In defence of Transition Marlborough’s meeting about fracking

Sirs,   
I would like to reply to David Chandler’s letter about the meeting on fracking organised by the Climate Group, Transition Marlborough.
 
He said that he came along “assuming there would be a balanced presentation” but instead found that it was “anything but balanced and was just a meeting to give the anti-fracking point of view”.
 
While the title of the talk asked if it is great technology or great mistake, our guest speaker was from Frack Free Somerset, making it clear whose voice we giving air to. We had an explanation of how the technology works and its objectives but of course our speaker was very clear about the concerns of local pollution, particularly to ground water and of methane leakage (methane being a very powerful greenhouse gas). He also illustrated the resulting industrialisation of the countryside.
 
I appreciate that many new areas of the countryside need to site energy producing installations and, on a personal note, I would welcome sensitively placed wind turbines, but not fracking.
 
Jo Ripley
Marlborough