UK authorities imitating Trump in fracking plans: Top scientist
A top scientist has accused Britain of ignoring warnings against fracking, which is extraction of oil and gas under huge pressure, saying authorities were imitating US President Donald Trump in having a deliberate disregard for scientific facts.
“So the UK joins Trump, ignores science… full throttle ahead with the worst fossil fuels,” said James Hansen in an interview published on the website of The Guardian newspaper on Saturday.
Hansen, known as the father of climate science, said the expectation was that the government of the United Kingdom heeded international calls for putting a gradual halt to the fossil fuel energies. However, he said ministers in the British government were moving ahead with plans for fracking, a method of oil production which highly damages the environment.
“The science is crystal clear, we need to phase out fossil fuels starting with the most damaging, the ‘unconventional’ fossil fuels such as tar sands and ‘fracking’,” said Hansen in the interview to the Observer, which is published by the Guardian Media Group on Sundays.
There has been numerous protests and demonstrations in Britain against government plans for starting fracking activities in several sites. Courts, however, have handed down jail sentences to activists trying to block an ongoing operation in Lancashire, a sign that government is determined to go ahead with its plans regardless of the public outrage.
Hansen’s comparison of British authorities to Trump is linked to the US president's repeated statements in which he has downplayed the significance of scientific evidences suggesting certain industries should end operation due to the damage they inflict on the environment. Since assuming office early last year, Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords, a major international agreement on preservation of environment, while he ordered coal mining operations to resume or expand in some US states.
The Observer said Hansen had also written to the UK energy minister, Claire Perry, to express his concerns about government’s fracking plans, saying the policy error would contribute to “climate breakdown”.
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