Following a legal action the art charity that runs London’s Tate Galleries has been forced into an embarassing revelation.

The sponsorship from the oil company BP, under which its logos adorn Tate’s foyers, brochures and exhibitions is worth just £400,000 a year – under half a percent of its total income.

The sum is also under 1% of the charity’s ‘self-generated income’ which includes funds raised from all sponsorship, donations and trading – and has also to increase since 2007/8.

For almost a decade through the 1990s BP’s sponsorship was worth even less, only £150,000 a year. By contrast the Government grant in 2013/4 was worth just over £30 million.

‘We never knew it was this little’

Anna Galkina of campaign group Platform, whose legal challenge forced Tate to divulge the figures, said that BP sponsorship was “even lower than we had estimated”.

“The figures are embarrassingly small for Tate to go on justifying its BP relationship. BP desperately needs the ‘social licence’ provided by cultural sponsorship in order to continue trashing our climate. But Tate can clearly do without BP.

“A growing wave of universities, faith and government institutions are choosing to divest and break ties with the fossil fuel industry – it’s time for Tate to join them!”

Rosa Curling, a solicitor at Leigh Day who has been working on the case, added: “Tate has fought and no doubt spent a large amount of money trying to keep this information secret.

“If public bodies are accepting sponsorship money from corporations such as BP, they must be open about how much they are receiving. Tate’s actions have prevented proper public debate over the acceptability of the sponsorship, based on actual figures, for over three years.”

Tate Ethics Committee: ‘climate change is not our concern’

BP’s sponsorship contract with Tate came up for review for a further five years in 2011, the year after BP’s catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – causing Tate Director Nicholas Serota to comment: “you don’t abandon your friends because they have what we consider to be a temporary difficulty.”

The newly revealed minutes of Tate’s Ethics Committee, which reviewed BP sponsorship in 2010, show some scrutiny of BP’s tar sands projects as well as of legal cases against BP as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The minutes state:

“Tate has taken a public stance on sustainability and is arguably the cultural institution most in the public eye in the UK. In light of this the reputational risk to Tate of retaining BP as a partner is significant.”

But the Ethics Committee concluded that “taking a moral stance on the ethics of the Oil and Gas sector … is outside of Tate’s charitable objectives.”

BP’s former chief executive Lord Browne is chairman of Tate’s trustees.

Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky will include party leaders from  seven political parties in this year’s pre-election debates including the Greens, the Scots Nationalists and Paid Cymru.

The biggest loser from the move is UKIP, which had previously been the only one of the smaller parties to be recognised as a ‘major party’, triggering widespread protest – and head-scratching.

The broadcasters are now offering two debates involving the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru; and a single closing debate between the Prime Minister and the Labour leader. 

One of the seven-party debates will be hosted by the BBC, and the other by ITV, and Channel 4 and Sky will co-host the final two-party debate. Proposed dates for the debates are the 2nd, 16th and 30th April.

And the broadcasters are clear that they will ’empty chair’ any party leader that declines the terms on offer. “The party leaders have been formally invited to take part in these debates”, reads a formal statement. “If any decide not to participate the debates would take place with those who accepted the invitation.”

‘This is the Green Spring’

“The decision to include the Greens in two debates is an acceptance by the broadcasters that we now are in an age of multi-party politics”, said Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, who describes the current proposals as “fair and reasonable”.

“This groundbreaking decision serves the interests of both the electorate and British democracy. Our membership and polling surge demonstrates that when people hear about Green Party values and policies many embrace them.

“The political landscape is fracturing and fewer and fewer people want the business-as-usual politics offered by the traditional Westminster parties. This is the Green Spring.

“The fresh proposals means that Green Party policies that can bring real change to Britain – from bringing the railways back into public hands to a £10 minimum wage by 2020 to zero university tuition fees – will now be heard far more widely.”

Reacting to complaints of exclusion by Sinn Féin, the DUP and Respect, Bennett said: “I think it’s time to move on from the debate about the debates, and get on with the debate about the issues.”

