Lapwing – A Completed Story

About a year ago I had the good fortune to be published in this beautiful collection by the Dunlin Press. In my piece I talked about human land management from a few angles but with a particular focus on the plight of the lapwing. This stunning bird was once a regular across East Anglia but now is a rare sight after numbers have plummeted, a fact demonstrated by the fact that I failed to see one while putting together my extract.

However, in the last week or so I have been much more fortunate and can now say I am a delighted, true acquaintance to these charming creatures.

I first spotted one just before the new year. We were on our way for a spontaneous day out at the zoo and as we swung round a roundabout in the dense morning fog a distinctive curl caught me eye. “It’s a lapwing!”, I exclaimed to Ryan, and enjoyed the rest of the ride in a mixture of surprise and pleasure. It had only been the briefest of glances but I was absolutely certain I had finally seen a bird that had eluded me before then.

When we drove back some hours later though some doubt started to sink in. As we came round the curve the other way I could see the same figure, sat in practically the same place by the road side. By the end of the day I had half convinced myself it had to be a very realistic statue or some other trick as I couldn’t understand why it would have barely moved the whole day.

Luckily about a week later a happened to have the chance to chase my doubts away. On another errand we happened to pass the same roundabout again, and having noticed a small car park at the side of it I asked Ryan to pull over so we could take a little wander and explore the area. Barely a few metres from the car park and a figure in the sky caught my eye. The wings were splayed out and dark as it made its way to the ground and once it had landed I could see that curl once again. It was another lapwing, and this time there couldn’t be a shred of doubt to it’s identity or realness.

As my view of the field widened from this individual I noticed there was a whole flock, maybe up of about 20 or 30 birds, scattered over the landscape, picking their way through the grass with high peewit calls occasionally singing over the noise of passing cars. We stood and watched them for a while before giving into the cold, which could not be kept out by simply the thin jumper I had on. As we drove away though I got a final close-up glance, as one bird stood by the side of the road, perhaps a metre away from me. As I passed it I could see every shade of iridescent colour and could see the bright gleam of its eyes.

Perhaps it won’t come as a surprise that I’m not much of a birdwatcher. I love to observe them but there’s only a few times I’ve specifically gone out to seek them. It’s something I want to do more but for the moment there is something pleasing and fulfilling in these kinds of chance encounters, where I let a marvellous bird bring a sense of completeness to my day as I take in their motions when we just so happen to cross paths.

30 Days Wild: Wilderness on the Edges

I think growing up in cities has always made me have an appreciation for the wilderness that thrives on the edges of where humans have dominated. Whether that is by coming face to face with a fox who has just darted out of the hedges of your local park in the middle of the night or seeing a colony of rabbits nibble the grass on a large roundabout or corvids mobbing each other at roadsides. There is something really enchanting about nature which greets you where you least expect it.

One place I always enjoy it is on the walkway between my house and Woodbridge. It is one of those paths that feels enclosed with trees and bushes growing on every side. Even though it is surrounded by houses during the short walk, which only takes a few minutes, you could very easily forget. Blackbirds, squirrels and other creatures will often cross your path. Beautiful wild flowers grow in the bits of soil that trees and hedges haven’t colonised. It is peaceful and quiet and the most reviving walk one can have after working for hours in a local supermarket.

But where I appreciate the wilderness on the edges the most is when I’m doing my drive time birdwatching. I struggle to find the time to go to nature reserves and other places you might spot birds of prey but I am, and have always been, absolutely fascinated by them. Raptors are amazing creatures. From their vision to their power to the beauty of their form. Their command of the sky is enrapturing, their force awe-inspiring. I wish I could study and see them more but for the moment I am happy enough catching silhouettes as I drive along the main roads between Suffolk and Essex. I’ll suddenly catch a glimpse and wings in the sky and even though I can’t quite say what it is I know it isn’t another pigeon or gull. Often they’ll be hovering over a field, concentrating every fibre on whatever it is below them, or sometimes they’ll just be gliding above the tarmac making me turn my head to catch a second look.

I hope soon I’ll have more time and confidence to bring these wonderful birds into my life, but for the moment the simple glimpse I catch are enough.

30 Days Wild: The Wilds of the University of Essex

Had to take a break from wild blogging as my internet was down for a week. While it was refreshing it was also frustrating and meant my 30 Days Wild blogging got put on hold, so this is something I’ve been meaning to get out for a while.

