How governments’ insane projects are detrimental to all of us
The weekend of February 22nd & 23rd 2014 was a busy one for human and earth ‘protectors’ on both sides of the channel. It kicked off on Saturday with a French team of ‘protectors’ objecting to the Notre-Dame-des-Landes’ airport project, followed on Sunday by the British team of the Barton Moss fracking project, with their ‘gig at the rig’ demonstration against fracking.
Two different causes; one over ground, one underground, both disastrous to the environment, both detrimental to the people.
Notre-Dame-des-Landes is a commune of about 2000 inhabitants, situated near Nantes in the south of Brittany. The airport project has been on the table of the power hungry, egotistic politicians and greedy building contractors since the late 1960’s, with various delays along the way, including the 70’s petrol crisis. For them, at the time, this project was going to be the ‘Air-Rotterdam’ of Europe. Of course, you only have to glance at a map of France to see how idiotic this idea really is , particularly these days, with the French TGV, high speed train, network connecting most big cities, the Nantes-Paris journey can be done in just over 2 hours whatever the weather.
http://www.cartesfrance.fr
Carte Notre-Dame-des-Landes
Does France really need another airport here?
As it stands, the current airport in Nantes could manage up to 25 planes per hour, but the demand is such that it only gets between 10 and 12. Its noise pollution has been estimated, by those favourable to the new project, to be affecting 42,000 people, when in reality it is closer to 5,000. It received ‘Best European Airport’ trophy from ERA Awards 2011/2012.
Is that the type of award given to an airport deemed inadequate and outdated? How strange to fix what’s not broken.
There are 156 airports in France as opposed to 45 in Germany (excluding aerodromes).
Nantes’ current airport covers an area of 320 hectares for 60,800 air traffic movements (planes in / out) and accounts for 3.2 million passengers per year. Geneva, in contrast, covers 340 hectares for 170,000 air traffic movements accounting for 10,000,000 passengers per year. This emphasises that it doesn’t have to be about size when it comes to performance.
The Notre-Dame-des-Landes’ project stinks to high heaven as far as corruption, fiddled financial projection reports and nepotism are concerned, with seemingly undeserving professionals getting promoted to high ranking private or government positions once they have suitably pushed the airport’s agenda forward. Unsurprisingly, and with total disregard to numerous laws protecting the land and water and as a result of such a push, this project was deemed of public interest in 2008. The land required to facilitate it covers an area of 1,650 hectares. The ‘land that feeds us’ is destined to be bulldozed and its farmers and their animals, as well as all other inhabitants, are to be evicted; the public consensus was 63% against this project at the time these plans were proposed
Veni, vedi, vinci
Vinci
Vinci Corporation
A bit too close to insider trading?
In 2010 it was decided that the Vinci Group was to be funding the vast majority of this project. As luck would have it, they also secured the management of two other airports in the region, on top of the contract for the new one, its operation and its maintenance for the next 55 years with a guaranteed 12% return for its shareholders on their investment. They then squeezed in a plan for plenty of chargeable parking spaces!
It would almost appear that the Vinci Group is comfortably in bed with the French Government - literally!
Could it be pure coincidence (I’ll let the reader decide) that in the time running up to this flush deal, a senior Vinci consultant was married to a senior public council planning girl?
Whilst the deal was being concocted, the ‘protectors’ had been opposing the project from the very beginning, way back in the 1970’s. In 2000, they created a ‘concerned citizen association’ACIPA http://acipa.free.fr/index.htm
Those guys were not taken by surprise. They knew who they were dealing with and they saw them coming!
parismatch.com
Anti-Airport Protester's Camp
Since 2010, between 100 and 300 peaceful protectors from all over the country and abroad, have set up camps on the farmers’ private land and have built log cabins and trees houses which get regularly demolished courtesy of the French Police using taxpayers’ money. They live there self-sufficiently and in peace. They are absolutely committed to stopping this area from being bulldozed.