The news is also welcomed by Plaid Cymru and the SNP, whose Leader Nicola Sturgeon said “the inclusion of the SNP, Plaid and the Greens will rightly show that politics beyond Westminster isn’t just an old boys club.”

Membership and poll success continues

Meanwhile the Green Party’s membership surge continues. As reported on The Ecologist, over 4,000 people joined the Greens in the space of two days last week when the ‘debate fever’ was at its height, pushing it above both UKIP and the LibDems on a single day.

By yesterday morning the Green Party of England & Wales had added more than 3,000 additional members, and the number of members now stands at over 48,000. On the basis of current trends, the party is likely to reach 50,000 members next week. Add that to the Scottish Greens’ membership of around 9,000 (up from 1,700 in September) and the Greens have over 58,000 members.

As well as showing support, the influx of members will also transform the Green Party’s finances. Even if the new members are only paying an average of £10 per year (reflecting a high proportion of students) an unscheduled £300,000 or so has reached the party’s coffers since January. That’s on top of a £300,000 donation by the campaigning fashion designer Vivienne Westwood a few days ago.

Opinion polls also show the Greens riding high. A 22nd January Yougov poll shows the Greens ahead of the LibDems with 8%, a lead of 1%, after briefly spiking at 10%. A Guardian/ICM poll published on 20th January shows the Greens on 9%, the highest recorded by ICM in more than 20 years, up 4% on the December figure.

But most interesting is the analysis of voters’ preferred outcome in the event of a hung Parliament, with the strongest support going to a Labour / SNP / Green coalition on 19% – more than any other arrangement. The least popular outcome was a minority Labour government, on 3%.

“The parties we used to relegate to the margins with the term ‘others’ are now moving centre stage”, Martin Boon of ICM told the Guardian. “The combined forces of all those outside the old LibLabCon triopoly has never been stronger during three decades of Guardian/ICM polling.”

But while the Greens are rightly celebrating their surge, they will now have to professionalise their act and prepare for far closer examination at both an individual and policy level, one Green Party veteran told The Ecologist:

“Finally the Greens have arrived on the mainstream political map, and this is something I have been fighting for for over thirty years”, he said. “But there is a cost to being taken seriously. Green policies will be scrutinised as never before and the same goes for Green politicians. The age of innocence is over.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

On a week-long trip to the UK last fall, I was struck by how quickly the push to open up the country to fracking has been escalating.

Thankfully, activists are mounting a vigorous and creative response, and are more than up to the task of galvanizing the public to put a stop to this mad dash to extract.

A notable victory was scored yesterday when MPs forced amendments through the UK government’s Infrastructure Bill to keep fracking out of national parks, areas of outstanding natural beauty, and places where major aquifers would be placed at risk of pollution.

But still MPs failed to impose the fracking moratorium demanded by the Environmental Audit Committee, and the fracking industry will still enjoy carte blanche to exploit shale gas across most of the country. The fight ahead will not be an easy one.

In rushing to exploit the UK’s shale gas reserves, the industry has spent millions on public relations and brazenly overridden the democratic will of British citizens by overturning laws that had prevented drilling under homes. The coalition government, meanwhile, has done the sector’s bidding at every turn.

We’ve seen all of this before. Indeed what is happening in the UK is modeled so closely on the US experience that an October 2014 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal spoke of “plotting an American-style fracking revolution in Britain“.

The frackers’ plan for the UK is rolling out …

So it’s worth playing close attention to how that earlier plot played out, both in the United States and in my own country, Canada. The US is not only where the gas companies honed various technologies used in fracking, but also where they honed their branding-like their pitch, originating in the early 1980s, that natural gas was a ‘bridge’ to a clean energy future.

As opposition has grown, they have cleverly funded studies stamped by big green organizations that understate fracking’s huge greenhouse gas impact; touted over-optimistic production forecasts; and in true shock doctrine style, tried to take advantage of geo-political crisis – like the gas cut-offs in Ukraine – to push through massive export plans that in any other circumstance could never gain legislative or public approval.

