Fracking is a disastrous and harmful practice, and South Africa's beautiful Karoo region is now under threat.
Tens of thousands of square kilometres of South Africa’s beautiful Karoo region are being threatened by a polluting and extremely water-intensive method of natural gas extraction called fracking.
Numerous instances of catastrophic groundwater and air pollution as well as devastating health impacts on humans and animals have been documented in the USA where fracking has experienced an unprecedented boom in recent years.
This supposedly clean technology is no answer to climate change either. When its entire lifecycle is considered, natural gas produced by fracking has been shown to have a carbon footprint that is comparable to or substantially larger than that of coal.
It’s not too late. Right now, South Africa is in a position to learn from the negative American experience with fracking and to avoid its devastating consequences by denying Shell and other oil and gas companies permission to use it in the country.
