IS it me, or is Paddy Keenan’s gullibility troubling?

Can we really believe that the fracking industry and the government are trustworthy and would never lie to us, despite the massive, vested interests at stake?

I’m sure, back in the day, Mr Keenan would have been busy with his letters, ridiculing those concerned about tobacco, lead, asbestos, etc.

As for the present, would car manufacturers ever lie about emissions? Would they dare violate those uncompromising regulations protecting human health? Perish the thought. Frackers also promise uncompromising safeguards that will be enforced with rigour. Just like car emissions presumably.

If it’s all so safe, could someone explain why so much information on fracking is redacted – information on health hazards, plummeting house prices, the full, unedited list of chemicals involved, anything in fact that could threaten the national roll-out, the fracking industry and a government that’s in its pocket! All this would be revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, which the government now wants to repeal.

Cameron justifies fracking as essential for controlling our own energy supply.

Hard then to explain £mega billions on Chinese nuclear reactors, whilst stabbing in the back home-grown green energy industries that would protect the environment and create vital skills and employment.

We are paying the Chinese an obscene amount for nuclear power that won’t come on line until it’s much too late. We must accept, and I do, that green energy alone may not be enough.

But if a fraction of that money went into immediately effective green energy, we would be less reliant on nuclear and carbon polluting fracking. If we are willing to entrust our future energy to the Chinese and risk Chernobyl, Fukushima and the problem of nuclear waste, why can’t we import shale gas from America? Are they less trustworthy than the Chinese? Wouldn’t American shale gas keep the lights on too, and be preferable to the dire environmental consequences of UK fracking?

Whatever your views on global warming, it’s hypocritical to pledge to protect the planet from its consequences and then betray that pledge by pulling the rug on everything that might actually help.

Jennifer Godschall Johnson, Balksbury Hill, Upper Clatford