Fracking Madness: “hottest play on the planet” or giant sinkhole for public money?

They just don’t get it. Or if they do, are they are so compromised by donations from multinational oil and gas companies they are prepared to risk both the planet and the financial future of Australians?

Egged on by the toadies in the financial press, the Australian government is pushing ahead with plans to open up the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory to fracking. Make no mistake, this is a carbon bomb. 

If the Beetaloo development proceeds it will unleash up to 1.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, blowing Australia’s Paris targets out of the water. Such is the stranglehold however that the gas industry has over governments in Australia – both state and federal – that they are throwing money at the gas industry when…