These numbers are attracting the media attention nationally and worldwide.In October 2012, during an extremely violent intervention perpetrated by the French military police, this demonstration became a national outrage changing public opinion to the support of the ‘protectors’. In the following weeks a march w as organised and on the 17th November 2012 around 40,000 protectors united on site against the project.
canalblog.com
French Riot Police Take No Prisoners!
The similarities between Notre-Dame-des-Landes and
Barton Moss are not unusual but they are interesting, especially when focusing on corruption, private interest, and nepotism. Pro-fracking politicians most definitely have a vested interest in the industry, to name one of many, MP Peter Lilley, received $400,000 (Approx. £240,000) in share options from an energy company.For the government, this project is nothing more than a business deal which would destroy the land and the lives of a couple of thousand people. It has become a personal fight for Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault. Apart from his private interests, and those of a select few, there is nothing beneficial to the people in the construction of this airport; hence the rising anger of those who are contesting it and their ever growing numbers.
Barton Moss are not unusual but they are interesting, especially when focusing on corruption, private interest, and nepotism. Pro-fracking politicians most definitely have a vested interest in the industry, to name one of many, MP Peter Lilley, received $400,000 (Approx. £240,000) in share options from an energy company.For the government, this project is nothing more than a business deal which would destroy the land and the lives of a couple of thousand people. It has become a personal fight for Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault. Apart from his private interests, and those of a select few, there is nothing beneficial to the people in the construction of this airport; hence the rising anger of those who are contesting it and their ever growing numbers.
George Osborne’s father in law, Lord Howell, has an extensive portfolio of energy interests. He is part of the British Institute of Energy Economics, which is sponsored by Shell and BP and is involved with a transport company which is expected to tender when the HS2 rail line is built; another costly, pointless, nepotistic project if ever I’ve seen one .
fraw.org.uk
A Tangled Web of Overt Corruption and Vested Interests or Just Coincidence??
The Barton Moss protector’s camp is based on the edge of a private foot path which eventually leads to the Igas site. It was set up late November 2013 to slow down, as much as possible, the delivery of chemicals to the site. The police presence there is disproportionately high. The protectors have had to deal with police violence, lies and illegal arrests without charges; some police being rather malevolent in their actions. They have also had to endure all sorts of weather, mostly cold, wet and very windy. They have behaved impeccably as evidenced in hundreds of You Tube videos. They have done a good job bringing awareness to the local community, despite the main stream media’s effort to promote fracking at every opportunity.
Unsurprisingly, fracking was never part of any of the political candidate’s campaign talks at the last election. Now the lies and deception continue with empty promises of jobs and future cheap energy deals, based on nothing more than ‘estimates’ and‘potential’ it would seem.
http://static.guim.co.uk
Barton Moss Protesters
I had a skim through the British Geological Survey and Department of Energy and Climate Change report of December 2013 titled: “The Carboniferous Bowland Shale gas study: geology and resource estimation” - yawn - Obviously, there is a lot of fancy words in there, and as you can imagine it gets a bit technical. Sadly science isn’t my forte, but when I looked at some of those words they didn’t fill me with much confidence.
Check it out for yourself in the following paragraph:
“3.9. Calculating gas-mature shale volumes (the following in bold is my emphasis)
Some data was not available from the study area, so data from US analogies was used. There is a significant range of uncertainty of the shale volume, and greater uncertainty in the range of free and adsorbed gas used to calculate the total in-place gas volume. No attempt was made to estimate the potentialliquid resource, for which the thermal maturity criteria would result in a different gross rock volume.
https://www.gov.uk
UK Shale Gas Deposits
The calculation of the net gas-mature shale volume in the study area used the following basic screening criteria:
Identification of potentially prospective shale gas units from well information
• Mapping the top and base of units to enter into a 3D model
• Mapping the shale component as a proportion of the seismically mapped unit
• Minimum depth cut-off of 5000 ft (1500 m) below land surface
• Minimum cut-off where Ro > 1.1% (max cutoff of Ro > 3.5% never exceeded)
The volumes of shale in the upper and lower parts of the Bowland-Hodder unit were calculated using the following formula:
Net shale volume (m3) = gross rock volume¹ (m3) x proportion of shale.”
blah dee blah blah blah…
So, as an average layperson I get from that paragraph that we don’t actually know if there is any gas there and how much. Really? Not from what they’ve written above anyway; the wording is nebulous at best. If what is being said in the media about those billions of tons of gas being based on solid evidence then why can’t the BGS use plain wording, because this is a bit ambiguous to me?
