The Greens have urged Nicola Sturgeon to stick to her guns on fracking after a former advisor accused her of taking "flight from reason".
Professor Paul Younger, who was appointed to a Scottish Government taskforce to examine unconventional oil and gas extraction, hit out at the SNP leader's comments during the recent election campaign.
Mr Younger said he was “flabbergasted” that all but one of Scotland’s major parties were “trashing” an industry that he said could re-employ North Sea workers in a safer environment.
He added: “The Scottish offshore workforce will simply be abandoned to unemployment or, at best, to far less skilled, less lucrative jobs.
"The only real winner in all of this is Vladimir Putin, who cannot wait to add Scotland to the list of countries that will shortly come to depend on importing gas from Russia."
And he said that the SNP “need not be surprised when any scientist who respects the most basic norms of professional integrity” refuses to work with its ministers in future.
Ms Sturgeon has said that she is “highly sceptical” of the controversial method of gas extraction.
(Danny Lawson/PA)
She recently said that she would rule out fracking in Scotland if there was “any suggestion” that it harmed the environment.
Mark Ruskell, the Green’s environment spokesperson and MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said that the SNP minority government "would be wise to disregard" Professor Younger's comments.
He added: "All the evidence needed to ban fracking and other forms of risky fossil fuel extraction has been clear for some time, prompting bans in other parts of the world. Drilling for more fossil fuel is incompatible with Scotland’s climate change ambitions and the ongoing uncertainty caused by the SNP’s temporary moratorium is distracting from the opportunity to create lasting jobs in alternative industries.
“Professor Younger talks of precarious dependency on other countries for energy sources but that ignores the reality of Europe’s energy future, where countries will share energy to make best use of their resources. Scotland has huge potential to export surplus renewable energy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel