Fracking shame

In the apparent furore over fracking (your report, 27 January) the question of potential gas price has been ignored. Campaigns against fracking are led by the very wealthy, to whom the costs of electricity or gas are a matter of indifference, by well-heeled environmental organisations, equally indifferent to energy costs but whose sources of foreign funding remain concealed, and by politicians who find apparent regulatory “loopholes” despite the detailed examination by qualified scientists and engineers who failed to detect them.

In 2013, the number of Scots living in fuel poverty reached a new record of nearly one million and 10 per cent of this increase was characterised as extreme fuel poverty.

The invidious choice of heating or eating is faced by far too many. Rationing energy at home increases ill health, with knock-on economic consequences, and, in the elderly, to premature death.

Home-produced natural gas can stabilise the ever-spiralling energy price for heating and electricity and then reduce it; all benefit, the poorest most.

Those on the political left who agitate about fracking should be ashamed and rethink their priorities. People living now are the priority, not some notional view of a supposed far-off future or political point-scoring.

(Prof) Tony Trewavas FRS

Scientific Alliance 
Scotland

North St David Street

Edinburgh