Fracking & Health

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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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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Premier’s pursuit of shale gas is perverse

Date: February 2, 2024
Author: NBASGA
Categories: Clean Energy, climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics, LNG

[February 2, 2024, NB Media Co-op Commentary by Jim Emberger]

Premier Blaine Higgs’ continuing desire to exploit shale gas and LNG can only be described as “perverse,” which the dictionary defines as “showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.” Higgs referenced LNG development during his State of the Province address on Jan. 25.

“We have so many advantages with our direct access to the U.S. and international markets along with our rich natural resources including wind, minerals, water, forestry, and natural gas,” he said. “That’s where I believe we have a tremendous opportunity to punch above our weight and really impact global emissions.”

His obstinate, decade-long pursuit of shale gas, can reasonably be called obsessive. It begins with his continuing promotion of gas even after citizens voted out the Alward government, which ran on the issue.

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No deal is a good deal to start shale gas

Date: April 23, 2023
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health, Fracking and Economics

Jim Emberger | Commentary | TJ.news | 24 April 2023
(Short form ‘Letter to the Editor’ follows)

Premier Higgs likes to project the image of an experienced business leader, but his current effort to resurrect shale gas reveals that he more closely embodies his other reputation as a, “Data, my ass,” decision maker.

There is unequivocal data in the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change, which shows that we cannot develop any new fossil fuel source if we hope to escape the dire consequences of a warming climate. This data was researched by virtually the entire global community of climate scientists and institutions.

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Unconventional gas is bad for health

Date: February 21, 2023
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health

Letter to the Editor by Jim Emberger, Telegraph-Journal / Feb.21, 2023

While a legislature committee holds hearings on the province’s energy future, Premier Blaine Higgs proposes a return to the past with a shale gas revival. The committee’s agenda doesn’t mention shale gas. Perhaps it has accepted that virtually every global scientific body agrees that to avoid the worst of the climate crisis, new fossil fuel projects must not proceed. Fracked gas and LNG export terminals, like the one being contemplated for Saint John, are huge greenhouse gas producers.

The 2015 moratorium contains conditions that require scientific evidence that threats to health and the environment from shale have been resolved, before lifting the moratorium.

A multitude of public health studies have associated water and air pollution from shale gas with birth defects, cardiac and neurological problems, cancers, asthma and more. Proposed safe distances between gas infrastructure and human habitation exceed current provincial regulations.

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Doctors release new report calling for moratorium on fracking in Canada

Date: January 30, 2020
Author: NBASGA
Categories: climate change, Fracking & Health

Report by Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment highlights serious health and environmental dangers associated with fracked natural gas, including links to birth defects, cancer, air pollution, and global warming

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) recently released a new report calling for a moratorium on all new fracking development across Canada, along with the phase-out of existing fracking operations.

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