well then they are a bit "challenged."
Let's hope they carry on acting like the spoilt little brats they are.
I'm sure their "message" will get through.
Like I said. They're literally AND metaphorically trying to punch out our lights.
So what;s been the nett effect of the 'protest'?
1. Raised awareness of fracking as an energy extraction technique.
2. Increased public liking for it
3. Minister for Climate Change made a speech essentially endorsing it both for energy and CC reasons.
4. Pissed an awful lot of people off
5. Ensured that very few rural communities will welcome them in future
6. Not even got onto the BBC's front page today.
Overall - all objectives achieved. Shot themselves in both feet.
#RhymeswithBankers.
Everyone in this country still has the right to protest – and may that always remain so. However, it is interesting to note the reaction of the protestors when people protest against their protest.
The experience in Balcome should act as a warning to any community where shale gas (or oil) drilling is proposed. The actual drilling causes only minimal disturbance and very little is seen once a well is drilled and fracked, but if some of the locals start agitating and objecting and end up attracting the green loonies, then their peace and tranquillity will be invaded for a very long time. Hope no one in Balcome wants to sell their houses any time soon after the green brigade have ruined the market
Every time these characters and their countrywide clones are interviewed I wait in vain for the interviewer to ask;
'You don't want nuclear, coal, oil, or gas so what DO we use for energy in a modern economy with 65 million users?'
Ps Where do they get the ,money to be on these permanent protests?
tonyb
Smelly, obnoxious, threatening soap-dodgers who are trying to get laid more likely.
Whether they have achieved/will achieve their objective depends on what that objective is.
If, as has been suggested, they are trying to prevent any work by Cuadrilla before September 28 (is that when the current consent expires? I'm not fully aware of the significance otherwise) then they don't care who they piss off.
Re-reading the various Balcombe related threads and their links it looks to me as if the aim is to protest. The little kiddies are now back at school; the big kiddies will soon be going back to their
polysuniversities to continue their media studies courses (or whatever is the pointless course of choice that requires as little work as possible this year) leaving only the hard core who, to misuse a popular phrase, will protest at the opening of an envelope just on the off-chance there is something inside it that they personally don't approve of.If their aim was to draw attention to fracking and force people to examine its pros and cons honestly and dispassionately then they have just about succeeded beyond their wildest nightmares.
They cannot be trying to win hearts and minds .... can they? If so, they must have been using General Westmoreland's Vietnam Playbook as a training manual or they are fans of the quote (source doubtful) "if you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow".
Either way, as Latimer says, "rhymes with 'bankers'".
@tonyb: the funding comes from corporations with an apparent interest in carbon trading and or are connected to gas imports from GazProm.
Thin of it as the modern equivalent of the KGB handler giving cash to the Secretary of CND in the 1970s and 1980s.
tonyb:
Standard response "renewables". They have this weird belief that the wind is always blowing somewhere and it's free; solar (forgetting the hours of darkness), its free; waves, it's free; tidal, it's free; biomass, it's free. The interviewers probably agree with them, so don't pursue with awkward follow-up questions.
@tonyb @alecM
Funding from here;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10219701/High-Street-store-Lush-is-main-financial-backer-of-Frack-Off.html
Same bloke
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/meet-the-cosmetic-king-who-prefers-his-protests-muddy-1773095.html
and
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/30/us-greenliving-lush-idUSTRE4BS52W20081230
The tweet profile of the irritated Balcombe resident in the linked tweet appears to have suffered a 'dirty protest' on his driveway. This reminds me of the anecdote in Peter Sissons memoirs below about the aftermath of his critical interview with Caroline Lucas:-
'I was on duty on News 24 and it had been arranged for me to interview the leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas. She clearly expected, as do most environmental activists, what I call a ‘free hit’ — to be allowed to say her piece without challenge. I began, good naturedly, by observing that the climate didn’t seem to be playing ball at the moment, and that we were having a particularly cold winter while carbon emissions were powering ahead. Miss Lucas reacted as if I’d physically molested her. She was outraged. It was no job of the BBC — the BBC! — to ask questions like that. Didn’t I realise that there could be no argument over the science?
I persisted with a few simple observations of fact, such as there appeared to have been no warming for ten years, in contradiction of all the alarmist computer models. A listener from one of the sceptical climate-change websites noted that ‘Lucas was virtually apoplectic and demanding to know how the BBC could be making such comments. Sissons came back that his role as a journalist was always to review all sides. Lucas finished with a veiled warning, to which Sissons replied with an “Ooh!”’