And when all else fails, government and industry have turned to criminalizing peaceful activism. They’ve dispatched heavily armed police against Indigenous communities blockading shale gas exploration in New Brunswick, Canada; gagged families impacted by drilling from criticizing the industry for an entire lifetime; and tried to charge as “terrorists” protesters in Oklahoma who unfurled a banner and dropped glitter at an oil and gas company’s office.

Yet even with such tactics, communities across North America are in full revolt. Last month came the huge news that New York State would ban fracking, following a steady stream of bans and moratoria passed in local communities, as well as years of sustained pressure from the activists and scientists – like biologist and author Sandra Steingraber, co-founder of New Yorkers Against Fracking – who have tirelessly documented and spread the word about the health and climate impacts.

The New York uprising continues in the Finger Lakes region of the state, where one Texas-based company hopes to create a massive “gas storage and transportation hub” – and where 200 blockaders have been arrested resisting its plans to fill abandoned salt caverns along Seneca Lake with enormous amounts of fracked gas.

A ban has also been passed in Vermont and there are moratoria in parts of California, as well as in the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

And a month before the New York victory, the Texas town of Denton – the birthplace of the fracking boom and perhaps the most drilled area in the country-voted decisively to ban hydraulic fracturing.

The victory was achieved in a Republican town, in the face of an industry that poured hundreds of thousands into the battle – which was, in the words of a resident, “more like David and Godzilla than David and Goliath.”

Beware – the fracking industry knows no bounds of decency

The story of Denton has much to teach the growing anti-fracking movement in Britain. What it demonstrates is that, left to their own devices, the fossil fuel companies will come after your homes, your churches, your schools, your parks, your university campuses, and your sports stadiums – all of which have had wells drilled on or near them in Denton.

But despite all of the David Cameron government’s fanfare about “going all out for shale“, widespread resistance has already put the UK’s pro-fracking forces on the defensive.

A recent Guardian analysis found that only 11 new exploration wells are planned for 2015, with the industry bemoaning the “glacially slow” pace of the shale expansion-to say nothing of possible impacts from the global oil price shock now threatening extreme fossil fuels around the world.

Just last week, ahead of yesterday’s key Parliament vote on fracking legislation, green groups sent Cameron a petition with 267,000 signatures rejecting the dash for gas – something that undoubtedly helped to win key concessions.

Climate change minister Amber Rudd also came under pressure in yesterday’s debate, and was forced to concede that the government would cancel fracking licences if the Committee on Climate Change decided that exploiting shale gas would imperil the UK’s climate change goals, or explain its failure to do so.

It may seem that frackers in the UK and elsewhere will stop at nothing to have their way. But thanks to the rising global climate movement, the so-called ‘bridge’ is already burning. And it’s long past time to choose a different path.

Naomi Klein is a Canadian author and social activist known for her political analyses and criticism of corporate globalization and of corporate capitalism, and her recent book on climate change, ‘This Changes Everything‘.

This article was originally published on This Changes Everything, and has been updated by The Ecologist.

Photograph by Frack Free Denton.

Following a legal action the art charity that runs London’s Tate Galleries has been forced into an embarassing revelation.

The sponsorship from the oil company BP, under which its logos adorn Tate’s foyers, brochures and exhibitions is worth just £400,000 a year – under half a percent of its total income.

The sum is also under 1% of the charity’s ‘self-generated income’ which includes funds raised from all sponsorship, donations and trading – and has also to increase since 2007/8.

For almost a decade through the 1990s BP’s sponsorship was worth even less, only £150,000 a year. By contrast the Government grant in 2013/4 was worth just over £30 million.

‘We never knew it was this little’

Anna Galkina of campaign group Platform, whose legal challenge forced Tate to divulge the figures, said that BP sponsorship was “even lower than we had estimated”.

“The figures are embarrassingly small for Tate to go on justifying its BP relationship. BP desperately needs the ‘social licence’ provided by cultural sponsorship in order to continue trashing our climate. But Tate can clearly do without BP.

