Dyspraxic Thoughts on this Fracking Government

This week The Guardian published this post;  

People with autism and learning disabilities excel in creative thinking.

Of course we knew this already, but as my friend said, it's good for other people to know too. They obviously don't mention Dyspraxia, but lets face it who does? This week in a school a learning support co-ordinator asked what is dyspraxia and how do you spell it?!  But I digress and that is another blog another day.

What isn't often talked about regarding dyspraxia and others who learn differently, is that we also tend to have a closer affinity with nature than neuro-normals. We often like to be around animals, and it hurts like a broken heart when I see the countryside being raped for 'development' .  We feel things deeply and the harming of animals or nature is painful, which is why I'm a veggie.

So fracking... In June this year Lancashire County Council very bravely refused planning permission for 2 fracking sites. The Government were not happy and we knew there would be backlash. It's just come, in the form of the Government deciding to fast track fracking planning applications and  this map was published showing the new planned sites. My village, Galgate, is in there along with much of rural Lancaster and beyond.

This truly shocked me, especially when our MP David Morris said it was inevitable and 'we mustn't drag our feet' - well he would wouldn't he!  Luckily for us we have Cat Smith on our side, one of just  a few  MPs in England that oppose fracking.

I took to twitter to find out more and discovered this;

frackfree_eu ‏@frackfree_eu  23h23 hours ago

Why is #England now the only place in #Europe under threat from #fracking? Simple! Because not enough people are trying to stop it! Wake up!

England is the only Country in Europe to still be under threat of fracking! That must be why as a dyspraxic I feel so uncomfortable in my own country, England. We are a pushover. Other countries in the UK stand up and get their voices heard. We politely have a cup of tea!

As a dyspraxic I feel strongly about things, but also I do joined up thinking, we are good at seeing the bigger picture. I'm not neuro-normalphobic - some of my friends are neuro-normal :)  but what drives me nuts is the single issue thinking; great people that are socialists but don't get feminism, feminists that don't get racism, anti-racists that don't understand environmental issues, greens that don't understand class.... You get the picture. 

We understand that we are ALL connected and if you break one bit you damage the whole. 
My big hate is greed, people that put profit before anything else. The beating up of the indigenous Bolivians protesting about the new law allowing oil and gas exploration on their land (backed by the Pope by the way) confirms  that it's all about money. 
It's certainly not about energy.  We know that we can harness the power of nature herself for our energy, but that isn't where this government wants to direct it's resources. 

My favourite all time quote is from a 19th century Cree chief

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realise that we can not eat money"

I am glad to say that we are in an age where there is an increasing resistance to the poisoning of our planet .

I love Nature Speaks, a series of  short films narrated by some of our top film stars. They  have been produced  to remind us that humans do NOT own the earth, it was here before us and it will be here long after we have gone. 

It is our own species that we are wiping out - along with a few other species of course, which must be the definition of madness. 
I do not believe that we have a right to expect to keep living with the rate of wastefulness that we currently do. But we have created a  culture that thinks it can have what it wants, whenever it wants it. And that is having it's own global repercussions as our new communication channels show the huge inequalities - but that's another blog.

For so many reasons, including that I'm pretty sure we don't have a spare planet for when we have poisoned this one, I oppose fracking. 


If you are not sure where you stand, go find out! 


Jane Binnion is a social media and ethical sales trainer based in Lancashire. Her new book The Heart of Sales is now available on Amazon