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.
Lysias
“If it’s not terrorism, there’s no need to accuse anyone of being an apologist for terrorism.”
__________________
Yes, but I happen to think that it IS terrorism.
(Don’t bother to carry this forward, it’s rather obvious where you’re coming from)
Was the use of depleted uranium munitions in Iraq by the USA and its partners –
A Terrorism
B Genocide
D A war crime
C All of the Above
Lysias; Just out of curiosity, were you patrolling the Mekong using Zumwalt’s Swift Boats?
“(Don’t bother to carry this forward, it’s rather obvious where you’re coming from”
Our knowing where you come from doesn’t stop you, does it?
No, I never got to Vietnam. During what the Vietnamese call the “American war,” I was in Berlin.
Marines? Sorry, I know curiosity killed the cat, but I’m a Leo with nine lives. 🙂
My son served with the Marines. Personally I fell behind my class in 1969 and found out I had hypertension at my pre-induction physical July of that year. I’m one of the few people whose high blood pressure actually saved my life. Any draftees that had college were smarted to the front lines on howitzers and missile launchers; high mortality.
Page 1 was a better read. Surprisingly good until page 2 syndrome showed. I’ll tentatively support Craig’s position to sit on it, the frack option, preferably indefinitely. Fred mentioned 7 billion mouths to feed. Well that is growing rapidly and was the subject of my recent criticisms of Craig’s generally pro-growth position. Stabilising and bringing the pop down is equivalent to growing resources (per cap). This is absolutely vital to ensure future gens have a chance of a better life.
I know Germany is land-locked and my son had the goal of being an embassy sentry in Germany. But his romanticized view of the Marines changed once he saw the way the Corps operated.
There is an explanation, but I’m afraid that, if I gave it, I would make it too easy for people with access to records to identify me.
Understood.
” I know Germany is land-locked ”
Since when?
“Zionist support is alive and well in the Zionist outpost of Canada under the control of Harper and Baird to such an extent that many Canadians were joining the IDF in the recent mass slaughter of Palestinians.”
Now I wonder what brought about the sudden interest in Canada? More ends justify the means rubbish I’m afraid.
I also note Mark Golding’s usual attack on all things Western and those who criticise his friends from the KGB – yes Khodorovsky may well have a far from spotless past, but at least he eventually recognised that something needed to change in Russia and yes there is a lot to criticise in the West – but when will we hear some support from Mark Golding or his fellow travellers for those dissidents and free trade unions which stood up to the Putin’s KGB predecessors in the former Soviet Union and continue to do so to the present day?
And no it is not Russophobia to want to stand up for the human rights of brave Russians who oppose Putin.
Habba
I suspect that Mary will show here usual cowardice and refuse to explain herself and will instead just respond with her usual trolling.
Kempe
LOL
“I suspect that Mary will show here usual cowardice and refuse to explain herself and will instead just respond with her usual trolling.”
Is your ass still red from the whuping? 🙂 Late night Telly got you down? Or is the Sun too bright for you?
I have known about Zionist Canada for a long time and have contacts there.
eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Jewish_Voices_(Canada)
Furthermore, Canada has been part of the USUKIsNATO coalition’s illegal wars against on Iraq and Afghanistan and has shredded and burned a good share of people with brown skins so don’t paint Canada as white as the driven snow.
Canada, At War For 13 Years, Shocked That ‘A Terrorist’ Attacked Its Soldiers
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40032.htm
By Glenn Greenwald
October 22, 2014 “ICH” – “The Intercept” – – TORONTO – In Quebec on Monday, two Canadian soldiers were hit by a car driven by Martin Couture-Rouleau, a 25-year-old Canadian who, as The Globe and Mail reported, “converted to Islam recently and called himself Ahmad Rouleau.” One of the soldiers died, as did Courture-Rouleau when he was shot by police upon apprehension after allegedly brandishing a large knife. Police speculated that the incident was deliberate, alleging the driver waited for two hours before hitting the soldiers, one of whom was wearing a uniform. The incident took place in the parking lot of a shopping mall 30 miles southeast of Montreal, “a few kilometres from the Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean, the military academy operated by the Department of National Defence.”
The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism, which includes pending legislation to vest its intelligence agency, CSIS, with more spying and secrecy powers in the name of fighting ISIS. A government spokesperson asserted “clear indications” that the driver “had become radicalized.”’
~~~
This blog’s troll has perhaps not heard of the old saw – ‘What goes around comes around’ or similar.
I should have said ‘Trolls plural’. Funny what brings them out of the woodwork like the larvae of death watch beetles.
“This blog’s troll has perhaps not heard of the old saw…”
Vampires only come out at night?
RD/Kempe; Did you serve in the military? Of course if you respond in the affirmative we will need something besides your incredible words to that effect.
Mary
Just as a matter of interest – in your opinion, was the IRA terrorism of the 1970s and 1980s justified? Would you say – as you appear to be saying about Islamist terrorism – that the UK brought IRA terrorism upon itself?
Mary
The outfit you took your latest cut-and-paste from says the following:
“The right-wing Canadian government wasted no time in seizing on the incident to promote its fear-mongering agenda over terrorism..”
But, you see, this is not a case of fear-mongering – these two terrorist attacks have actually happened.
So, you see, the Canadian govt is reacting (and a good job too!) to FACTS and not to mere suppositions or fears.
“But, you see, this is not a case of fear-mongering – these two terrorist attacks have actually happened.”
Something happened; a crime. We don’t have the facts which you hope will auger your pov, but here you are promoting the terror angle.
I wonder why.
Btw, what is your record of military service? Chickenhawk?
Ben
“RD/Kempe; Did you serve in the military? Of course if you respond in the affirmative we will need something besides your incredible words to that effect.”
________________
You – an admitted draft dodger – really do have a cheek asking this question of others. You took advice on how to raise your blood pressure temporarily, I suppose.
And let young men, less cunning and less cowardly than you, go to die in your place.
why the hell western governments do not listen to true journalists like Greenwald?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40032.htm
“And let young men, less cunning and less cowardly than you, go to die in your place.”
As to your record of military servitude…still waiting.
“Something happened; a crime. We don’t have the facts which you hope will auger your pov, but here you are promoting the terror angle.”
________________
To use a saying you’ve used a couple of times, Ben : if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s….a duck.
Apparantly two legislative acts to strengthen security agents power and restrict civil liberties were being considered in Canadian parliament with strong opposition from general public to such legislative acts. I bet tomorrow parliament will have no opposition to adopt the acts.
If it walks like a chicken-hawk…..
Ben
We know you’re a Nazi, but
– are you circumcised?
– are you a Theososphist?
– did you serve (military or gaol)?
– do you have a tattoo?
Still waiting for the loyal Statists to walk the walk , not just talk the talk.