A new anti-fracking initiative, Talk Fracking, is currently
touring the country. Their website has a thin veneer of balance, claiming to seek
an "open debate" on fracking, but you don’t have to scratch too deeply to see
their true motivation.
I’ll consider one particular video in detail, which claims
to have “busted” all of the reasons to support shale development in the UK.
Before addressing the substance of the video, however, I
will address the style. Talk Fracking say that they want to open up a balanced debate on
fracking. Yet the video has this strange, childish, mildly insulting caricature of an “industry
representative” to present the pro-fracking case. If you’re looking for a
balanced debate, putting up insulting straw-man caricatures of your opponents is hardly the best
way to start.
