Can the circle be squared? An enquiry into shale gas mining in South Africa's Karoo

Abstract

The prospect of ‘fracking’ for shale gas in South Africa's Karoo has generated heated exchanges in public forums and in the media. This article seeks to understand why common ground in the debate has proved to be so elusive. The article divides the parties to the impasse into three camps and examines the ethical positions which seem to inform each faction's standpoint. The article finds that the tensions between the main protagonists’ positions are due to two related ethical ‘faultlines’. The first revolves around the inherent incompatibility of consequentialism with moral absolutism. The second relates to tensions between nature as an instrumental good, and an ethic that treats nature as an intrinsic good. The discussion considers the merits of cost–benefit analysis and whether, at the very least, exploration for shale gas should be permitted. The article concludes by weighing up the preconditions for a rapprochement being reached between the contending factions.

Keywords:

• fracking
• hydraulic fracturing
• shale gas
• Karoo
• environmentalism

1. Introduction

In an atmosphere where a columnist for a leading daily newspaper vilifies ‘green’ opposition to hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) for shale gas in South Africa's Karoo as an expression of ‘the darkest, most fraudulent, murderous ideology ever conceived’ (Business Day, 5 July 2013), it is evident that the fracking debate is close to degenerating into ad hominem invective. When the editor of that newspaper, just a few weeks later, baldly declares that ‘we should be fracking the daylights out of the Karoo’ (Business Day, 5 August 2013) one may despair of sober counsel ever coming to prevail. As the historian David Caute (2013:40) has observed: ‘People no sooner unfurl a banner than they find themselves taken over by those stridently partisan, assertive voices oblivious to reflective doubt and the plurality of values.’

Public debates concerning fracking in the Karoo have generally been marked by sharp confrontation and, while useful, have tended to go round in circles, with the main protagonists seemingly unable to find any common ground. The contours of this debate have been ably outlined by De Wit (2011) in a seminal paper entitled ‘The Great Shale Debate in the Karoo’. The upshot of these stand-offs in public forums is that antagonisms have become ever more entrenched. The effect on open-minded observers, trying to reach an informed opinion on the matter, has all too often been bewilderment, as they find themselves caught in the cross-fire of parties on different wavelengths arguing at cross purposes with one another.

De Wit (2011) observed that there seemed reluctance on the part of South African academics to tackle the moral issues thrown up by ‘energy and the environment'. This article proposes to address that shortcoming. The article will try to bring some clarity to the fracking impasse by dividing the parties to the debate into three distinct camps and then examining the ethical positions, both explicit and implicit, which seem to inform each camp's standpoints. The article will identify the fundamental tensions between the main protagonists’ ‘bottom line’ positions and it will weigh up the prospects for a rapprochement being reached between the contending factions. A comprehensive evaluation of the validity of the arguments reproduced here would run to several volumes and is, for the most part, beyond the scope of this discussion, where the intention is primarily to lay bare the moral impulses that underpin the various arguments.

2. Anti-fracking activism

The first indications that something was afoot in the Karoo regarding the mining of shale gas began to appear in the media in July 2010 (TimesLive, 2010). To say this came as a shock to the people of the Karoo would be an understatement (Marais & du Toit, 2013:142). Even David Hallowes’ (2011:148 and 181) comprehensive survey of the energy sector in South Africa, published a year later, made only two passing references to ‘hydraulic fracturing’.

In a nutshell, fracking is a technology ‘that involves injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressure, shattering shale rock layers deep underground to release methane’ (Marais & du Toit, 2013:142; see de Wit [2011] for a more technical exposition).

Initially it was announced that Sasol intended exploring for shale gas in the Karoo, although this headline was a little misleading in that ‘Karoo’ was used as being synonymous with the ‘Karoo Basin’ – a geological entity which, while it subsumes the region known as the Karoo, also extends well beyond it. Early in 2011, notices were placed in the local media about a public participation process led, to its credit, by Shell Oil & Gas (Graaff-Reinet Advertiser, 2011). A speedily convened group of concerned Karoo stakeholders subsequently launched the Treasure the Karoo Action Group to monitor developments and to oppose untrammelled fracking in the Karoo (Du Toit & Dugmore, 2011). Thereafter, civil society in and around the Karoo mobilised with incredible speed, assisted by the latest technologies of social networking, and in a manner that bears comparison with the new phenomenon of ‘crowdsourcing’ (Brabham, 2013). In November 2011 Sasol withdrew from its concession on the grounds that drilling in the Karoo Basin would not be economical (Karoospace, 2013).

