I hope I don’t pretend to have expertise on everything. On fracking I have none. My entirely amateur views on the subject are that the major risk appears to be pollution of aquifers. The UK seems too seismically stable for earthquakes or volcanoes to be a serious concern. I am not terribly worried about the local environmental consequences of the installations – human activity of all kinds detracts from the natural environment in a sense. This spot was doubtless a great deal more pleasing aesthetically before Dundee was built upon it. But then Dundee has a great deal more human utility.
It is also plain to me that humans are going to have to burn fossil fuels for a while yet, despite the very obvious fact that we also need to put much more energy and resource into developing renewable alternatives.
So I am not opposed to fracking in principle, which I know will upset some people. But nor can I understand the hurry. Fracking is being undertaken on a very large scale in the United States and elsewhere. Onshore fracking is not actually a new technology at all, but its widespread use is new. Given concerns especially about the effects on underground water supplies, why don’t we just wait for thirty years and see how it turns out elsewhere? That should give time for a good accumulation of evidence.
The hydrocarbons are not going anywhere – they will still be there in thirty years time and I predict will be a good deal more valuable. So my entirely unprofound, non-fundamentalist and dully pragmatic view on fracking is that there should be a thirty year moratorium. Then we can think about it.
The Aussie chairman. Exploiter of natural resources.
‘And “companies,” in the plural, really doesn’t do Mr Lenigas justice. A directors’ disclosure issued last year by Inspirit Energy, an innovative energy technology firm where Mr Lenigas is chairman, indicated he had sat on 173 company boards during the previous five years.
The list has been severely pruned more recently – and in ways that surprised many of his followers. At the end of August he resigned as chairman of the eponymous Leni Gas & Oil. It’s not often that a director’s departure necessitates a change of company name, but this Trinidadian oil producer, which spent years as a “sub-penny dreadful” before taking off this spring, will henceforth be known simply as LGO.
Why did he resign? Why does this serial stock promoter constantly jump from one (often crisis-ridden) corporate situation to the next? Mr Lenigas has a practised answer: “The real reason is that I like micromanaging everything, and when a company grows I lose control. Other people start making decisions. Then it’s time for me to move on. I’m the company dictator, with a view. There’s no decision by committee from my perspective. But as a company get’s bigger it gets more democratic and I have to let go.”
Not all of his corporate exits have been smooth. Mr Lenigas took the helm at Tiny Rowland’s Lonrho conglomerate back in 2006 at a point when the business had dwindled to just one asset – the Cardoso hotel in Maputo. He rebuilt it as an Africa-focused agri-business, but in subsequently selling the company to Swiss investors last year, he fell out badly with the new owners in a row that extended to another Lenigas venture, African low-cost airline Fastjet.
Right now, aside from Horse Hill, Mr Lenigas’ interests are focused on Inspirit, the energy company, and also Rare Earth Minerals, with a large interest in a potentially huge lithium deposit in Mexico.’
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05453b34-4ae8-11e4-839a-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3GyuIaMhU
‘The combined cash at bank value for all businesses where David holds a current appointment equals £5,193,034, with a combined total current assets value of £9,861,097 and total current liabilities of £1,126,868. Roles associated with David Lenigas within the recorded businesses include: Director ‘
http://companycheck.co.uk/director/909298429
Surrey Oil Hunt picks up where Esso let go
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/05453b34-4ae8-11e4-839a-00144feab7de.html#axzz3GysLzf3x
Perhaps Theresa could pop over with some advice.
Ottawa shootings: Canada to toughen terror laws
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29743711
“Ottawa shootings: Canada to toughen terror laws
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-29743711”
________________
A wise move in the circumstances, surely.
Or would you recommend that the terror laws be relaxed instead?
from the Beeb blurb
________________
One might comment that the might of the CSEC, 5-i’s, NSA, global almost total-surveillance system failed to spot this radicalised idiot,
so how will giving MORE powers to surveillance find more radicalised idiots? All you get is more noise, from the general population, diluting the rare extremists. The CSEC, 5-i’s, NSA, global almost total-surveillance system is obviously taking massive data on the general population for reasons that we can only guess at. Yes, I accept that part of the CSEC, 5-i’s, NSA, global almost total-surveillance system will be and should be aimed at ‘official’ enemies like the former soviet union, in order to prevent them from suddenly invading a peninsula or two, except that was also missed!
