Tag Archives: Joan Walley

Joan Walley MP on Fracking

How nice to come across a politician who actually understands about human impact on the environment:

Ultimately fracking cannot be compatible with our long-term commitments to cut climate-changing emissions unless full-scale carbon capture and storage technology is rolled out rapidly, which currently looks unlikely.

Joan Walley, MP, chair of Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee.

Sure enough, a specially-tamed pro-fracking scientist, Quentin Fisher, accused the Committee of  “putting the ‘ill-informed views of anti-fracking groups’ ahead of evidence-based scientific studies.” Quite what evidence he thinks he has for believing that carbon emissions don’t contribute to climate change is unclear. Of course gas is not as bad as coal, but since coal is on the way out in the UK anyway, the comparison is spurious: the choice is gas, nuclear, or renewables.