DEAR GROUPS AROUND THE COUNTRY, We are sending an open letter to the DECC and would like approval to add your groups name.....Please state your group name below... Open Letter to The Right Honourable Edward Davey, MP, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change Dear Mr Davey We, the undersigned, deplore the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s decision to license new areas of the UK for petroleum exploration and development. Our government now has at its disposal scientific reports and a wealth of human testimony from other parts of the world where onshore production of unconventional gas and oil is taking place. The short-term and long-term risks to the environment and human health, as well as to wildlife and livestock, are crystal clear and unacceptable. One exploratory borehole to test for the viability of extracting unconventional gas or oil leads to hundreds of wells in a small area if production goes ahead. The processes involved, whether or not they use the new technology of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’), destroy rural communities with their 24/7 operations and thousands of heavy goods vehicle movements, quickly turning the countryside into a toxic industrialised wasteland. All the advantages claimed for our economy of energy security, jobs and cheaper gas prices have been systematically exposed as myths. It is now apparent that the only people who might eventually benefit from onshore unconventional oil and gas production in the UK are foreign hydrocarbons companies and their shareholders. If our government really wants to achieve the goals of energy security, jobs and cheaper gas prices for our country, there is far greater certainty in securing them via investment in a nationwide programme to render all buildings energy efficient, together with large-scale research into more renewable sources of energy, such as wave and tidal. This would be accompanied by local community energy projects to ensure “good” energy for all going forward. We are not prepared to tolerate the destruction of large swathes of the British countryside in support of the petrochemicals industry’s desperate last-ditch attempts to secure their future in the short term. We urge our government to grasp the vision of a zero-carbon Britain by 2030 and to take the appropriate measures to achieve this. Signed on behalf of the following organisations and groupings (in alphabetical order):
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 09:37:37 +0000