I went hoping to learn a few new things about the legal aspects of the issue, but learned nothing new.

One of the three speakers, Alan Riley, did not show, replaced by a UKELA convenor Haydn Davies, filling a bit of the time, but all that was presented was an outline of the issues that any fractivist should have a reasonable appreciation of by now.

There were numerous occasions where I had to correct misinformation, and which was all accepted. It is worrying that legal consultants in the field, making big money out of guiding players in the industry, and claiming to be “exploring the myths and truths about the impacts on the environment” are promoting some myths themselves.

I had to correct Rob Jefferies of Environ on numerous things, including:

• Coal Bed Methane does not involve fracking. WRONG
• There have only been 3 earthquakes caused by fracking. WRONG (3 where the frackers have conceded they caused it perhaps, including Cuadrilla in Lancashire)
• Boreholes wont leak if properly constructed. WRONG (They may not leak immediately but they all do sooner or late)

A more senior looking guy from Environ thanked me for my valid points and thought provoking contributions.

James Taylor, the other principal speaker, made a point of coming up to me and conceding that I clearly know more about the process and issues than he does. To be fair, his talk did not contain any howlers, and did offer some tasty snippets:

• The shale boom has not seen US coal mines reduce production, it now just wanders the seas until it finds a buyer.
• The massive interest in shale in Poland is already floundering and beginning to not be seen as viable
• Drilling under your property contitutes trespass – but the best you can hope for is a little compensation if you can prove some loss
• Europe is a fundamentally different proposition to the USA, with many and varied extra barriers for the industry to overcome (population density, land/mineral rights, consent regime, role of nuclear/renewables, precautionary principle, carbon budget issues, the industries tainted image etc)

So overall, I am pleased I went, and was pleased to see Max Wallis and Gareth Clubb there too. It offerred no reassurance whatsoever, but did strengthn my conviction that we are fighting a crucial battle with social and environmental justice on our side.

Andy Chyba

Here is just a selection of the stories from Friday’s Independent, in the order in which they appear:

• Heathrow expansion plan could demolish village.
• Benefits to rise less than inflation under Labour.
• Fast-track teacher training to get ex-troops into classrooms.
• Half the people living in the UK in 2020 will endure cancer at some point in their lives.
• Cuts may cause councils to collapse.
• Government’s own lawyers condemn legal aid changes.
• Labour defends tax-free donation that dodged £1.5m in tax.
• Britain admits torture of thousands of Kenyans, but offers them pathetic compensation.
• Archbishop of Canterbury resisting Governmnt’s attempts tp legalise gay marriage.
• Turkish people show the way to protest, planting flowers and undertaking yoga sit-ins, while we criminalise 21 climate change activists that can be bothered to take direct peaceful action in a power station.
• Many degrees simply increase debt, not job prospects.
• Magnetic levitation trains, first tested in the UK in the 1960s, are proving a massive success in Japan.
• Car making is alive and well in the UK, but it is nearly all foreign owned.
• Satirist Tom Sharpe dies. Comic genius who vented his fury at racists, thoughtless modernisers, greedy capitalsists and smug poloticians.
• Homelessness at a five-year high.
• UK rail firms charge highest fares in Europe.
• Worries over spiralling violence between muslim extremists and the EDL.
• Labour will stick to the current Government’s spending plans.
• Just 1% of Norwegians attend a church and 72% declare themselves atheists. The Norwegian government has recently passed a constitutional amendment severing all ties with the Church of Norway. Way to go!
• A humble garage in Crouch End, East London, was sold for £80,000 to be converted (at an additional cost of £183,000) into a 10mx5m two storey home that sold for £495,000.

The UK is becoming a truly depressing place to live. It simply does not have to be this way.

There are beacons of light all around the world for us to learn from, but apathy and misplaced, self-centred, short-term thinking seems to be the British way these Con-Dem days.

There is much work for us to do.

Andy C.

This nice British lady is kind enough to do the math on what’s wrong with our thinking on immigration so you don’t have to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bJX5XHnONTI