The UK government has lifted a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) in England. In his statement, new business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg argued that it was in the national interest for local communities to tolerate “a higher degree of risk and disturbance” given the current energy crisis.
Much has already been written about the potential impacts of this policy change. Instead, I want to look at what this decision means on a symbolic level.
Policies have an important symbolic dimension, meaning they can be read as expressing particular messages to an audience. For instance, a policy can signal who we are and what we stand for, where we’ve been and where we should go, ways of living that we should seek to maintain or attain, and threats and opportunities to doing so.
