Meeting for Sufferings: Fracking concern from Pendle Hill
Friends in Pendle Hill Area Meeting raised a concern over shale fracking in the area
Increasing concern over fracking for shale gas in Britain was the subject of a minute to Meeting for Sufferings from Pendle Hill Area Meeting.
Drilling to see if fracking is feasible is often conducted despite widespread opposition in an area. A Friend said he was ‘particularly perturbed about the overriding of local political concern’.
Representatives and alternates heard about the work being done to resist fracking. The minute from Pendle Hill Area Meeting says that fracked gas ‘is incompatible with tackling the climate crisis. It is destructive of the environment, land and communities’.
One Friend said: ‘It is not that we should be against fracking per se.’ The need should be to focus on ‘making the planet renewable’.
Another Friend pointed out that Britain is already bringing in a lot of shale gas from the United States, and suggested that ‘importation should be stressed’. Other Friends said it was the specific case against fracking that should be highlighted in this instance.
Sufferings accepted the minute, which says that: ‘Quakers call for a ban on new and intensive forms of fossil fuel extraction, known as “unconventional” techniques, including fracking for shale gas and oil, and underground coal gasification. We also recommend that Area Meetings make this position known locally.’
Pendle Hill Area Meeting is holding an anti-fracking Meeting for Worship on Saturday 6 May. This starts at 2pm on top of Pendle Hill.