I’ve been very lucky to spend the last 3 years studying and working at the University of Essex (while also living in rural Suffolk). While the Colchester Campus is a great place of learning it is also a wonderful place to experience nature. Those two factors meeting together worked brilliantly for my MA course, Wild Writing.

Right next to the new ultra-modern student centre is the two lakes. Although these were artificially created they have become homes for a diverse range of water birds. All year we have the ducks, coots and moorhens paddling through the water. With the first rays of spring we had a flock of Canadian geese join them and clutches of goslings were soon to follow. Further away in the marshier areas of campus there are swans and their cygnets. The water is also home to some quite sizeable fish. On sunny days you will see bodies, over a foot long, brush by the surface of the lakes.

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Some photos of the Lakeside from February

If you wander further and over the hill just beyond the lakes you seem to really enter the wilds. The land becomes mossy and springy under foot. Look around and you wouldn’t think there could ever be university buildings just a few yards behind you. Rabbit holes are scattered across the ground, and the creatures themselves dart to and fro.

Then there’s the flock of jackdaws. Such enigmatic and enduring birds, they hop around all corners of the campus preying on the scraps left by students and flying into the sunset as evening begins to fall.

But, as I witnessed first hand the other week, the campus isn’t a idyllic heaven. The life and death games of nature are here too.

For my work as an assistant on one of the student helpdesks I sit right behind a large window looking out onto the lakes. We’ll often look out and spot rabbits or a coot that has taken to tapping on the windows and more recently clutches of ducklings. We were delighted the other week when a mother duck came along with hers. There was probably about seven of them and after wandering around and pecking at the ground they all huddled together to rest.

As they slept two mallards appeared from the lake. One immediately ran at the mother and chased her back and forth, eventually into the water. It was a few minutes before the ducklings realised what had happened. Eventually they got up and you could hear the fear and confusion as they called for their mother and waddled from shore to shore. Finally they braved the water alone and swam in circles trying to find her. I watched them until they disappeared and could only fear the worse. I’m afraid to say I haven’t seen them since.

Despite this I still can’t help but enjoy the wilds of the university campus. It is really one to explore all the corners of. One way to do it is the guided tree walk but going it alone is just as good!

30 Days Wild: World Environment Day

Yesterday was the 5th day of 2016’s 30 Days Wild, but it was also World Environment Day. World Environment Day is an UN run day for environmental awareness which has been going since 1974.

Each year has it’s own theme and host city. Often they are pretty strong messages of global importance, such as ‘The Environment Millennium – Time to Act’ or ‘Green Cities – Plan for the Planet!’. But this year I felt the drive feel a little short.

2016 focused on ‘Zero Tolerance for the Illegal Wildlife trade’. I’m not saying that the illegal trade of wildlife isn’t a very important issue. The fact that beautiful and endangered species across the world are slaughtered and mistreated on a daily basis is, of course, nothing short of horrific. But following  a year where we have had vital talks over the future of the planet in the Paris Climate Change Conference I feel it is almost a weak cop-out for the UN the choose to focus on something like Wildlife Trade.

By focusing on this instead of, say, last year’s ‘Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care’ there’s almost a sense of isolating a good chuck of the world from being fully engaged with the day. Illegal Wildlife Trade conjures up images of tigers, elephants and rhinos, wonderful and irreplaceable creatures to be sure. But for many of us living in countries like the UK it can make the global environmental issues seem like something distant and exotic, something definitely not directly impacting on our lives.

I feel this is an image environmental activists have been trying to shake for a while, to make people realise how climate change is going to impact on everyone’s lives. It’s almost a step back to focus on wildlife trade, I’m not saying it’s something that doesn’t need to be tackled but it’s also something that a lot of ordinary people would struggle to engage with.

Environmental debate needs to create opportunities for everyone to become a part of it and help make steps towards stopping climate change. Whether that is changing lifestyle choices, lobbying government, completing local wildlife surveys, going on protests, signing petitions, volunteering for groups protecting nature, creating materials to inform others or just realising the utmost importance of nature in your life, to feel that you can engage in the issues is important, as is spreading the message that for every one of the 7 billion people on earth climate change is an ever growing problem.

For me writing is my act of environmental activism and how I try to connect with the natural spaces around me and (I hope!) make some steps towards driving forward change.

30 Days Wild: Mindful Beginnings

I was looking forward to getting a little wild in June, finding great excuses to get out into nature and getting back in touch with everything it had to offer. Unfortunately, as I’m sure many others across the country have experienced, the weather hasn’t been on our side. Clouds and blustery gusts have made the first few days of June seem more like Autumn than early Summer.

