Scotland, us and fracking

More than 22,000 of us have told the Scottish Government to ban fracking. Last week we handed in our petition to the Scottish Government’s energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse. Along with other campaigners we’ve submitted our objections to fracking as part of the Scottish Government’s consultation on it.

But that’s not all we’ve done. 38 Degrees members have crowdfunded research and investigations into fracking, which involves driving chemicals into the ground to fracture rock and release gas.

At the moment, fracking is temporarily banned in Scotland but the Scottish Government is considering whether or not to ban it for good. To help them make the right decision, we commissioned analysis into fracking’s impact on:

– Workers’ health
– Tourism
– The whisky industry

Newspapers including the Scotsman and the Herald ran stories on our whisky analysis. And the Sunday Herald ran a piece on our report on workers’ health.

As well as that, we crowdfunded to pay the investigative journalists at the Ferret to speak to people in Pennsylvania who live with the reality of fracking.

Here are just some of the quotes from the people in Pennsylvania who’ve been affected by fracking in their communities:

– “You’re going to deal with dirty air, dirty water. These are not the things you want to do.”
– “The truck traffic has increased tremendously, and there’s diesel fumes continuously. They’re fracking 24 hours a day, eight days a week.”
– “It’s ruining my life,” said another. “My million-dollar view has become a million-dollar liability.”

You can read the rest of the story – and watch interviews with people who live near fracking sites – at the Ferret website.

Thousands of us also shared graphics on social media about the risks fracking could pose.

The Scottish Government’s consultation may have ended but that doesn’t mean we should stop campaigning. They are now deciding what to do so we should keep the pressure on.

If you’ve not signed the petition against fracking yet, please find it here.