I’ve never yet been to GCHQ, (my closest visit was a Chinese restaurant in Cheltenham where the table next to me was discussing so many types of encryption systems that I nearly asked them to be quiet!) but I despair of these ‘quick politico fixes’ after an “spectacular” event which may-or-may-not have been a put-up job. After all, CSEC ran Stone Ghost, and allowed all the 5-i’s data to be exfiltrated for $3000/month for around four years (2007-2011)
If Communications Security Establishment Canada is able to pass all of our data to the GRU so efficiently with their previous budget, does doing MORE surveillance mean that the GRU will have to pay more too? Yes, I think a bunch of sociologists should game(theory) what might happen if some terror laws were rescinded!
HabbuClown; “my sense is that many on this blog do not disapprove of acts of terror for reasons I’ve already explained”
Translation; “I get my kicks by smearing people here as terrorist sympathisers because I’m as dense as I am repellent'”
Why do you take your “reasons” to the authorities, withholding information about people who “do not disapprove’, ie approve, of acts of terror, is probably a criminal offense in itself.
While you search around for the balls you don’t have, have a read of this & see if you can work out why you are as stupid as you really appear to be;
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40032.htm
“Why do you” s/be “Why don’t you”
(obvious typos shouldn’t really need correcting, but this is addressed to a very dense clown)
As predicted Mary’s response to the questions about her sudden interest in Canadian affairs elicited the usual trolling on her part – I can only suppose she was in mourning for a fallen comrade.
@Habbabkuk: ““Ottawa shootings: Canada to toughen terror laws”
I’m not an expert on Canadian law, but I’d hazzard that the actions of this one gun-nut are already proscribed. Surely this nut didn’t just find a loophole in existing legislation that allowed for a one-man rampage through their legislative building.
Don’t be an idiot all you life Macky – it is possible to condemn the actions of both the terrorists and the authorities the actions are not mutually exclusive especially among those capable of thinking for themselves.
Cease the dripping of poison RD. I have known about the support of Zionism by Harper and Baird for a long time and the exploitation of the land and resources belonging to the Canadian native peoples. Much of that information has been gleaned from reading articles on Dissident Voice over several years. Its co-editor Kim Petersen is Canadian.
A search for ‘Canada’ there produces
http://dissidentvoice.org/search/?cx=004699754223191941067%3Adjkep-0myaa&cof=FORID%3A11&ie=UTF-8&q=canada&sa=Search
Take your pick.
“I have known about the support of Zionism by Harper and Baird for a long time”
Just like I and others have known of your support of terrorists and despots for a long time.
RD / ELSO 7 34am
“I and others have known of your support of terrorists and despots for a long time.” Thanks.
Can you provide links to back up you claim please.
I’ve been reading Mary’s posts with interest for a couple of years now and can’t think of a single example.
Seems to me the only support for terrorists on these threads comes from the resident occupying conformity enforcers.
Let’s face it, the false narratives that you peddle have already unravelled. You won’t put them together again by making BS denunciations of decent people.
We need a better quality of troll on these threads.
In case you missed it, here’s Russel Brand using Evan Davis to wipe the floor…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqsFp0J22Hc&list=UU6o-wWU-v2ClFMwougmK7dA
@RD: Sofia has a fair point. If you really think Mary harbours “support for terrorists”, what are you waiting for? Get down to your police station, contact the security services, call MI5 and everyone else you can think of.
Surely you wouldn’t bandy about such accusations just for effect? Surely you wouldn’t lie about something that serious? If you haven’t got in touch with the services already, to report this supposed supporter of terrorists in our midst, you had better explain yourself.
Kind of screwed yourself here with this BS, haven’t you, RD?
Growth is not enough.
http://vimeo.com/89567123
Glen_uk: “Kind of screwed yourself here with this BS, haven’t you, RD?”
😀
He’s probably sulked back to Harry’s Place, where he belongs; ever since he was caught sock-puppetting the quality of his never very bright posts have sunk even lower, to the extent that he now even makes the HabbuClown Troll seem almost intelligent in comparison ! 😀
I’m out of here. All the comment times are higgledy-piggledy, but I guess that’s down to the blog transformation options. 🙂