Author Archives: NBASGA

Take a lesson from B.C. on fracking

Date: October 17, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking & Health

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, NB Lung, Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment calling for permanent ban on fracking

Published Oct 17, 2024  •  Brunswick News

There’s a crisis in British Columbia’s health-care system, and it serves as a grim warning for New Brunswick if the province’s decade-long moratorium on fracking is threatened.

Years into B.C.’s work on developing a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry – driven by fracking – we know from experience just how harmful this industry is to our health-care system.

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Fracked Farmland: “It’s a slow kill”

Date: October 8, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking & Health, Land and Property Rights, Landscape impacts, LNG, Pipelines, Real Stories

By Deborah Carr

The public seems largely unaware that the Blaine Higgs Progressive Conservatives (PC) want to restart fracking in New Brunswick. The PCs think we should help Europe transition from coal by selling them our ‘clean natural gas’. And most people do not realize that the Frederick Brook Shale Formation, one of the most highly desired gas-bearing regions, runs through south-eastern part of the province  from Memramcook and Hillsborough to Elgin and Sussex. Just a few kilometres from Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe.

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Science does not support lifting fracking moratorium

Date: October 6, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG, Moratoria, NBASGA

Protections put in place should be relaxed only if further findings emerge providing evidence no harm will result

By Jim Emberger – Special to Brunswick News – Published Oct 5, 2024

A recent Narrative Research poll, commissioned by Brunswick News, on lifting the fracking moratorium noted that the second largest group of poll respondents (19 per cent) replied “I don’t know” to the questions.

That likely illustrates that the success of the moratorium. For ten years it has, ironically, removed the shale gas issue from civic and media discussion.

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It’s time: make the fracking moratorium permanent

Date: September 30, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG, Moratoria, Research & Scientific Studies

Commentary by Jim Emberger
Originally published on NB Media Co-op
September 30, 2024

This election marks the tenth anniversary of the 2014 election, when voters turfed the Progressive Conservative government of the day, primarily over the issue of fracking for shale gas. This followed years of New Brunswick’s largest protests, petitions with tens of thousands of signatures, province-wide educational tours, expert witness testimony, peaceful blockades, a citizen lawsuit, and, unfortunately, a violent police raid on peaceful Indigenous protesters.

The new government assembled a non-partisan citizen commission, which took public testimony, and reached conclusions leading the government to declare an indefinite moratorium on fracking.

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Comments on the Energy Transition Roadmap

Date: June 4, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Clean Energy, climate change, NBASGA, Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, Sustainable Energy Solutions

Context

The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance is a coalition of Anglophone and francophone groups from across the province that has since 2010 pursued two mandates – promoting the transition to a clean energy economy, and stopping the development of unconventional fossil fuels in New Brunswick.

We have done so via public education, formal testimony to government, legal actions, and media advocacy, all based on a foundation of scientific, public health, and economic facts and research.  We certainly consider ourselves major stakeholders in the Energy Transition.

The context surrounding all of our comments is the rapidly increasing harms brought by climate change – the underlying reason for this energy transition.

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Conditions not met on shale gas ban

Date: April 15, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking News

 By Jim Emberger – Special to Brunswick News – Published Apr 15, 2024

The Telegraph Journal’s editorial board advice (Editorial: Drop NB’s gas moratorium, Apr 11, 2024),  to Premier Blaine Higgs, to lift the fracking moratorium, without satisfying the conditions for doing so, was shocking in its lack of both historic and scientific context.

Ten years ago, the provincial government convened a non-partisan Commission of Hydro-Fracturing, which took weeks of testimony from residents, industries, NGOs and expert witnesses from public health and science specialties. This resulted in the Gallant government establishing a moratorium on fracking, which was to be maintained indefinitely, unless several conditions were met.

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From fossil to future: A collective call for renewable energy in Atlantic Canada

Date: April 14, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Most Asked Questions

On Wednesday, NBASGA was one of the co-signers of a letter signed by 28 groups in the Atlantic provinces, demanding that government leaders focus on growing renewable energy infrastructure instead of further fossil fuel development – including LNG and shale gas. The letter was sent to all the Premiers and Members of Parliament of the Atlantic Provinces, plus Trudeau, Guilbeault and Wilkinson.

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Tribute to Dr. Eilish Cleary (1963-2024)

Date: March 24, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Fracking & Health, NBASGA

by Deborah Carr
President, New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance

There are few people in public service who hold my respect as much as Dr. Eilish Cleary, our former Chief Medical Health Officer. To say I’m shocked and saddened at her death is an understatement. We had some wonderful conversations. She was one of my heroes.

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New Brunswick does not need shale gas

Date: March 11, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking and Economics

Commentary by Jim Emberger; Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times Transcript | March 11, 202

In a recent com­ment­ary in the Telegraph Journal, the Fraser Insti­tute’s Alex Whalen sug­ges­ted that the recent mer­ger of gas com­pany Ches­apeake Energy and SWN could be a sign that New Brun­swick should recon­sider its morator­ium on shale gas. He touted its eco­nomic poten­tial.

That same day Reu­ters’ news repor­ted: “Ches­apeake Energy announced plans to cut pro­duc­tion by 30 per cent in 2024 in response to a mar­ket that is “clearly over­sup­plied”. Ches­apeake, which will become the coun­try’s largest gas sup­plier after its mer­ger with South­west­ern Energy, is fol­low­ing oth­ers, includ­ing Com­stock, Antero and EQT, announ­cing cuts to drilling or pro­duc­tion plans.”

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