And just in passing, have you per chance noticed that they are using a 3D model for those fancy calculations? I do wonder if this is a similar 3D model to the one used by the IPCC, and which figures they kept banging on to us, by any means possible, that by 2013, the Arctic ice cap would no longer be there? Don’t quote me on the date, they cover their tracks, but last time I heard anything about an ice cap, was when some researchers’ ship got ice-bound in Antarctica. Icebreakers couldn’t cope with the ice because it was so thick. It was in January 2014, summer time for the Antarcticans! I guess the IPCC got their figures wrong after all. Makes you think doesn’t it?
http://news.bbcimg.co.uk
Melting Icecaps Anyone?
Anyway, let’s focus. It is clear to me when comparing the Notre-Dame-des-Landes’ airport project with Barton Moss fracking project, that both French and British Governments have been infiltrated by corrupt elements, who whilst parading as ‘public servants’ will do anything to fulfil their personal agenda and act despicably in the process, by collaborating with the corporations, against the very people who they are supposed to serve.
Both French and British Police forces are safeguarding the interests of destructive and polluting industries and despite their oath, use antagonistic methods against the people they are supposed to serve and to protect. They will use force and lies whenever the opportunities arise.
The French police have displayed an enormous amount of violence as evidenced on videos. I don’t wish to encourage any more bad behaviour from the British police, but on this occasion their French counterparts get the medal for being the most violent which is nothing to be proud of, which we can all agree on. But with 5 years running under their belts the French police have had the advantage of longevity and perfected their technique.
Considering and comparing the potential number of people to be affected by the airport with those that will be poisoned by the toxic soup that fracking will deliver, to almost every tap in the country, at our cost via the private utility companies, I am amazed at the general apathy coming from the British public. Protests may not achieve anything all of the time. Once the ‘all powerful’ have set their mind on a golden pot they’ll do whatever it takes to grab it. Why shouldn’t we do the same? More importantly, what works every time, is that group thing, when we are all united behind a worthy cause and realise that so much more is not quite right. We’ve got the numbers on our side and for our sakes we should stop making it easy for them!
http://l2.yimg.com/
Human Chain Protest
Both causes are receiving different amounts of support from the public and the media. In May 2013 Notre-Dame-des-Landes organised a 25 kilometer human chain around the project site. An estimated 40,000 people turned up! This weekend the claim is that between 20,000 and 60,000 participants and over 500 tractors voiced and beeped their concerns in Nantes.
But still, when I mention fracking around me, although some might ask questions and say they’ll look it up, it is mostly followed by a big fat nothing.
I was wondering if companies, such as the Buxton Spring water bottle people, would be concerned that their product might get compromised. I looked on their website and it would appear that I am a bit too late… they’ve been bought by Nestlé. GMO galore! Better steer clear then!
What about small brewers? They need clean water for their beers. What will happen to their treasured recipes once it is flavoured with benzene? It won’t taste that good anymore I guess. They should get concerned quickly because somehow I don’t think the best solution for them will be to join the queue for those ‘100’s of drilling jobs’ at Barton Moss.
If the residue left in my water distiller is anything to go by, our water quality isn’t great right now, but is it about to get totally toxic.
What’s next?
Which country will we have to invade in order to steal their clean water?
So, we have a pointless money pit of an airport and ‘potentially’ an ‘estimated’ ‘uncertainty’ of ‘some prospective’ gas. A large amount of the planet resources are going to get destroyed and several millions of humans and animals to be relocated and / or poisoned.
Are our respective governments really that stupid or could all of this destruction really be part of their controllers’ plan?
If you think they wouldn’t do that, you may have fallen into their trap!
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