A week after this interview, I went into work and picked up my mail from my pigeon hole. Among the envelopes was a small Jiffy Bag, which I opened. It contained a substantial amount of faeces wrapped in several sheets of toilet paper.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1350206/BBC-propaganda-machine-climate-change-says-Peter-Sissons.html
I don't know - a depressing number of my FB "friends" and family are "liking" and "sharing" these actions without having a clue. In all the years I've been drilling they're never been more than vaguely interested in what I do but now they're emphatically sure they're against this beast called "fracking" .
I can only assume that they see it as a well-meaning stance with no consequences. It's depressing that many of them are sure that they're logical and intelligent people.
Balcombe = re-run of Greenham Common. They won't leave until Cuadrilla do.
@tonyb - I'm betting some of the money comes from you.
Gert Lush
Can anyone explain to me, a person of simple mind, how the use of food items as a basis for cosmetics can be described as ethical? Or, even, how any cosmetic is ethical?
Especially for our Balcombe friends -and others who think that energy is clean, free and abundant- I am thinking of getting a series of postcards printed headed ‘A Greeting from the Real world.’
It would have the graph from my article here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/
I need to update it as the anomaly has now sunk to around 0.25C as can be seen here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
Do they not wonder why the last decade has been feeling decidedly cool at times?
tonyb
Going well for the protesters then.
ssat @ 11:01
I told my wife not buy from Lush anymore after Mark Constantine paid the fines imposed on the Plane Stupid protestors. You can read about that here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/dec/12/theairlineindustry-climatechange
I did write him an e-mail asking if he was going to compensate the lady who missed her father’s funeral due to this protest - needless to say I did not receive a reply.
@ Jack Cowper Sep 11, 2013 at 12:16 PM
"I told my wife not buy from Lush anymore after Mark Constantine paid the fines imposed on the Plane Stupid protestors."
Ah, Lush. The shops that ALWAYS contaminate their local environment with atrocious stinks from their products.
Joe Public - "Ah, Lush. The shops that ALWAYS contaminate their local environment with atrocious stinks from their products."
Yes. It beats me how anyone can work in that atmosphere. It's much worse than secondhand smoke. Perhaps there is an enterprising lawyer somewhere who could work up a claim on behalf of the employees - damage to the brain or at very least to the olfactory organs.
David Jones
It's not just Lush by any means. I always used a side door into Jenners in Edinburgh (and most other department stores, come to that) because I couldn't stand the stench that hit me as I walked in through the main entrance.
The sight of the androids (at least I assumed they were androids) with inch-thick make-up hanging around the counters was almost as off-putting.
MJ - not androids but inspiration for the Fast Show. No offense ...
There was an interview with Constantine of Lush in the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago. He didn't seem to understand the first thing about fracking.
Makes him the ideal anti-fracking campaigner then.
A blank slate which knew nothing about fracking before encountering anti-fracking propaganda.
Emblematic of the whole deal really, including media reportage.
I posted on the Grauniad that I was happy to have fracking in my village but what really frightened me was a deluge of Balcombe type protestors coming with it.
It drew so many complaints that it was taken down for "not conforming to community standards"!
kellydown is an excellent blogname. Because 'kelly-down' on a rig means 30 more feet of new hole has been drilled and its time to stop rotating and pick up the next 30 ft joint of drillpipe before drilling ahead. The kelly is a heavy duty square or hexagonal faced hollow bar, suspended vertically below the swivel and travelling block in the derrick, whose function is to transmit the rotary torque from the rotary table via the kelly bushing on the drill floor, which it slides through, to the drill string attached at its base. There's diagrams and pictures of the kelly on this blog. In the pics at the end, you can see the next joint of pipe waiting in the 'mousehole' for use at the next 'kelly-down'.
http://directionaldrilling.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/directional-drilling-and-its_28.html
Sep 11, 2013 at 9:52 PM | Pharos
Thanks for explaining that! I was obviously not paying attention during my visit to the Stavanger Oil Museum.
Nice description Pharos, thanks. But you won't see many kellies these days. They've been superseded by top drives pretty much everywhere.
... And don't feel bad billy liar, I don't remember seeing a Kelly in the Stavanger museum. Excellent museum, prominently placed on the waterfront, and not at all bashful about the oil and gas that is funding Norway's clean and green prosperity.
Britain only seems proud of such extractive industries after they're shut down and turned into a heritage museum. I wonder what the overlap is between people who supported the coal miners and anti-frackers?
@tonyb, the protestors get a lot of help from some of the unions too. The unions have sent staff down there plus provided the marquees and other "infrastructure" materials.
If that's true, it's another nail in the coffin of the idea unions as representatives of the "working class" or anyone but the civil servants who comprise most of their members. They used to fight to keep mines open, now they fight to close down drilling rigs. Unbelievable.
if my union (UNITE, don't laugh) is against fracking for no good reason & supporting these tossers, I will send a clear message to local rep to get a explanation who is behind this & why.
any info on this appreciated.