Looking back on my diary from last year’s 30 Days Wild I see that we were treated to similar conditions but once again I haven’t let it entirely get in my way of enjoying the natural world around me.

I haven’t wandered out much but every now and again over the last few days, when I have the time between working, I stare out into the garden or the street and take the time to absorb what is out there.

The variety of birds which frequent our garden is enchanting. Even now as I type I can see one and then another darting past in the reflection of my laptop screen. In the one of the trees at the bottom of the garden a pair of wood pigeons have created a little nest.We’ve already had two fledglings grow and leave and now another couple of eggs have taken their place. As lovely as it is to peek at them now and then, when we wonder down the garden, I do have to question the parents’ thoughts as they’ve built the nest only a little higher from where our German Shepard can nuzzle her snout into the tree. Not that I think Molly would do anything even if she could reach them, but she does like to make a racket.

Other than the pigeons we have a flock of starlings, pairs of house sparrow and goldfinches and all the other garden regulars. As I watch them I try to just absorb myself into the moment. They distract from all the other worries of the world around and I loose myself to engaging with and enjoying these charismatic little creatures.

For me this is a lot of what being wild and letting nature into our lives is about. It is probably quite appropriate that at the same time as beginning this experiment I have also begun an online Mindfulness course.

Being wild isn’t always about going out of our comfort zones and out of our way to become a part of nature, it is often about finding out what is there and coming to appreciate how much nature is already part of our lives. We can realise this by just observing and, as is practised in mindfulness, letting ourselves be just entirely aware of the present and push aside worries of the future and past.

Many of our fellow living beings exist in the moment and have needs which are more or less immediate. By observing them with a similar mindset we realise we aren’t such different creatures and that nature always has been something much closer than we think.

Helpless in Climate Crisis

Image from Asian Development Bank Flickr

I read a terrifying piece of news yesterday. To sum it up, basically our planet’s temperatures are increasing at an unexpected speed, pushing us dangerously close to tipping points which mean backtracking on dramatic climate change will be near impossible. To be perfectly honest a part of me feels these limits may already have been reached but we are either as yet unaware of it or just purposefully ignoring it.  In a horrifically quick time we have essentially fucked the earth. I’m sorry but there just really isn’t a nicer way to put it, we’ve really fucked up.

When I read these stories I feel angry, but the more wrenching feeling is that of utter helplessness. The whole situation feels completely out of my control, dictated by a shadowy congress above me to whom my existence, and that of most of the rest of the world, is simply insignificant.

But yet they would have us believe that we can and should make the change. That in fact it’s not the fault of the way the global markets run that we’re in this situation, it’s actually YOUR buying habits, YOUR choice of vehicle for commuting, YOUR decision to continue procreating.

But even if these habits were our fault and the cause of environmental catastrophe they have been hard-wired into our brains. Look at the planned obsolescence of many electronic items which have now become daily requirements for the majority of people in countries like the UK and USA. We are thrown new gadgets incessantly, most of which are designed to break within a few years. This means of production is symptomatic of the short-term mind-set of capitalism which depletes limited resources and uses self-renewing sources quicker than they are able to re-stabilise.

We can try our best to recycle and reuse but the constant demand for growth means that these measures can only go so far.While the rise of recycling in the UK since 2000 has been impressive (rising from 11% to 43.2% in 2013) in recent years the level of growing improvement has begun to peter out and still fails to reach to target of 50%. This is because when initiatives began there were huge possibilities for reduction but over the years continuing to make the same level has become impossible. Hence, while initial progress may be heartening, reaching zero-waste is a practically impossible vision.

Their is a growing drive to create a kind of “green capitalism”, green consumerism being one of the most common. This places the emphasis on the change that the consumer can achieve through their purchasing power, and has been happily welcomed by many businesses, both small and large. Many brands will now have an “eco” version of their products that will cost a bit more and instil in the consumer a sense of satisfaction as they have chosen an environmentally friendly product and “greenwashing” the consumer into thinking they are making an impact.

Sir Terry Leaky, chief executive of Tesco, has been quoted saying: ‘It is only by realising our potential as people, citizens, consumers, as users that we can turn targets into reality. It will be a transition achieved not by some great invention or some great act of parliament, but through the billions of choices made by consumers every day’. This is precisely the type of thinking big corporations like Tesco want to promote to their consumers as by focusing on individual choice they take away pressure from government and big businesses to make any real changes in their proceedings. Instead shops merely have to continue business as usual but while also shelving “environmentally friendly” choices for consumers which will do more to further increase their profits than aid the environment.

