Unconventional Gas: unsafe, unnecessary and unwanted

You’ve probably come across fracking in the news and wondered if the reality is as ugly as the word. Maybe you’ve heard about the new natural gas boom and wondered what shale gas and coalbed methane mean for our energy needs.

As conventional oil and gas sources run out, and the cost of extraction rises, we are in the middle of a big push to exploit fossil fuels by ever more extreme means. However, not only does climate science demand we that we leave these fossil fuels in the ground, there is a growing body of evidence from the USA and Australia, where the unconventional gas industry is far more developed, that there are inherent and unacceptably high environmental and health risks associated with coalbed methane and shale gas extraction.

This short briefing explains why unconventional gas is unsafe, unnecessary and unwanted in Scotland, or anywhere.