High Peak protesters take to the streets to say no new North Sea oil field

Whaley Bridge protesters speak out against new oil field plans. Pic submitted

Rosebank is the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, 80 miles off the Shetland coast with the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil.

If approved the UK public would carry almost all the costs of developing the site but the profits will go elsewhere.Carbon emissions from this one oil field would be more than those created by the 700 million people in the world’s poorest countries in a year or the equivalent to running 56 coal-fired power stations for a year.

Campaigner Rachel Winterbottom, is worried about this development and her weekly protests outside Whaley Bridge’s Mechanic’s Institute have started to attract quite a following.

The 31-year-old said: “We are heading for a global climate disaster.

“The world is getting warmer all the time and while these lovely hot sunny days may seem nice it is a scary reality of the damage we are doing to our planet.”

When fossil fuels are burned, such as the oil that would be produced from Rosebank, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air.

Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing global warming.

Already the average global temperature has increased by 1C. Warming above 1.5°C risks further sea level rise, extreme weather, biodiversity loss and species extinction, as well as food scarcity, worsening health and poverty for millions of people worldwide, explains Rachel.

She said: “A lot of people I have spoken to are worried about climate change, but they feel powerless against it, too afraid to do anything in denial, or feel that they need to be an outstanding expert on the issue to do something about it.

“I think something like Rosebank is quite clear cut in the way that it resonates with people as most people are now aware that new fossil fuels licences are bad news and if you’re passionate about seeing a viable future.

“It’s infuriating that at a government level alarm bells about climate change are not ringing.”

A national petition to oppose the new development can be signed here www.stopcambo.org.uk