By expanding their range of supermarkets companies like Tesco destroy the possibility for the growing ideas in how an economy should work, based on local and independent shops and services. Green consumerism does not only do nothing to help to environmental crisis but in fact by creating an public apathy towards more radical and necessary solutions.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to achieve economic growth without a level of environmental degradation. Hence to pull the brakes and jump off the tracks towards global climate crisis we need an entirely new economic system.

But what can I do to try to usher in the change? What can anyone else do? All I can think to do is just try to write about it and try to spread the word a little. I’d like to finish here on a strong revolutionary note, but when you feel to powerless the words are hard to muster. So for lack of them I’ll call on another’s.

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many – they are few.

-Percy Shelley

The Story of Freeman’s Wood

Following on from this very interesting article about the battle over Freeman’s Wood in Lancaster and the ongoing progress of enclosure I thought I’d post a short article I wrote about it a few years back.

As the metal railings continue their trail, forming a barrier around Freeman’s Wood in Lancaster, locals are becoming increasingly concerned with the potential loss of this green and free area, enjoyed by many for 50 years or more.

The woodland is owned by a Hong Kong businessman of the (tax-haven) Bermuda-based company The Property Trust, who have, in the last few months, been erecting the fence. Once the fence is completed the currently common area is said to be next in line for housing development. It seems that there are plans to re-develop the whole area around Freeman’s Wood, including Coronation Field behind it.

The land was originally owned by Williamson and used as a tip for factory waste from his linoleum factory, once the largest factory in Europe. It is claimed that in 1905 Williamson donated the land to “the people of Lancaster”. The legalities of the deeds are currently being looked into. Nick Bliss, a worker at the local hospital and close resident to Freeman’s Wood explains how this endowment lead to “the football and cricket facilities [which were present until about ten years ago], and the beauty of the wood for all to use freely”.

Despite this, in 1971 Freeman’s Wood was sold by the Council to a private company and has repeatedly changed hands, in a corporate splurge of pass-the-parcel, before coming to rest in the grasp of The Property Trust. This is a property investment firm who have plans to sell the land to a housing development company, SATNAM, for profit.

With 400 houses planned further down the Quay and another 350 in the Luneside East industrial area it has been questioned whether ‘re-development’, or less euphemistically, ‘destruction’ of Freeman’s Wood, for the purpose of further housing development, is truly necessary.

A Green Party Councillor, Jon Barry, expresses the party’s major opposition to the latter of these projects, noting that “Freeman’s Wood is too important as a recreation and wildlife space to have housing on”. They wish for the land to remain an open and free space, operating “as some sort of sports and country park type area – perhaps with ownership of the ‘community’ and/or the City Council”. Barry summarised the Green Party’s feelings, simply, as “completely opposed to the fence and the denying of local people access to the site”.

After The Property Trust began to put up the fence, the City Council put Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) on Freeman’s Wood, but the landowners lodged an objection to the TPOs, and so an appeal will be put to a hearing. Despite this current legal protection for the site the developers have continued uprooting trees and digging up waste from the old linoleum factory and dumping it, giving this once beautiful area the appearance of a rubbish tip.

There are also applications to recognise the footpaths as public rights of way. Both of these attempts need support from local residents. Campaigners are urging anyone who wishes to preserve this land to write to the Council explaining their experiences of free use to the woods for many years to support an on-going application for Town Green status.

The land, which is now stuck in a limbo, is the home to many birds and other creatures, including deer. This habitat, vital for animals and a natural playground for children in the local area, is in danger of being permanently ravaged by concrete and tarmac, as is increasingly happening all over Britain as greed for profits outweigh respect for our remaining unspoilt and dwindling woodland. Many have expressed, on a facebook page in support of the woods, their feelings and memories for the woods and back field. Nick Bliss tells of how people have said “their childhood would have been very different without the experience” and expresses his own sentiments, saying “I used to play there nearly thirty years ago, my kids play there now, and I want to do all I can to protect this for the next generation”.

Finding the Wild Side of Life

 

 My first four days of taking part in the Wildlife Trusts 30 Days Wild has been an experience of two halves. Today we took one of the dogs down the river, spotting an oystercatcher and his veering trail of footprints left in the wet sand. Yesterday I met with one of my tutors for my Wild Writing MA, followed up by a wild lunch sat on Broomheath over looking the River Deben. We were surrounded by dried rabbit droppings, though only spotted one darting behind a hedge, and ferns only just beginning to unfurl their fiddleheads, apparently having been relatively recently (for a planet that has been largely unchanged for over 100 million years) mowed down. The eradication had afforded us a better view of the river and the villages and fields on the hills beyond, but I would have much preferred the forest of ferns. Any time I wander through a sea of their geometric leaves I feel transported back to the Cretaceous Era, awaiting the stampede of long extinct beasts, apparently no match for those curling green leaves.