“A growing wave of universities, faith and government institutions are choosing to divest and break ties with the fossil fuel industry – it’s time for Tate to join them!”

Rosa Curling, a solicitor at Leigh Day who has been working on the case, added: “Tate has fought and no doubt spent a large amount of money trying to keep this information secret.

“If public bodies are accepting sponsorship money from corporations such as BP, they must be open about how much they are receiving. Tate’s actions have prevented proper public debate over the acceptability of the sponsorship, based on actual figures, for over three years.”

Tate Ethics Committee: ‘climate change is not our concern’

BP’s sponsorship contract with Tate came up for review for a further five years in 2011, the year after BP’s catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – causing Tate Director Nicholas Serota to comment: “you don’t abandon your friends because they have what we consider to be a temporary difficulty.”

The newly revealed minutes of Tate’s Ethics Committee, which reviewed BP sponsorship in 2010, show some scrutiny of BP’s tar sands projects as well as of legal cases against BP as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The minutes state:

“Tate has taken a public stance on sustainability and is arguably the cultural institution most in the public eye in the UK. In light of this the reputational risk to Tate of retaining BP as a partner is significant.”

But the Ethics Committee concluded that “taking a moral stance on the ethics of the Oil and Gas sector … is outside of Tate’s charitable objectives.”

BP’s former chief executive Lord Browne is chairman of Tate’s trustees.

Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky will include party leaders from  seven political parties in this year’s pre-election debates including the Greens, the Scots Nationalists and Paid Cymru.

The biggest loser from the move is UKIP, which had previously been the only one of the smaller parties to be recognised as a ‘major party’, triggering widespread protest – and head-scratching.

The broadcasters are now offering two debates involving the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru; and a single closing debate between the Prime Minister and the Labour leader. 

One of the seven-party debates will be hosted by the BBC, and the other by ITV, and Channel 4 and Sky will co-host the final two-party debate. Proposed dates for the debates are the 2nd, 16th and 30th April.

And the broadcasters are clear that they will ’empty chair’ any party leader that declines the terms on offer. “The party leaders have been formally invited to take part in these debates”, reads a formal statement. “If any decide not to participate the debates would take place with those who accepted the invitation.”

‘This is the Green Spring’

“The decision to include the Greens in two debates is an acceptance by the broadcasters that we now are in an age of multi-party politics”, said Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, who describes the current proposals as “fair and reasonable”.

“This groundbreaking decision serves the interests of both the electorate and British democracy. Our membership and polling surge demonstrates that when people hear about Green Party values and policies many embrace them.

“The political landscape is fracturing and fewer and fewer people want the business-as-usual politics offered by the traditional Westminster parties. This is the Green Spring.

“The fresh proposals means that Green Party policies that can bring real change to Britain – from bringing the railways back into public hands to a £10 minimum wage by 2020 to zero university tuition fees – will now be heard far more widely.”

Reacting to complaints of exclusion by Sinn Féin, the DUP and Respect, Bennett said: “I think it’s time to move on from the debate about the debates, and get on with the debate about the issues.”

The news is also welcomed by Plaid Cymru and the SNP, whose Leader Nicola Sturgeon said “the inclusion of the SNP, Plaid and the Greens will rightly show that politics beyond Westminster isn’t just an old boys club.”

Membership and poll success continues

Meanwhile the Green Party’s membership surge continues. As reported on The Ecologist, over 4,000 people joined the Greens in the space of two days last week when the ‘debate fever’ was at its height, pushing it above both UKIP and the LibDems on a single day.

By yesterday morning the Green Party of England & Wales had added more than 3,000 additional members, and the number of members now stands at over 48,000. On the basis of current trends, the party is likely to reach 50,000 members next week. Add that to the Scottish Greens’ membership of around 9,000 (up from 1,700 in September) and the Greens have over 58,000 members.

