© AFP Photo / Justin SullivanProtestors hold signs against fracking during a demonstration.
Citing a 'new study', The BBC, Independent and a multitude of copy & paste MSM outlets, have alarmingly reported that the UK is set to run out of its oil, coal, and gas supplies in a little over five years time.
The reality below the ground however is that the UK is not actually going to run out of energy supplies any time soon. Facts can't be allowed to get in the way of profits, and the study was (apparently deliberately) distorted for use in a PR campaign on behalf of the widely criticized Fracking Industry. The story also reveals a tangled web of connections between academia, government officials, energy company lobbyists accentuated by a Fracking company director who actually holds a ministerial position for the UK Government. Why am I not surprised?
The 'groundbreaking' study (pun intended) has been generated by the Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), based at Anglia Ruskin University whose Director Dr Aled Jones advises the UK Minister for Climate Change.
The concluding sentence of The Independent article reveals a likely agenda behind why this report has been commissioned and the reasons for the sensational way it has been reported:
Ministers are instead hoping that a combination of shale gas - extracted by fracking - and new oil finds in the North Sea will be able to plug the coming deficit.Factcheck: The UK will NOT run out of oil, coal or gas in five years
Dr Aled Jones, has actually admitted himself that "The BBC headline was a bit misleading":
Explaining that the UK would only run out if it stopped - or was prevented from - importing any oil, gas or coal, and if it somehow became too expensive to exploit the UK's remaining reserves.
Dr Jones says:
"The bottom line is we're not about to run out, but there is a global political question here. We're reliant on imports from countries that are occasionally unstable. Our report tried to understand the links between prices, political risk and the location of reserves."The original study explicitly concerns political risk factors that are the reasons that alternative energy sources like fracking should be expanded NOT natural resource depletion factors that the headlines imply.
Global sustainablity Institue Government and Corporate Connections
Dr Aled Jones also chairs a working group on climate finance within the Capital Markets Climate Initiative on behalf of Greg Barker, the Minister for Climate Change in the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
It will probably come as no surprise that Greg Barker is a publisiced promoter of Fracking being a solution to climate change:
"If you are really against climate change, being anti-fracking is incredibly dangerous," said Barker.This is because the production of energy produced from coal could be replaced with gas, which burns by emitting smaller carbon dioxide emissions. "The knee-jerk reactions to fracking are based on ideological issues, not on science," said Barker.1The health and environmental risks of Fracking are well documented, so why would Government Minister Barker be aggressively promoting fracking in the UK?
© frack-off.org.ukLord Browne – who works both in government and as boss of Cuadrilla – met energy chiefs four times last year
It recently emerged that the man who runs fracking company Cuadrilla and who also works in government - Lord John Browne - lobbied Dept of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) chiefs four times in eight months last year.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request also reveals that these lobbying sessions were commercial in nature.
Browne works in the Cabinet Office, where he has used his influence to appoint many senior executives, at least three of whom work for the fracking industry.
According to an FOI request by MP Caroline Lucas, Browne met Ministers Chris Huhne and Greg Barker - separately - at the end of 2011/early 2012. Browne has no experience with fracking, so questions arise as to why he was considered to give advice.
Browne later brought in Cuadrilla senior management to lobby senior Civil Servant Lord Marland (12 March 2012) and then Minister Charles Hendry on the 2nd July.
The FOI reveals commercial interests were part of Browne's meetings: "It would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of Cuadrilla ...if we were to release details of what they said."
Why is a government employee permitted to access senior ministers on matters that stand to directly benefit his own company? And why is he permitted to advise on official policy formation communicated in confidence from members of Government?
In light of the ongoing Lynton Crosby affair it's time that Browne's dual roles are brought under scrutiny - as well as the much larger links between fossil fuel companies and government.
Destabalising Ukraine assists the Fracking Agenda
The study warns about the dangers of an increased dependence on imported fuels specifically mentioning Russia. It seems remarkable timing given the current demonisation of Russia's intervention in Ukraine. Just this week, G7 energy ministers agreed a plan to "eliminate Europe's reliance on Russian oil and gas over the longer term and "disarm" the threat of President Vladimir Putin using Russian gas and oil supplies as "a weapon" against Ukraine and its Eastern European neighbours."
As conspiratorial as it may sound, It leaves one wondering whether the Western-lead destabalisation of Ukraine and subsequent proxy War on Russia is in fact being orchestrated by the Oil and Gas industry. It wouldn't be the first time Oil and War have been intimately connected, except in this case the goal is not only to directly grab Ukrainians' resources, but to also justify a profit-bonanza-Fracking-invasion of the UK's rolling green hills.
Further evidence that this theory is not wild speculation comes from a recent Russia Today article asking the exact same question with references to Ukrainian shale gas resources:
Economic interests, such as untapped shale gas resources, already sliced and diced by Western energy giants, are behind the Kiev government's 'anti-terrorist' operation against the pro-federalist regionsIt could well be a case of deliberate geopolitical policy facilitating energy giant ambitions abroad combined with a Shock doctrine political campaign in the UK - where geopolitical events are rapidly used as opportunities to expand corporate interests.
© Moss Photo: Getty ImagesSign of the times: placards adorn the road alongside the campsite of anti-gas fracking activists at Barton
1: Rather ironic, considering that the whole man-made climate change theory is based on ideological issues and corrupted science.
2: A further point of interest is just how readily and unquestionably the Independent newspaper reports Browne's Fracking propaganda pieces
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Washington instead is working to reduce Ukraine's dependence on any single source of natural gas.
Ukraine and Eastern Europe could get more gas from Northern Africa, including Libya and Algeria, and from East Africa or the Mediterranean in the next couple of years.
Washington is also hoping Croatia will build an LNG receiving terminal, which could help Hungary, Slovenia and perhaps Ukraine.