Sir, – Paul Milne (Letters, December 6th) rightly highlights that fracking to extract unconventional fossil fuels is not uniquely damaging, and at least some of the arguments against it apply equally to elements of Ireland's animal agriculture system (not to mention continued extensive licencing of exploration for "conventional" fossil fuels).
However, when he suggests the only alternative to progressively more desperate attempts to prolong our addiction to fossil fuels is to “regress to a Stone Age subsistence” he gets the situation just about precisely back to front. The one sure path to Stone Age subsistence (or much worse) is the fossil-fuelled one we are currently driving ever faster down.
A ban on fracking is at least one tentative attempt to challenge this collective madness, and Minister for Communications Denis Naughten is to be commended for supporting it.
– Yours, etc,
BARRY McMULLIN
Faculty of Engineering
and Computing,
Dublin City University.