On the first two days it was only the weather that was wild. What with gales of wind and the rain threatening all day I failed to get out and instead spent most of my days snuggled in a winter jumper, a splatter of rain incapacitating me from escaping from my elaborate burrow. On day 1 I tried imprinting leaves on paper, with little success. On day 2 late in the evening I decided to switch on some wildlife webcams. The first few I tried were, unsurprisingly, completely black, obviously set up in a place miraculously far away from the unrelenting lights so many of us have become used to. Eventually I caught some creatures awake. A family of peregrines nested on Aylesbury county hall. I couldn’t work out how many there were or how old any of the members were. I could clearly see at least three. One, I thought to be male, spent a long time preening with another curled up next to him. I assumed this second to be a female as she looked about twice the size. I flicked back later and another had risen up from the huddle and took up the preening routine. It was an oddly cosy and domestic image for animals so perfectly designed for murder. They appeared fluffy with their fledgling feathers and snuggled next to each other for warmth.

Barn Owls were next. I watched one where a bundle of chicks nestled close to the lens. They screeched incessantly for food and their mother. I turned on another and was immediately met with the face of a barn owl mother turned 180 degrees. She shuffled and twitched on her spot for a long time but eventually moved to reveal another clutch of chicks. Before leaving for her night time hunt she stretched and turned back and forth. There were times when she looked terrifyingly human. At one point, her face turned and catching the light in a particular way, it looked like she was wearing a Venetian mask, an eerie pale and pointed visage. Then she moved closer to the entrance of the box and spread her wings, looking like some sort of odd caricature of a human, a clown fooling about before the beginning of a show or a stout man limbering up for the day.

While the last two days I’ve been in amongst my nearby nature and relaxed under the dappled light that escapes from a canopy of leaves, it was during the first two days, trapped by the mild grievance of nature’s unpredictable weather, that I was reminded how close we really are to the wild. The wild isn’t something foreign and distant that you must escape from the confines of an urban environment to discover. It can be domestic and sometimes it bears a human face. You shouldn’t have to step out of your comfort zone to experience the wild, just lift your head and open your ears to incorporate it into your life.

Starlings & Vision

While the tremulous dark clouds of stress and worry, built from the ridiculously insignificant and the absurdly unrealistic, sometimes seem to overwhelm my every thought it can often take merely a glance outside the bring some clarity. A great source of comfort for me recently has been the simple satisfaction of watching the various birds in our garden. That burst of the wild world that is open to all.

 

 Starlings have been a particular favourite recently. A small flock of them seems to have taken to alighting on the lawn almost every day. The grass had been left to its own devices for a long while and with alternating episodes of heavy sun and bursts of rain has turned into what must seem like a jungle for those birds standing only a few inches tall. Perhaps I can hear the murmur of their chirps or can sense the mass of the flock as it falls to the ground in near harmony, but every day something will call me to the window and there I’ll see one or two bobbing among the blades. Suddenly I’ll spot another and another, little beaked heads catching my eye wherever I look, barely giving me a moment to count them all. There’ll be at least 15 of them out there, darting between the tallest patches of grass. They’re everywhere, but before I know it they’ll all of a sudden, as one, fly up and away. Then a magpie, seeming enormous by comparison, might take their place.

I think those little creatures are perfectly symbolic of the beauty hidden in Britain’s wildlife. It’s not in-your-face or overwhelmingly majestic, like an eagle, an elephant or a blue whale or any other of the many awe inspiring animals that roam the other corners of our earth. It’s that type of beauty that takes some time to appreciate or, sometimes, even just to notice. It has subtleties and unique characteristics that once you’ve seen you can’t turn away from, they stay firmly with you.

 Just like my starlings. To look at them absent-mindedly it is just a brown birds with some unremarkable specks across it’s wings. But one day you’ll see it clearly. Perhaps you’ll catch it standing perfectly in a bright beam of sunlight or simply see a photograph that magically captures the hidden, spectacular nature of the birds. Never again will you be able to miss those purple, green and blue shimmers that cover every feather, like a gem shining out of the cracks of a stone.

