How to save ourselves from the new Middle Ages: stop building bird-choppers and start fracking

So it turns out that fracking for shale gas really is more effective at making the earth move than all the onanism of the enviros over windmills. We should thus get on with drilling and stop building the bird-choppers.

In a shocking surprise for anyone attuned to the way government actually works, this is in fact what is about to happen. Or at least what the current Government seems to be inching towards, after an official report found that the technique caused two small earthquakes last year (one of them near Blackpool) but recommended the wider use of it nonetheless.

Welcome to the most important point you never get taught about economics: there are no such things as solutions. All we've got, all we can ever have, is a series of trade-offs. Are there problems with fracking for shale gas? Sure there are: it causes earthquakes, as this report confirms. I've written elsewhere about US reports into the contamination of groundwater and yes, this too happens. Almost all of those cases come from inadequate care of water and chemicals being used and spilt on the surface. The one case that might be of deep contamination, of contamination of an aquifer, is due to the very odd geology of the area. Read more.....