The Bentley Effect Screening in Falkirk

The Bentley Effect documents the extraordinary tale of a community that defied the gas juggernaut - and won.

When the coal seam gas industry staked a claim on the Northern Rivers shire of Australia, alarm bells rang out. A critical mass of people from all walks of life – farmers, landowners, mums, dads, activists, scientists – organised themselves to rally against the unconventional gas invasion. Despite the enormous public opposition, the gas industry and the State Government were determined to see their gas plan through. What happened next set an historic precedent.

Join Brendan Shoebridge, Simon Clough and Ian Gaillard who each played an important part in the Bentley Effect story as they take their documentary around Scotland as part of the Bentley Effect 2017 UK Tour.

With the fight against fracking and unconventional gas in Scotland at a critical stage this year, we invite you to these special screenings to learn first hand how communities can protect themselves against unwanted unconventional gas development.

These events are FREE, though donations towards venue costs would be much appreciated.

Click above on the 'Register' button and then select the screening you wish to attend.

CONFIRMED SCREENINGS:

Monday 15th May: GLASGOW, 7pm at CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD with FrackWatch Glasgow

Tuesday 16th May: FALKIRK, 7pm at Falkirk Trinity Church, Manse Place, Falkirk FK1 1JN with Concerned Communities of Falkirk

Tuesday 16th May: KIRKINTILLOCH, 7pm at Kirkintilloch Miners' Welfare & Social Club, Saramango St, Kirkintilloch, Glasgow G66 3AA with Kirkintilloch Against Fracking and Torrance Against Fracking

Wednesday 17th May: EAST KILBRIDE, 7pm at the Murray Owen Centre, 1 Liddell Grove, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 9AD with RIC East Kilbride and South Lanarkshire Against Unconventional Gas

Thursday 18th May: EDINBURGH, 5.30pm Screening Room G.04, 50 George Sq, University of Edinburgh, EH8 9LH with OurForth Portobello and Tommy Sheppard MP

The Bentley Effect UK Tour is running through May and June 2017. Details about dates and locations can be found here, and you can donate to the tour here. More information on The Bentley Effect film can be found at www.thebentleyeffect.com

BIG DIG Community Gardens Saturday 8 April

Friends of the Earth Falkirk 

The Big Dig 

Bean Row Community Garden  Saturday 8 April  11.3o to 1.30pm
Come at any time during the session to help up prepare and plant our community garden on Bean Row, just off Falkirk High Street.        All welcome

Solidarity with Lancashire from Falkirk Community Groups

A number of representatives from Community groups around Falkirk and surrounding areas gathered at the Kelpies to drink awareness to the Scottish Government Consultation on Fracking and to send solidarity to the communities in Lancashire which are sadly on the front line of the fracking industry at present. The Falkirk event was co-ordinated by Scotland against Fracking 

"Residents across the Falkirk area know what it is like to live on the fence line of polluting industries. There is no such thing as clean fracking. The industry is not needed and not wanted anywhere in the UK and should not be allowed anywhere" Norman Philip, co-ordinator of Friends of the Earth

For more information on the public consultation visit the dedicated website set up by Friends of the Earth Scotland:   WWW.STOPFRACKING.SCOT 

West Bridge Street, Falkirk still on list of shame

“Air pollution from traffic is a public health crisis, claiming thousands of lives each year and particularly harmful for small children, pregnant women and people living in poverty. For people living in an official Pollution Zone or near traffic-choked streets, breathing in toxic air is an inescapable fact of life. It should not be this way, we have the right to breathe clean air just as we have the right to drink clean water.”

               

Friends of the Earth Scotland Air Pollution Campaigner Emilia Hanna

                                                                                                            

Top 7 most polluted streets for Particulate Matter in 2016

Figures in microgrammes per cubic metre (μg/m3).

        Perth Atholl Street - 21

Edinburgh Queensferry Road - 20

Edinburgh Salamander St - 20

Aberdeen King Street - 19

Crieff High Street - 19

Falkirk West Bridge Street - 19

Edinburgh Glasgow Road - 18

The Scottish air quality objective is 18 (μg/m3), so all these sites fail the objective.

The Air Quality (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2002 required this objective to have been met by 2010.

Traffic-derived air pollution, mainly composed of fine particles and toxic gases, has been linked with cancer, allergies, asthma, strokes, heart attacks, restricted foetal development, damaged lung development in children, and more recently, the onset of dementia in adults. It causes 2500 early deaths in Scotland each year, and is second   only to smoking in terms of its mortality impacts.

"It is no surprise that, yet again year after year, West Bridge Street in Falkirk continues to beach the Scottish limit as there is no evidence of Falkirk Council changing the road layout to address the issue.”

Friends of the Earth Falkirk co-ordinator Norman Philip

Robin Hood's Sherwood Forest faces fracking threat from Infos

Ineos to conduct seismic survey for shale gas and could be working within 200m of the 1,000-year-old tree Major Oak, documents reveal...Guy Shrubsole, a Friends of the Earth campaigner, said he expected the move to search for shale gas under Sherwood Forest to become a new rallying point. He said: “I can’t think of anything more iconic in the English mindset to go for. You’d have thought they’d have learnt from the mistakes of some of the other fracking companies to avoid it, but they’ve gone straight for it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/01/robin-hoods-sherwood-forest-faces-fracking-threat