As well as showing support, the influx of members will also transform the Green Party’s finances. Even if the new members are only paying an average of £10 per year (reflecting a high proportion of students) an unscheduled £300,000 or so has reached the party’s coffers since January. That’s on top of a £300,000 donation by the campaigning fashion designer Vivienne Westwood a few days ago.

Opinion polls also show the Greens riding high. A 22nd January Yougov poll shows the Greens ahead of the LibDems with 8%, a lead of 1%, after briefly spiking at 10%. A Guardian/ICM poll published on 20th January shows the Greens on 9%, the highest recorded by ICM in more than 20 years, up 4% on the December figure.

But most interesting is the analysis of voters’ preferred outcome in the event of a hung Parliament, with the strongest support going to a Labour / SNP / Green coalition on 19% – more than any other arrangement. The least popular outcome was a minority Labour government, on 3%.

“The parties we used to relegate to the margins with the term ‘others’ are now moving centre stage”, Martin Boon of ICM told the Guardian. “The combined forces of all those outside the old LibLabCon triopoly has never been stronger during three decades of Guardian/ICM polling.”

But while the Greens are rightly celebrating their surge, they will now have to professionalise their act and prepare for far closer examination at both an individual and policy level, one Green Party veteran told The Ecologist:

“Finally the Greens have arrived on the mainstream political map, and this is something I have been fighting for for over thirty years”, he said. “But there is a cost to being taken seriously. Green policies will be scrutinised as never before and the same goes for Green politicians. The age of innocence is over.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.

Following a legal action the art charity that runs London’s Tate Galleries has been forced into an embarassing revelation.

The sponsorship from the oil company BP, under which its logos adorn Tate’s foyers, brochures and exhibitions is worth just £400,000 a year – under half a percent of its total income.

The sum is also under 1% of the charity’s ‘self-generated income’ which includes funds raised from all sponsorship, donations and trading – and has also to increase since 2007/8.

For almost a decade through the 1990s BP’s sponsorship was worth even less, only £150,000 a year. By contrast the Government grant in 2013/4 was worth just over £30 million.

‘We never knew it was this little’

Anna Galkina of campaign group Platform, whose legal challenge forced Tate to divulge the figures, said that BP sponsorship was “even lower than we had estimated”.

“The figures are embarrassingly small for Tate to go on justifying its BP relationship. BP desperately needs the ‘social licence’ provided by cultural sponsorship in order to continue trashing our climate. But Tate can clearly do without BP.

“A growing wave of universities, faith and government institutions are choosing to divest and break ties with the fossil fuel industry – it’s time for Tate to join them!”

Rosa Curling, a solicitor at Leigh Day who has been working on the case, added: “Tate has fought and no doubt spent a large amount of money trying to keep this information secret.

“If public bodies are accepting sponsorship money from corporations such as BP, they must be open about how much they are receiving. Tate’s actions have prevented proper public debate over the acceptability of the sponsorship, based on actual figures, for over three years.”

Tate Ethics Committee: ‘climate change is not our concern’

BP’s sponsorship contract with Tate came up for review for a further five years in 2011, the year after BP’s catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – causing Tate Director Nicholas Serota to comment: “you don’t abandon your friends because they have what we consider to be a temporary difficulty.”

The newly revealed minutes of Tate’s Ethics Committee, which reviewed BP sponsorship in 2010, show some scrutiny of BP’s tar sands projects as well as of legal cases against BP as a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The minutes state:

“Tate has taken a public stance on sustainability and is arguably the cultural institution most in the public eye in the UK. In light of this the reputational risk to Tate of retaining BP as a partner is significant.”

But the Ethics Committee concluded that “taking a moral stance on the ethics of the Oil and Gas sector … is outside of Tate’s charitable objectives.”

BP’s former chief executive Lord Browne is chairman of Tate’s trustees.

Today will be an interesting day for the future of the campaign against unconventional oil and gas in Britain. It could be the day wen we turn a corner – or, quite possibly, not, if the fossil fuel lobby within the government get their way.

Last week, Caroline Spelman let slip that the Environment Audit Committee’s (EAC) new report, the ‘Environmental risks of fracking’, would call for a moratorium.

