Not Guilty Lucas vows to continue anti-fracking campaign

All five of the Balcombe anti-fracking campaigners on trial at Brighton Magistrates’ Court were today found not guilty of obstructing the public highway and failing to comply with conditions imposed by a senior police officer.

The five, Josef Dobraszczyk, Ruth Jarman, Caroline Lucas, Sheila Menon and Ruth Potts, were amongst hundreds of people who were peacefully protesting against Cuadrilla’s plans to start fracking at Balcombe in Sussex last August.

All five vowed to continue their campaign against fracking and to stop the exploitation of shale gas and oil.
The peaceful protest highlighted widespread opposition to fracking - a controversial process where a mixture of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground, under high pressure, to force gas and oil from rock layers.

Cuadrilla has been carrying on exploratory drilling at Balcombe to see if the area has oil and gas bearing rocks.

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion said:

We were peacefully protesting outside Cuadrilla’s site in Balcombe to highlight the environmental impact of fracking, particularly its role in accelerating climate change.

We are pleased that the court upheld our right to peacefully protest against fracking, but this judgement is not a victory or cause for celebration.

We will continue to campaign to end fracking and will only celebrate when that has been achieved.

In the light of the UN’s latest report on climate change, it is clearer than ever that exploiting new sources of fossil fuels such as shale gas is fatally undermining the Government’s stated ambition to protect Britain from the worst impacts of climate change.  The only safe and responsible thing to do with shale gas is to leave it in the ground.

Drilling for shale gas could also cause severe harm to our water resources, countryside and wildlife. The current regulatory framework is simply not fit for purpose - putting communities and our environment at serious risk.

Now, more than ever, the government must show some leadership.

As a first step, David Cameron must announce an immediate end to fracking and redouble efforts to make the most of the UK’s rich renewable energy resources.

Public support for shale gas drilling is falling, whilst support for clean energy such as wind and solar is growing. The Government should listen to the public and to climate scientists and stop letting oil and gas industry lobbyists dictate UK energy policy.

The trial coincided with the release of two major UN studies on climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC)  latest report  warned that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels were rising faster than ever and highlighted that we can still avoid the worst impacts of climate change but only by urgently switching to renewable energy, reducing energy demand  and phasing out our use of fossil fuels.

An earlier IPCC report concluded that climate change is already happening and examined the impacts of climate change such as storms, droughts and flooding as well as the risks of inaction on health, food security and water supplies.

Climate scientists agree that delaying action to cut carbon emissions is dangerous and will increase the costs of tackling climate change significantly. Experts are clear that around 80 per cent of unexploited fossil fuels will have to remain in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change .

Caroline Lucas said that the way forward was being shown by initiatives like REPOWER Balcombe, a new community cooperative set up by local residents with the aim to generate the equivalent of 100% of the village’s electricity usage from clean, renewable energy sources.

REPOWER Balcombe’s spokesperson Joe Nixon said:

We all need energy, but buying dirty fossil power from giant utilities is no longer the only option.

Advances in renewable technology mean that communities like ours can now generate the energy we need ourselves, locally, in a way that benefits us directly instead of big power companies - and helps the environment instead of harming it. This is win-win for Balcombe and for the planet.

Caroline concluded:

I know that this is very important to a large number of my constituents, because so many of them have written to me about the environmental risks posed by fracking, and the urgency of tackling climate change.

All five of us would like to thank all of the supporters who have turned up to support us today and thank the thousands of people who have sent letters, emails and tweets to express their support.

Caroline Lucas did not have any recourse to public funds in order to fight her case.

Supporters back Caroline Lucas as she goes on anti-fracking trial today

Support for Caroline Lucas outside Brighton Magistrates Court this morning

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas goes on trial today, along with others, following her arrest at the anti-fracking protests at Balcombe. This is what she wrote about the trial on her blog:

The week ahead marks the start of my trial at Brighton Magistrates Court, following my arrest at Balcombe last August for taking part in a peaceful protest against fracking.  

Along with four others, I am charged with obstructing the highway and failing to follow police instructions to move to a specified protest area.

We are all pleading not guilty.

I have been touched by the good wishes of many constituents who have contacted me to let me know of their support for my actions.

And I want to assure all my constituents that they will be able to contact my office as usual.

I will be working around the hours of court proceedings to ensure that I continue to fulfil my parliamentary and constituency responsibilities, and continue to represent the residents of Brighton Pavilion.

Working to address the threat of climate change has been a priority for me throughout my political life.
I know too that this is very important to large numbers of my constituents, because so many of them have written to me about the environmental risks posed by fracking, and the urgency of tackling climate change.

As an MP, I’m in the privileged position of being able to make the case in Parliament. I’ve tabled motions, championed debates, put questions to Ministers, and spoken out in the media - and will continue to do so.

But the Government is ignoring the evidence, ignoring the climate science, and ignoring the enormous benefits of a secure and affordable energy system based on renewables and efficiency.

Instead they are offering the fossil fuel companies generous tax breaks as well as senior roles within Government itself.

Climate scientists and experts are clear that emissions from nations like the UK need to be reduced much faster than they are at the moment.

We need a rapid shift to a zero carbon economy, along with policies to keep the vast majority of known fossil fuels in the ground, if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

The window for action is closing fast.

As a result,  I decided to join the peaceful protest to send a clear message to the Government, as well as to support and join those people at the proposed fracking site in Balcombe who were standing up to be counted.