Not only do it’s subtle shades make the bird a unique beauty, every individual different depending on the angle or intensity of light with which you see it, it also gives us a glimpse into another world of sight. We cannot even imagine how the birds see the world, they master a spectrum of colour beyond the tri-recpetors of the human eye. Ultra-violet light brings another dimension to a world that we see as dull by comparison; many birds’ feathers will reveal another shade of colour and some avian predators might be able to see into the past with the trails of their prey shining in ultra-violet brilliance.

 Their world of light might be outside of our cognition but, even if their full beauty might be hidden to our eyes, they can bring simple flashes of relief and colour into our lives.

All of the photos displayed here are the work of the lovely Michelle Terri who kindly gave me permission to use them as it was her photos that made me realise the wonderful colours that cover the starling feathers. Please check out the rest of her work here: https://www.facebook.com/michelleterriphotography?fref=ts She is very talented and takes very beautiful and original photos of wildlife (in the UK and beyond). I think she has a particular eye for bringing out the beauty of many aspects of the natural world that people take for granted.

Who needs water when you have money?

There is a new (& in this writer’s opinion) more terrifying face to anti-environmental retaliations that is rapidly becoming more and more prominent. That being the tendency for people to accept the environmental risks that many practices entail but waving the flag of possible economic bonuses in a way that seems to take it as a given that this over-rules any environmental concerns.

There are stories (though rarely headlines) every day that confirm this trend. A couple I have noticed recently have been the story of Suntech’s troubles that while solar panels are now financially available to many this means that the companies aren’t getting the returns once expected from this alternative energy source (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/mar/20/suntech-troubles-shadow-green-tech-industry). Another news story informed me of previously protected parts of the Amazon are under threat because not enough money could be invested in it to save it from drilling plans (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/16/ecuador-approves-yasuni-amazon-oil-drilling), what costs could possibly need this amount? Is it a payment to counteract the money lost from not investing in drilling? Whatever the answer the message is clear, cash up front is needed to save a precious natural area.

There are many other examples, in fact it could be said every environmental danger at the moment can be linked to this unbalance between desire for money and safety of the planet. But, as the latest battle to be hitting the headlines, the argument on fracking seems like good focus. I recently heard that a young tory’s opinion on the matter was that although he acknowledged ‘the risks of water-pollution’ he found it ‘jejune to simply disregard any potential economic benefit’. Here we see this argument, accepting the risks but fluttering them away with a claim of monetary gain. This is the same logic going through David Cameron’s mind when he recently called for the UK to whole-heartedly back fracking and hailed it as a saviour of the struggling economy. Mr. Cameron also claims that ‘International evidence shows there is no evidence why fracking should cause contamination of water supplies or other environmental damage, if properly regulated’ (http://www.businessinsider.com/british-pm-david-cameron-fracking-2013-8).

“ If properly regulated.” That’s the key phrase there. Because of course if he was to omit that there is a wealth of examples to pull from countries, such as America where fracking is already well under way, that discount his claim. & the ‘if’ in his statement is a massive one, and it’s certainly no promise. We only have to remember who the people are that really profit off of fracking in the UK, Cuadrilla and the other companies carrying out the drilling and their chums. And of course because this lot want to squeeze every penny and get their full investment’s worth out of the fracking potential I think it is fair to say that proper regulation is unlikely. Just as they did in the US they will cut corners to save money and potentially will do even more so as the production cost of the UK fracking market are likely to be more expensive, due to more difficult extraction because of a more densely populated area.

Defenders of fracking, like David Cameron, hail the economic benefits even though they are probably grossly over-exaggerated, such as the claims of employment to local communities. But I digress, the point here is that they are valuing these economic potentials over the real future of the country. To be so obsessed with the economic benefits while aware of the environmental risks is such twisted and short-sighted thinking it is almost maddening to me.  What is the point of achieving some economic progress if 23 years or so down the lines, when all the available reserves of shale gas have been dried up, we find ourselves with contaminated water (or no water as was recently discovered to be the case in a fracked Texan town http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water) and a climate in a more perilous position than it is already.

Every person eagerly dashing to grab these energy sources shows a strange logic of valuing wealth over not only the environment, but the future. I can understand why money is such a prime mover for many, thinking purely instinctively it is a way to insure that your families will have a secure and prosperous life as well as bringing the same benefits to your own. But surely this, almost evolutionary, urge must be counteracted when they think of the future they are creating for their children, one that is uncertain and fragile. While climate change denial seems to be a dwindling belief (the ever mounting pile of scientific evidence is hard to disprove) that does not mean the environment and the future of the planet is any safer.