Since then both the pro and anti side of the debate has been buzzing in anticipation of the report’s content, and whether today’s vote on the Infrastructure Bill would call a halt to fracking in Britain.

The day before that, news emerged that planners at Lancashire County Council were recommending refusal of planning permission for Cuadrilla’s two new shale exploration sites – on the grounds of noise and traffic generation.

Shortly thereafter the North West Energy Task Force, a local ‘astroturf‘ lobby group funded by Centrica and Cuadrilla (their information allegedly ghost-written by Centrica and Cuadrilla’s lobbyists, Westbourne Communications), were quoted as saying that traffic and noise were “not grounds for objections“.

In Scotland there’s an ongoing debate about a ban, fuelled by Dart Energy’s proposed coalbed methane (CBM) developments around Airth, as well as Cluff Natural Resources plans for underground coal gasification (UCG) at Kincardine in the Firth of Forth. It’s even causing spats within the SNP.

Both CBM and UCG have, like shale gas, the potential to cause pollution. Question is, would either of these be caught within the EAC’s proposals for a moratorium on ‘fracking’?

Good effort … but please try harder

The problem with the media-simplified debate over ‘extreme energy’ in Britain is that has focussed, to its detriment, upon shale gas and ‘fracking’.

While shale gas inevitably involves hydraulic fracturing, coalbed methane does not always require it; and underground coal gasification is a wholly different, and arguably worse, process altogether.

I wrote a lengthy submission to the EAC’s inquiry, outlining these differences. In a follow-up article for The Ecologist, I challenged them to ‘prove me wrong’ that they could hold an evidence-based, unbiased exploration of the issues.

While the EAC’s new report certainly excels above previous reports by the Energy and Climate or Economic Affairs committees, it still contains some serious errors and omissions. Top of my list of bullet points for consideration by the EAC’s inquiry (paragraph 46 of my submission):

“Decision-making must differentiate shale gas, from coalbed methane, from UCG, in order to recognise their unique ‘fingerprint’ upon the environment.”

They did not do that. Consequently amendments proposed for the Infrastructure Bill contain a significant flaw. Throughout the amendments to the bill the terms ‘shale gas’ and ‘hydraulic fracturing’ are used. The amendment tabled by the EAC states:

“leave out ‘the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum, in particular through’ and insert ‘not the objective of maximising the economic recovery of UK petroleum but ensuring that fossil fuel emissions are limited to the carbon budgets advised by the Committee on Climate Change and introducing a moratorium on the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas deposits in order to reduce the risk of carbon budgets being breached’.”

If enacted, the terms of such a ‘moratorium’ would arguably not apply to coalbed methane – it could be developed (though less economically) without the use of high volume hydraulic fracturing. Coastal Oil and Gas in South Wales, or Dart (recently taken over by IGas) at Airth, or Shropshire and Cheshire, could still go ahead with their extraction plans.

And such a ban would arguably not affect, in any way, the proposed development of UCG by companies such as Cluff Natural Resources or Five Quarter Energy.

A failure to test the evidence

The purpose of the Environmental Audit Committee is to consider how government policy contribute to environmental protection and sustainable development, and to audit their performance. In my view the Committee haven’t done that.

They did not seek to quantify the full range of impacts of the various ‘unconventional’ oil and gas technologies currently planned for development across Britain. And it has to be said, the Committee have made some good recommendations in their – admittedly rushed – report. However, they also appeared to accept evidence which was highly questionable.

For example (paragraph 78 of their report) states: “Many of our witnesses acknowledged that the existing UK conventional onshore industry has a generally safe history, with over 200 producing wells and no pollution incidents from well design.”

In fact recent research, by a part-industry-sponsored group, shows that we have no detailed knowledge of at least half of the 2,000 or so deep wells drilled in Britain over the last century; there is no structured monitoring process to check their condition; and at least one well has failed – and none of those where subject to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

The one well in Britain which has been subject to HVHF, at Preese Hall, has failed – and the Health and Safety Executive’s refusal to require the proper inspection of the well during construction is in part responsible for that failure.

