The Government has realised local resistance to fracking will prevent it happening. People are being empowered in the knowledge that such local action does have an effect. Fracking requires large amounts of investment to take place. The Government as always wants to do this on the cheap whilst trying to gain any economic benefit. To hell with the long term environmental damage is their attitude. Someone else later will have to clear that one up, just like the decommissioning problem with nuclear power. The hedge-funds and private investors see fracking as a potential huge windfall, but local resistance can potentially scupper economic viability, hence the bribe. Divide the resistance. Get the locals fighting amongst each other, squabbling over the possible free cash and resistance will break, is the Government’s new plan.
What the Government doesn’t take into consideration is that people have a long term view of their lives and the future of their families and their homes. Unlike the Government who are willing to bury their heads about future results of fracking, local people and communities have a more intimate realisation of our relationship with nature. The Government sees the bribe as a means to destroying the resistance to fracking. What this bribe actually does is confirm there is a problem with fracking and that each and every one of us should learn what fracking is about. The Government’s own research has shown that once people know the ins and outs of fracking they do not want it locally.
