Abstract:The exploration and potential extraction of shale gasbetter known as frackinghas emerged as one of the most contentious dimensions to local environmental politics in the UK. Local residents and environmental activists have raised concerns about health, noise, ground water contamination, seismicity, environmental amenity, and other impacts of the industry on communities. Despite the complexities of shale gas extraction, an emphasis on the local has shaped key dimensions of the debate around the appropriate loca… Show more
“…One way governments, industries, and elements of the press in the United Kingdom have tried to address shale gas debates is to routinely characterise opposing views as a form of “NIMBYism” (Beebeejaun, 2019, p. 778). Traditionally used to describe locally based action groups protesting against a particular development, the term is frequently used to dismiss such groups as “selfish or ill‐informed” (McClymont & O’Hare, 2008, p. 321).…”
Section: Environmental Justicementioning
confidence: 99%
“…As a way to negate rising environmental and community concerns about shale gas and the loss of green spaces, several politicians have publicly stated that such communities were engaged in “NIMBYism.” Drawing on her research with shale gas communities in Lancashire, Beebeejaun (2019, p. 778) has suggested that the label NIMBYism has become a “mischaracterisation designed to discredit potentially legitimate concerns.” In turn, Colvin et al (2015, p. 392) have suggested that most activists have “shared principles,” which are highly “aligned with social altruism.” As Simone again suggested: it’s not because it’s just under a mile from where I live; if it was fifty miles or more away I would still be doing the same thing. It’s not right.…”
Global energy policies embracing a transition to unconventional oil and gas development are hallmarks of many developed nations. Among these, the United Kingdom has framed the development of shale gas as one means to transition from high-carbon fossil-fuel consumption to low-carbon alternatives. Yet the introduction of this industry and recent legislation associated with it have not been without controversy. Communities throughout the United Kingdom are engaged in sustained debates concerning climate change, health, the scale of extraction footprints, securitisation, and governance. Places such as Kirby Misperton, the focus of this article, are representative of many villages where questions abound about the role of justice at all stages and scales of governmental decision-making. Using a legal geographic lens, this article examines narratives among local residents who are actively resisting the arrival of unconventional gas. I consider how the relationships between and among energy transition, policy, and justice have been interpreted by communities and argue for inequity and risk to be addressed in more transparent ways. I contend that highlighting counternarratives remains essential if powerful arguments by governments and others are to be negated. Fundamentally, true justice can only prevail when all stakeholders are considered legitimate and their opinions valid.
“…One way governments, industries, and elements of the press in the United Kingdom have tried to address shale gas debates is to routinely characterise opposing views as a form of “NIMBYism” (Beebeejaun, 2019, p. 778). Traditionally used to describe locally based action groups protesting against a particular development, the term is frequently used to dismiss such groups as “selfish or ill‐informed” (McClymont & O’Hare, 2008, p. 321).…”
Section: Environmental Justicementioning
confidence: 99%
“…As a way to negate rising environmental and community concerns about shale gas and the loss of green spaces, several politicians have publicly stated that such communities were engaged in “NIMBYism.” Drawing on her research with shale gas communities in Lancashire, Beebeejaun (2019, p. 778) has suggested that the label NIMBYism has become a “mischaracterisation designed to discredit potentially legitimate concerns.” In turn, Colvin et al (2015, p. 392) have suggested that most activists have “shared principles,” which are highly “aligned with social altruism.” As Simone again suggested: it’s not because it’s just under a mile from where I live; if it was fifty miles or more away I would still be doing the same thing. It’s not right.…”
Global energy policies embracing a transition to unconventional oil and gas development are hallmarks of many developed nations. Among these, the United Kingdom has framed the development of shale gas as one means to transition from high-carbon fossil-fuel consumption to low-carbon alternatives. Yet the introduction of this industry and recent legislation associated with it have not been without controversy. Communities throughout the United Kingdom are engaged in sustained debates concerning climate change, health, the scale of extraction footprints, securitisation, and governance. Places such as Kirby Misperton, the focus of this article, are representative of many villages where questions abound about the role of justice at all stages and scales of governmental decision-making. Using a legal geographic lens, this article examines narratives among local residents who are actively resisting the arrival of unconventional gas. I consider how the relationships between and among energy transition, policy, and justice have been interpreted by communities and argue for inequity and risk to be addressed in more transparent ways. I contend that highlighting counternarratives remains essential if powerful arguments by governments and others are to be negated. Fundamentally, true justice can only prevail when all stakeholders are considered legitimate and their opinions valid.
“…The Anglo-Australian shale gas company Cuadrilla has only ever explored for shale gas and there has been no commercial production in Lancashire or elsewhere in the UK. However, Lancashire emerged as a location of widespread opposition from 2011 until the UK Government imposed a moratorium on fracking on 2 November 2019 (see Beebeejaun, 2019). Pennsylvania, in contrast, has witnessed significant shale gas exploration from a series of operators, with tens of thousands of wells and a polarised debate given the financial benefits than can accrue to mineral rights holders (Jerolmack and Walker, 2018).…”
Section: Gendered Oppositionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…There continues to be public distrust of the industry, as well as a series of studies examining the negative impacts for local residents living near shale gas sites or affected by the wider industry (Burbidge and Adams, 2020; Fry et al., 2015; Litovitz et al., 2013; Meng, 2015). The anti-fracking protests themselves have drawn increasing attention from scholars with studies have focused on motivations for opposition and the experiences of residents, adding to existing work on environmental activism (see Beebeejaun, 2019; Cotton and Charnley-Parry, 2018; Muncie, 2020).…”
The expansion of fracking, an intensive form of hydrocarbon extraction, has been met with increasing public hostility, spanning a diverse range of interests and political allegiances. However, to date, few authors have engaged with the role of gender and women activists. In this paper, I consider how gender and gendered ideas have been used as a resource to underpin fracking protests in the USA and UK. I find that a problematic gendered binary has emerged that undermined the veracity of anti-fracking protestors’ opposition and aligns with modes of planning governance that valorize universal and objective forms of knowledge. Drawing upon a feminist epistemological stance, I turn to a planning dispute over noise levels in Lancashire, England, to explore the limits to current forms of knowledge production. I argue that specific actors, behaviours, and forms of knowledge become framed as gendered and unreliable in the sphere of technical decision making, diminishing our understanding of the complexities of human experience and subjectivity within spatial planning.
“…Huang & Hsu argue that whilst the park, and the national spatial planning system within which it is embedded, are developed under the goal of sustainable development, this has the effect of sidelining rights and justice concerns at the local level for already marginalised peoples. Building on understandings of the need for more nuanced attention to scale within environmental justice thinking (Beebeejaun, 2019), the Dapu incident demonstrates in a very empirical way how in a newly emerging economy context, national-level sustainability objectives can conflict with local conceptualisations of sustainability and justice. Moreover, the Dapu incident and also the controversy over indigenous opposition to nuclear waste disposal on Orchid Island (Fan, 2017) demonstrate how national-level ideas of planning and policy in the name of progress and sustainable development may run up against indigenous world views; and also reflect the effects of colonisation on knowledge, continuity and land management issues (e.g.…”
This Translations contribution synthesises critical environmental social science research produced in Taiwan and published largely in Chinese. Taiwan is distinctive in east Asia in that it has had, over several decades, a relatively large and prolific community of scholars engaged with environmental justice and sustainability. This research tradition is linked to the emergence of grassroots environmentalism in response to environmental issues faced during Taiwan's rapid industrialisation, and to the democratisation of Taiwanese society from the 1980s onwards. Fuller
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