The Committee also state (paragraph 36 of their report): “The Researching Fracking In Europe consortium informed us that their ‘research has found that even in the ‘worst case scenario’, flux in the radioactivity of flowback fluid would not exceed the annual exposure limit set by the UK Environment Agency.'”

I tackled that paper, and its flaws, in an article for The Ecologist last July.

It used a highly selective sample of some of the most radioactive natural mineral springs in order to state that the ‘naturally occurring’ radioactivity in flowback water is safe. It also makes some error in its assumptions about dose limits, and fails to show all the data required to validate it findings against the international standard procedures for dose calculation.

That is why we need a proper public inquiry, testing the evidence. All assumptions and data, whatever its source, must be objectively tested to establish how much weight can be applied to them.

Carbon is not the only critical issue

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with the EAC’s report is that it largely concentrates on climate change and carbon emissions. That completely misses the broad range of impacts unconventional fossil fuels create.

We could completely eradicate the fugitive emissions from unconventional oil and gas, making it some of the cleanest fossil fuel production in the world, and the problems it creates would still make it highly damaging.

‘Low carbon’ or ‘green completion‘ unconventional oil and gas production would still generate large quantities of toxic and hazardous materials – with as yet no identified treatment facility or disposal location.

These developments, in particular the pipelines and associated roads, would also damage large areas of the landscape and natural habitats – as outlined in recent US research.

And though it may create a short-term boom for certain vested interests – like the North West Energy Task Force – it would absolutely fail to tackle the greater imperative of addressing the ecological overshoot of our society.

What the media ignored this week

There were two other events in the last week which passed by, seemingly un-noticed.

Firstly, Egdon Resources applied for a permit from the Environment Agency to test drill their Laughton site. No fracking – yet – but it enlarges a new eastern development area in the Bowland shale.

More significantly, Third Energy applied to use two existing, uneconomic wells for the disposal of the waste from other oil and gas operations – one permit for their site at Ebberston (on the border of the North Yorks. Moors National Park) and another permit for their site near Pickering (just south of the national park area).

This represents a significant policy shift as, until now, Britain hasn’t favoured disposal via deep injection. In the US, it is deep injection which appears to give rise to the greatest risks from groundwater pollution and seismic activity.

Third Energy’s current gas wells are ‘conventional’ (free flowing) gas wells. What’s significant here is not the source of the wastewater – it’s that this application could set a precedent for deep disposal from unconventional oil and gas sites.

Again, that’s something the EAC’s moratorium doesn’t encompass.

This is significant because of what follows from it

What happens in Parliament today is significant, but it’s not as important as what comes next. If there’s a moratorium, then we have to make sure that any inquiry processes which follow properly consider all the available evidence.

Alternately, if the Government force a vote to quash the call for a moratorium, that escalates the nature of the debate. It will no longer be a reasoned debate over evidence. The Government will have abandoned any such pretence, and will instead impose their will purely because they can.

If the Government force their will upon Parliament, that’s as big a problem for the Environmental Audit Committee as it is for the public. It basically says that their evidence gathering was a waste of time, and that they are not going to be listened to.

For the public, and anti-fracking campaigners in particular, it’s a clear message. That democratic processes based upon evidence are no longer valid – and that in Britain, as in the USA, it is spin and lobbying which now provide the justification for policy.

If you wish to oppose the development of unconventional oil and gas, with all legal redress closed off by current law reforms, your only option for doing so will be through direct action.

Paul Mobbs is an independent environmental consultant, investigator, author and lecturer, and maintains the Free Range Activism Website (FRAW).

A fully referenced version of this article is located on FRAW.

Also on The Ecologist: ‘Fracking policy and the pollution of British democracy‘, ‘Parliament’s fracking examination must be inclusive and impartial‘ and other articles by Paul Mobbs.

The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky will include party leaders from  seven political parties in this year’s pre-election debates including the Greens, the Scots Nationalists and Paid Cymru.