There is a proud tradition of non-violent direct action in this country, and I believe that using peaceful means to try to stop a process that could cause enormous harm is not only reasonable but also morally necessary.
I will not have recourse to any public funds in order to fight my case.

Fracking is neither cheap nor safe

Given the current interest in the issue after the Brent Council statement on fracking I reproduce below a posting from the Brent Green Party blog:

Fracking: neither cheap nor safe

Frontline article by Ken Montague (reproduced with permission from http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12389)

The growing resistance to fracking - the "hydraulic fracturing" of deep level shale rocks to extract natural gas - promises to reignite the climate movement after years of demoralisation following the failure of the UN climate talks in 2009.

A feature of the recent march and blockades at Cuadrilla Resources' drilling site near Balcombe in West Sussex was the diversity of the people involved, as well as the numbers. Local residents were central to the protests, as they have been at Fylde, near Blackpool, where two Cuadrilla fracking operations led to minor earthquakes.

Today there are 45 anti-fracking groups around the country preparing to take action when further licences are issued. Given that 64 percent of England sits above shale gas and oil deposits, and their commercial exploitation could mean thousands of fracking sites, the protests are likely to increase and erupt into a full-scale war of attrition against the Cameron government and its dash for gas.

What has made fracking such an explosive issue is the evidence after 20 years of drilling in the US that the process is inherently unsafe. This is due to the uncontrolled leakage of methane into the air and groundwater, and the possible risks to health of the chemical additives in the fracking fluid used to prize the rocks open. Methane is a neurotoxin, which can cause early-onset dementia. The mix of additives, which in America has found its way into drinking water, includes chemicals that are known to be toxic or carcinogenic.

The British government says that fracking will only be permitted under strict regulation. But this ignores the fact that we do not have the technology to ensure that the cement barriers encasing the drilling shafts can withstand the pressures involved or that gas can be prevented from escaping from the pipelines and processing units.

Studies in the US showed that in 45 percent of cases the barriers failed at some point in the process and 5 percent of rigs leaked from the start.

The other, broader, issue is the government's intention to make gas a "core part" of Britain's energy mix "well into and beyond" 2030. This flies in the face of the warnings by many authorities that, with the unabated burning of fossil fuels, the world is on course for an unthinkable temperature increase of 4 to 6 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.

A recent report by Lord Stern and the Carbon Tracker think-tank made it clear that, if we are to have any chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change, we have to switch to renewables now, and leave 80 percent of coal, gas and oil reserves "in the ground".

Last year the government's decision to cut investment in renewables and make Britain "even more attractive" for the oil and gas companies provoked an angry letter from its independent Committee on Climate Change stating categorically that gas-fired power generation "could not form the basis for government policy" if it was to meet its carbon reduction targets.

Of course there are apologists for fracking who argue that gas can be a "transitional" fuel because it emits only 50 percent of the CO2 emitted by coal. In a recent speech on climate change, US president Barack Obama even referred to it as "clean" energy. This overlooks the effect of the leakage of methane, which is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

For natural gas to be cleaner than coal, methane emissions would need to be kept below 2 percent of annual production, but recent studies by the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration at gas fields in California, Colorado and Utah found that leakages ranged between 2.3 percent and 17 percent of production.

As well as giving tax breaks to the fracking companies and cash sweeteners to local communities, the government tries to sell us fracking by saying it will offer unlimited cheap energy and create thousands of jobs.

The Committee on Climate Change, however, has shown that extracting gas is actually more costly than installing renewables and even Cuadrilla admits that the impact on fuel bills would be negligible.

Leaving aside Green MP Caroline Lucas's comment that "there are no jobs on a dead planet", there is clear evidence that renewables generate more jobs than fossil fuel industries. A study by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute suggests that a million dollars invested in gas would create five jobs while the same amount invested in wind and solar power would create around 13 jobs. This is the kind of argument behind the growing campaign in Britain for a million climate jobs.

Fracking for gas is not safe, not clean, not cheap, and nor the best way to create jobs or to tackle climate change. Nonetheless, Lord John Browne, the government's chief adviser on the subject, says it's the way forward. He should know; he is chairman and 30 percent owner of Cuadrilla.

Ken Montague is the secretary of the Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union Group and Secretary of Brent Campaign Against Climate Change

'Don't believe you can't make a difference' Lucas tells Balcombe protesters

Feeling the power at Balcombe

I spent a stimulating afternoon down at Balcombe today where the anti-fracking protest camp has been reinforced, a mile or so further down the road by the Reclaim the Power camp. It was noteworthy how many young people were present as well as many families.

Reclaim the Power state:

It's clear that if w want to change the way we power our lives, we need to change who has power over our lives. The two are so closely connected.

Reclaim the Power is about building the links between people and campaigns that can work together to stop the dash for gas and create a sustainable safe future where our common needs of not just energy but also health services, education, food, transport and freedom  of movement belongs to us and ar accountable to us and not profit and corporate greed,

Another power is possible, and we can all be part of creating it.

Certainly the positive and friendly atmosphere in both camps, and the willingness to engage in comradely discussion, made me think another power is possible.

Reclaim the Power camp plan

Workshop discussion

Impromptu concert

Workshop tent

Straw bale urinals

Portable solar panels

The 'Kids' Space'

Sign at the roadside protest camp

Roadside agitprop

A friendly welcome awaits locals at the Green Party tent

Police guard the entrance to the drilling site