Track 57

Track 57.

While fracking is being used around the world, we’ve seen that there are serious concerns about it.

What’s clear is that fracking isn’t the answer to the growing worldwide need for energy as countries increase their consumption.

Already, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million.

This may not seem very high, but we have to remember that 200 years ago the level was around 280 parts per million, so it’s increased by over a third since then.

As a result, it’s estimated that global temperatures have already increased by almost one degree Celsius.

This increase changes the climate and affects the weather in many parts of the world.

Many places, such as north-west Europe, are expected to become warmer and wetter, and we’ve seen winter storms becoming worse in this region.

Other places such as sub­ Saharan Africa are expected to become hotter and drier, with deserts growing in area and seriously affecting farmland.

Ice in the polar regions will melt and sea levels will rise, which will put coastal cities in greater danger of flooding.

Clearly, we need to reduce, and eventually stop, using non-renewable resources like coal, oil and gas.

It may well be true that tracking can slow down global warming for a while and allow us to develop better renewable resources.

However, these resources, like wind, wave and solar power, are currently far more expensive to develop than shale gas production.

On top of that, they take a long time to develop and start paying for themselves.

Consumers have to pay higher bills to help the development of cleaner sources, and energy companies don’t want to lose customers by asking them to pay more.

Consequently, it’s important for international organisations like the United Nations and national governments to support the development of renewable resources.

The problem here, of course, is that governments usually think of short-term answers to energy problems and not longer-term ones.

They’re afraid that if they reduce the production and use of gas and oil, their economies will do worse than other economies, so they don’t want to take action to increase the use of renewable sources.

As I mentioned earlier, there are many people in different countries, like Canada, the UK and France, who don’t support tracking, especially if it’s going to take place near where they live.

Environmental groups also oppose fracking, not just because they want to protect people living in areas where fracking is planned, but also because they see fracking as part of the old way of doing things, like burning coal, oil and gas and increasing global warming.

They want to see continued action and are trying to persuade governments to develop wind, wave and solar power, as well as other renewable forms of energy, to fight global warming and ensure the supply of energy in the future.

Certainly, coal, oil and gas will run out one day, and if we haven’t developed other forms of renewable energy, we’ll then have serious problems with supplying energy to the growing world population, and the problems of fracking will seem relatively unimportant.