Written by Sophie McAdam at trueactivist.com
As the UK Government plots to fast-track fracking, activists in the USA and Australia talk about how the practice has destroyed lives, communities and the environment.
The UK Government is attempting to fast-track fracking by removing a rule that says they must consult with local residents before corporations are allowed to start test drilling.
There are proposals to begin the ecocidal practice of fracking in various areas around the UK, but one place in particular is in immediate danger. The video from British campaign group 38 Degrees details how engineering giant Cuadrilla are to go ahead with plans to frack in Lancashire, a pretty region in the north of England. As one resident points out, “what happens here will affect the rest of the UK.” 
West Lancashire is a place of rolling green hills and flower-filled meadows, where sheep and cows graze happily in peace. Like many other places affected by fracking in recent years, the four proposed sites are pretty, rural, and home to thousands of residents who have vowed to fight the Government and save their land. But will that be enough?
Fracking has already begun in other parts of the world, and the video offers some stark advice from citizens in the USA and also Australia who have already suffered poor health, environmental devastation due to fracking on their doorstep.
One man describes how hydraulic drilling has caused disease in his community: “They have left us with a toxic chemical nightmare,” he says emotionally. “They came in, they took our land, they took our lives, and they destroyed our communities.”
He says fracking has caused children’s noses to bleed and given people strange skin rashes. People’s dogs have even started dying. “We didn’t know it was the gas making us sick- but what I do know is, we weren’t sick before they came,” he says.
Over in the States, a woman explains how local water sources are now contaminated because of nearby gas drilling. “Not only have they fractured the land, they have fractured the community,” she says.
So when Francis Egan, the new CEO of Cuadrilla, claims on camera that “we know it can be done safely,” why should anyone believe him? As one elderly man from Fylde in Lancashire says angrily: “How the hell does he know? They don’t know. Nobody knows. And they are prepared to risk our lives to find out.”
If you feel strongly about this issue, you can help by sharing this video, supporting Lancashire’s fight against fracking, and you can also contacting Cuadrilla’s CEO to tell him your thoughts here. Has your community already been affected by fracking? Please share your story below!
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