We are seeing deadly heat and fires circle the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns we are fast running out of time to secure a liveable and sustainable future. Without emergency action to stop mining and burning fossil fuels, the world faces an unthinkable 2.8℃ temperature rise.
It’s incomprehensible, then, that many of our politicians support “unlocking the Beetaloo Basin” in the Northern Territory and developing another 48 oil and gas projects across Australia.
“Unlocking” means starting large-scale shale gas extraction. After drilling through 3–4km of rock and aquifers, a cocktail of chemicals, sand and water is forced down the well. This process of hydraulic fracturing is commonly known as fracking. This brings to the surface, and then into the atmosphere, carbon that had been securely stored underground for 300–400 million years.
