Backing Fracking joins the retreat from debate
It is interesting that the fracking industry and its supporters like to pretend that they want to engage with people and have a proper debate about the issues. Sadly it seems that that is very seldom the case.
We know all about the recent Lorraine and Ken debate debacle, with its “will they?/won’t they?” excitement, but how many knew that Lorraine’s Facebook group “Friends of Ryedale Gas Extraction” (FORGE) routinely blocks anyone likely to express any opinion critical of fracking. In my own case, they seem to have been so worried that that happened before I posted anything!
The Backing Fracking Facebook page at least allowed opposing views to be posted. I suspect that it was only because they realised that they would have no credibility if they started blocking people (although the admins did get a bit confused and claimed to have blocked me when I stopped posting there for a few months)
However it seems that the discussions about Lorraine and Ken got them a bit lathered up. They posted a link to my article here and as you can see Facebook still indicates that there were 2 responses, but they’ve been hidden by Backing Fracking, presumably as a result of blocking both “Local Farmer” and I from posting because they really didn’t want to hear what we had to say.
The most recent post had whichever PR dimwit was on duty this morning claiming that the Dakota Oil pipeline could carry gas and thus reduce flaring
Local Farmer pointed out gently that it was unlikely that an oil pipeline would be able to carry gas and I followed his post up with a quote making it clear that the pipeline was indeed an oil pipeline and not a gas one.
This seems to have finally spoiled Backing Fracking’s appetite for open debate as he has now blocked both of us from posting and all of our ever so thoughtful contributions to his page have disappeared. You can imagine how hurt we both feel.
It does seem like a terrible shame that the pro-frackers’ main Facebook pages won’t allow themselves to be honest and open groups where opinions were traded. Instead they are now just pro-frackers talking to themselves. They are of course entitled to do this but we thought they claimed to be able to present arguments that trumped ours. We thought they actually believed in their own arguments. Clearly they have now given up on that aspiration and now intend to just pump out one way propaganda.
I am sure all four of the other contributors on Backing Fracking will enjoy agreeing with themselves for a while but it might all get terribly boring now – just like that FORGE page in fact!
