Home » Energy » ‘Frackademia’ Report Reveals Ties Between Government, Universities, and Shale Industry

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

‘Frackademia’ Report Reveals Ties Between Government, Universities, and Shale Industry

‘Frackademia’ Report Reveals Ties Between Government, Universities, and Shale Industry

While the government has decided to provide tax breaks for the oil industry in the 2015 Government Budget, everyone else has been talking about divestment. Ben Lucas looks at the growing movement and new evidence published this week on the relationship between government, universities and fracking companies.

What started out as a grassroots campaigning tactic to lobby big institutions to stop backing non-renewable energy production, has this week gained large-scale mainstream support.

The Guardian’s “keep it in the ground” has now gathered a petition with over 60,000 signatures to ask the world’s largest charitable foundations to divest their endowments from fossil fuels.  The UN has also come out in open support for the increasingly global movement.

And this week a report published by TalkFracking, a campaign group supported by Vivienne Westwood, on ‘Frackademia’ seeks to raise awareness about the influence of the fracking industry in university research departments.

A ‘Positive View of Fracking’

The investigation, carried out by Paul Mobbs, an environmental researcher, investigated the relationship between the fracking industry and academia. But it findings have done more than that, unravelling the extensive relationship and networks that exist between universities, the government, and the oil and gas industry.

The report contains a Freedom of Information (FOI) request that reveals how oil and gas companies were targeting scientists to provide a more positive view of fracking.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress