Activist fashion designer and eco campaigner Vivienne Westwood took a scythe-wielding Grim Reaper along with her to the London home of the Archbishop of Canterbury today, to deliver a Talk Fracking report titled Whitehall’s ‘Fracking’ Science Failure, subtitled “How the government has misled parliament and the public on the climate change impacts of shale oil and gas development in Britain”.
Information about the protest shared with i-D states that “The Conservatives and The Church of England for some time have been ‘singing off the same hymn sheet’ citing the Tory commissioned Mackay Stone report as their reason to Frack England”. The Mackey-Stone report has been described by The Ecologist magazine as having been “totally discredited,” saying that “it uses misleading figures that understate the methane emissions from fracking”. Westwood is calling for an immediate moratorium on fracking, saying in a statement, “Given this evidence, any other position would be highly irresponsible”.
“The Tory party are now isolated as the only party that are support this filthy Fracking industry,” Westwood is reported to have said as she handed over the report, adding, “The Church must wash their hands of them”. Information provided to i-D about the protest states that the Church owns 100,000 acres of farmland and that energy company Aurora have been allowed “to assess shale gas potential on land near Ormskirk, Lancashire”.
Vivienne Westwood’s son Joe Corré adds in a statement that, “The Archbishop must not allow the Church of England to be suckered into the Tories grizzly agenda to Frack our Green and Pleasant Land, which is about to be turned into a toxic pin cushion”.
You can read the full Talk Fracking report via The Ecologist.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush
Photography Matt Crossick