The biggest loser from the move is UKIP, which had previously been the only one of the smaller parties to be recognised as a ‘major party’, triggering widespread protest – and head-scratching.

The broadcasters are now offering two debates involving the leaders of the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP, the SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru; and a single closing debate between the Prime Minister and the Labour leader. 

One of the seven-party debates will be hosted by the BBC, and the other by ITV, and Channel 4 and Sky will co-host the final two-party debate. Proposed dates for the debates are the 2nd, 16th and 30th April.

And the broadcasters are clear that they will ’empty chair’ any party leader that declines the terms on offer. “The party leaders have been formally invited to take part in these debates”, reads a formal statement. “If any decide not to participate the debates would take place with those who accepted the invitation.”

‘This is the Green Spring’

“The decision to include the Greens in two debates is an acceptance by the broadcasters that we now are in an age of multi-party politics”, said Green Party Leader Natalie Bennett, who describes the current proposals as “fair and reasonable”.

“This groundbreaking decision serves the interests of both the electorate and British democracy. Our membership and polling surge demonstrates that when people hear about Green Party values and policies many embrace them.

“The political landscape is fracturing and fewer and fewer people want the business-as-usual politics offered by the traditional Westminster parties. This is the Green Spring.

“The fresh proposals means that Green Party policies that can bring real change to Britain – from bringing the railways back into public hands to a £10 minimum wage by 2020 to zero university tuition fees – will now be heard far more widely.”

Reacting to complaints of exclusion by Sinn Féin, the DUP and Respect, Bennett said: “I think it’s time to move on from the debate about the debates, and get on with the debate about the issues.”

The news is also welcomed by Plaid Cymru and the SNP, whose Leader Nicola Sturgeon said “the inclusion of the SNP, Plaid and the Greens will rightly show that politics beyond Westminster isn’t just an old boys club.”

Membership and poll success continues

Meanwhile the Green Party’s membership surge continues. As reported on The Ecologist, over 4,000 people joined the Greens in the space of two days last week when the ‘debate fever’ was at its height, pushing it above both UKIP and the LibDems on a single day.

By yesterday morning the Green Party of England & Wales had added more than 3,000 additional members, and the number of members now stands at over 48,000. On the basis of current trends, the party is likely to reach 50,000 members next week. Add that to the Scottish Greens’ membership of around 9,000 (up from 1,700 in September) and the Greens have over 58,000 members.

As well as showing support, the influx of members will also transform the Green Party’s finances. Even if the new members are only paying an average of £10 per year (reflecting a high proportion of students) an unscheduled £300,000 or so has reached the party’s coffers since January. That’s on top of a £300,000 donation by the campaigning fashion designer Vivienne Westwood a few days ago.

Opinion polls also show the Greens riding high. A 22nd January Yougov poll shows the Greens ahead of the LibDems with 8%, a lead of 1%, after briefly spiking at 10%. A Guardian/ICM poll published on 20th January shows the Greens on 9%, the highest recorded by ICM in more than 20 years, up 4% on the December figure.

But most interesting is the analysis of voters’ preferred outcome in the event of a hung Parliament, with the strongest support going to a Labour / SNP / Green coalition on 19% – more than any other arrangement. The least popular outcome was a minority Labour government, on 3%.

“The parties we used to relegate to the margins with the term ‘others’ are now moving centre stage”, Martin Boon of ICM told the Guardian. “The combined forces of all those outside the old LibLabCon triopoly has never been stronger during three decades of Guardian/ICM polling.”

But while the Greens are rightly celebrating their surge, they will now have to professionalise their act and prepare for far closer examination at both an individual and policy level, one Green Party veteran told The Ecologist:

“Finally the Greens have arrived on the mainstream political map, and this is something I have been fighting for for over thirty years”, he said. “But there is a cost to being taken seriously. Green policies will be scrutinised as never before and the same goes for Green politicians. The age of innocence is over.”

Oliver Tickell edits The Ecologist.