YP Letters: Fracking is not ordinary gas extraction

IN reply to Lorraine Allanson (The Yorkshire Post, February 18), forgive me, but she seems to be unaware of the difference between the extraction of conventional gas which, as she says, has been carried on in the area without problems for some 25 years and the exploitation of shale gas.

The latter, as the industry itself admits, would be a heavily industrialising process, involving hundreds of sites and thousands of wells all over Yorkshire, to say nothing of the pipelines and compressor stations and all the extra HGV traffic required.

Methane, the target gas, is lodged in the tight shale formations at a great depth and is extremely expensive to extract, so that it would only be economic to do it at huge scale.

One might point out that so-called activists against fracking have done a great deal of patient research and have been careful not to make claims that are not vouched for in peer-reviewed papers. Adverse consequences for health and contamination of water supplies as a result of fracking in the United States are fact, not fiction.

There are many reasons to reject the exploitation of shale gas, the consequences for climate change not the least of them. Methane is about 80 times as powerful as a global warming gas as CO2, and it will escape.

From: Wendy Cross, Beverley.

LORRAINE Allanson comes across as a would-be visionary; she states that the industrialisation of Ryedale will not occur as a result of the imminent fracking process. I urge her to find out the facts visually. She should type the words ‘aerial views of land affected by hydraulic fracturing’ into an online search engine.

She will then see from authentic photographs the probable devastation that Ryedale has in store.

Ms Allanson swallows the story that tourism will not be affected.

In time, however, if fracking goes ahead, the area will indeed be sitting on a gas field. Will anyone choose to tour Ryedale then?

From: Jarvis Browning, Main Street, Fadmoor, York.

GAS drilling by conventional means has never been a problem in Ryedale for us or the tourist industry.

It is the unconventional method of fracking gas, which is causing us a lot of undisclosed and unforeseen problems, which will affect the tourist trade and our livelihoods.

The pro-frackers need to wake up to the fact that it is not what it makes out to be.

We all live and work here, so why mess it up?

Losing faith in Church

From: Alan Chapman, Beck Lane, Bingley.

BILL Carmichael’s regular Friday column (The Yorkshire Post, February 17) exposes the political hypocrisy of the Anglican Church. He expresses so much that I have come to believe is spoiling, even killing off established Christianity in the UK. Within the last 100 years, millions of worshipers have drifted away from religion in our country.

My wife died suddenly of hereditary heart disease in October 1998 aged 53. I was 56 and completely bewildered. A local vicar took her funeral. By November that year I had joined his Anglican Church, the support of his Christian flock helped me enormously.

Consider the political scene at my wife’s death, the Blair Labour government was less than two years old, by 2007 it converted to the Brown Labour government. In 2002, Blair selected Rowan Williams to be Archbishop of Canterbury, an archetypal left-wing academic so far in the clouds he could not see the flock diminishing at an alarming rate.

During this period the nation heard little complaint from senior clergy. The coalition Government arrived, forced into austerity by Labour’s reckless spending, church leaders started complaining. Then, 2015 heralded a Conservative majority government, unleashing the Anglican liberal hordes, including the Bishop of Leeds who delivered a bitter political article recently (The Yorkshire Post, January 23).

I have formed an opinion of the Anglican Church over the previous 18 years; it is run by generally left-wing clergy. The more senior, the more liberal.

At the same time I believe the majority of Anglicans are Conservative. Many industrial cities have lost very significant numbers of Christian dwellers, replaced by larger numbers of Asian immigrants, mostly of Islamic faith. This leaves what remains of the Anglican community in the rural areas which traditionally vote Conservative.

Left-wing clergy and right-wing congregations do not jell, offering an explanation why Anglican attendances have fallen so significantly.

Public image of politics

From: David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

POLITICS is probably getting more frequent coverage than ever before, but if there is anything that characterises the public’s perception of politicians, it is their

deceit, insincerity and their inability to give a straight answer.

Priestley’s library role

From: Martin Staniforth, Chair of Trustees, The Leeds Library.

I READ with interest your article about Joseph Priestley and Benjamin Franklin (The Yorkshire Post, February 18). However it would be remiss not to point out one omission. During Priestley’s time in Leeds as minister at Mill Hill Chapel he also found time to be the first secretary of The Leeds Library, founded in 1768. The Library continues to thrive in our premises in Commercial Street, where we welcome visitors and new members.