Summary
When Professor Averil Macdonald, the chairwoman of UK Onshore Oil and Gas, said that women are opposed to fracking because they don't understand it, the reaction was predictable. She was accused of being sexist, patronizing, misogynistic. But in all the brouhaha what was missed was the difficult moral question at the heart of her argument. Professor Macdonald was citing research that shows only 31.5% of women are in favour of shale gas exploration compared to 58% of men. She argued that while women do accept the rational benefits of shale gas, they prefer to give more weight to their emotional fears about its possible impact. Setting aside the issue of gender, fear has been a powerful motivator in many campaigns such as GM crops, nuclear power, the MMR vaccine and numerous others. Combine that with an understandable streak of nibby-ism and you get an implacable and emotionally charged opposition to progress or developments that could benefit the majority of people in this country. It took eight years to apporve Heathrow's terminal 5; a third runway is being fought even harder and HS2 is yet to get beyond the stage of computer generated graphics. Do we rely too heavily on public opinion? Should we trust politicians more to make the correct decisions on our behalf? Or are we abdicating our powers and responsibilities to a new breed of scientific philosopher-king? Rather than a toxic blend of ignorance and self-interest are these kinds of protest the sign of a healthy and thriving democracy where the voice of the minority is not only heard, but also counts and a reminder that there are values that go beyond the bottom line? Chaired by Michael Buerk with Matthew Taylor, Giles Fraser, Michael Portillo and Anne McElvoy. Witnesses are Ross Clark, David Babbs, Peter Tatchell and Patrick Diamond.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:03.7 | Good evening. If fracking causes as much noise and dust as the remarks made by one of its proponents this week, |
| 0:10.3 | there may be all those demonstrators might have a point. The boss of UK onshore oil and gas said the reason twice as many women as men are opposed to fracking was because they didn't understand it and relied on gut instinct. |
| 0:23.9 | The fact Professor Averill MacDonald is a woman herself, indeed has made her life's work trying to get women to engage more with science, |
| 0:30.5 | didn't save her from a Twitter storm of abuse for being patronising and misogynistic. |
| 0:36.2 | The gender issue has tended to obscure a much deeper political |
| 0:39.4 | and at-rute moral question of how big decisions are made. There are those that think that all |
| 0:45.1 | kinds of major developments that are in the wider public interest, fracking, GM crops, |
| 0:50.4 | ethero, runways, nuclear energy, being stymied by vociferous minorities, either opposed to them on principle or not wanting them at the end of their garden. |
| 0:59.6 | They complain that public opinion relies too much on emotion, too little on evidence. |
| 1:04.6 | In their view, the experts should have more of a say, and politicians should resist pressure groups for the greater good of the rest of us. |
| 1:11.7 | Others say experts and politicians have no monopoly on wisdom, that morality is more than a utilitarian |
| 1:17.7 | calculation of the greatest good for the greatest number, that localism is about human rights, |
| 1:23.2 | and everybody has a right to defend their values and interests in a decent democracy. |
| 1:28.5 | Activism versus progress, our moral maze tonight, our panel, Anne McElvoy, senior editor at The Economist, |
| 1:33.5 | the former Conservative Cabinet Minister Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the RSA, |
| 1:39.4 | and Giles Fraser, the Anglican priest and polemicist. |
| 1:42.1 | Anne McElvoy, are you much of a protester? |
| 1:44.8 | I'm not much of a protester as it happens. |
| 1:47.4 | I perfectly understand why people do want to protest. |
| 1:50.5 | I think what interests me about this topic is someone who spends a lot of their life, |
| 1:54.6 | particularly working for the economist, looking a lot of data and evidence, |
... |
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