The Treasure the Karoo Action Group is the embodiment of what Judt (2010:216) characterises as ‘the confident civic life’ and those who decry its efforts as self-serving might want to ask themselves what sort of civil society they would like to see prevail in South Africa. As the philosopher Roger Scruton (2012:23) observes:

sentiments of territorial attachment … have helped to maintain an inherited equilibrium that is both social and ecological; and their repudiation in recent decades is one major cause of the growing [environmental] entropy  …  Indeed, it is only at this local level that it is realistic to hope for improvement.

Abram (1996:267) voices the concern that we too readily throw in our lot in with nebulous political abstractions at the expense of ‘defending the actual places that physically sustain us'.

3. Preliminary remarks

The one epithet that crops up repeatedly in the shale gas literature is ‘game changer’ (see for example Gleason, 2013; Hartley, 2013; Moolman, 2013a:34; Shell SA, 2013; Van Tonder et al., 2013:1). As per Moyo (2012:184), ‘shale gas has been heralded as a potential game changer in the energy sector'. There are, however, several games in play, all the way from geopolitical power manoeuvres down to local infrastructural questions, and the open question is whether any of these changes will necessarily be for the better. Levi (2013:32 and 189) speaks of geopolitics being turned ‘on its head’ by shale gas and holds out the possibility that increasing energy self-sufficiency worldwide could see the onset of a sclerotic world trading system with ‘globalisation starting to run in reverse'. In such a ‘game changing’ scenario it is not clear who the winners would be – and who would be the losers. Ferguson (2012:150) points out that, in so far as fracking in the United States could lead to a relaxation of that country's current hegemony in the Middle East, the rush to fill the vacuum could result in any number of globally destabilising outcomes – ‘it is when empires retreat, not when they advance, that violence reaches its peak'.

Fracking is a generator, par excellence, of ‘known unknowns’ (Ferguson, 2012:143) and this renders otiose much current debate about the finer details of fracking. The situation is exacerbated by the evasiveness of the South African state as to its intentions. As Treasure the Karoo Action Group's Jonathan Deal observes: ‘the ANC has allowed the decision about shale gas development to become mired in secrecy and misinformation. And, with the exception of certain maverick statements by various ministers, the ANC has been largely absent in this debate’ (TKAG, 2013).

This air of official inscrutability is profoundly unsettling. What proportion of the Karoo might, in principle, be given over to fracking? In theory Shell SA has 90 000 sq. km available to it, while Falcon and Chevron have a further 30 000 sq. km, followed by Bundu with a 3000 sq. km piece of the pie (Du Toit, 2013). What kind of a ‘footprint’ should the one million inhabitants of the Karoo expect fracking to make? Shell (2013:20) says it will be ‘very limited'. Does this mean 0.5% of the Karoo's 400 000 sq. km – or 20%? Can Vegter's (2012:63) claim that fracking will be ‘nigh on invisible’ in the Karoo be believed? The photographic evidence to date suggests otherwise, as do technical environmental impact studies (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014:119–29). This is a factor that could significantly affect people's positions. It need not wait for the results of exploration, to be answered in principle. Again, will fracking be allowed to trump whatever other uses land is being put to – the Square Kilometre Array being a prime example (Ingle, 2012)? Fracking does not seem conducive to other land uses apart from the industrial – that is to say, it is likely to foreclose other possibilities, perhaps for decades to come (Council of Canadian Academies, 2014:119–29). This is one of the great advantages of tourism, for example – that it rarely altogether ‘crowds out’ other livelihood options but tends to be supervenient upon them. Indeed, tourism may result in an increased variety of complementary, productive land usages. But fracking is inimical to tourism. In the absence of any official guidance on these issues it is little wonder that many activists fear the worst. Moyo (2012:187) strikes a note of warning about fracking's creeping ‘footprint’ when she cautions that: ‘Shale wells tend to have fast depletion rates and poor recovery rates … many more shale wells are needed to generate the same amount of energy resource as one conventional oil well'.

Moyo (2012:186) is also sceptical about the hype being generated around shale gas. According to her, ‘Much of the euphoria that surrounds shale and its prospects for transforming the energy sector is predicated on overly optimistic theoretical scenarios.’ To further dampen potential euphoria it must be stressed that South Africa's reserves of shale gas ‘remain unproven’ and ‘there is still a lot of work to be done to prove that the [estimated] reserves exist’ (Moyo, 2012:185; and see ERC, 2013:17; Moolman, 2013b:85, 2013c).

Advocates for fracking routinely accuse their adversaries of being swayed by emotion, of not couching their arguments in terms that the dispassionate pursuit of scientific objectivity deems appropriate. Environmental activists tend to react defensively to taunts of being ‘unscientific’ and stoutly maintain that they are every bit as scientific as their interlocuters. Although this is frequently the case, they need not feel so slighted by their antagonists’ aspersions. As the celebrated biologist Edward O. Wilson (1998:116) has pointed out: ‘Brain scientists … have established that passion is inseverably linked to reason. Emotion is not just a perturbation of reason but a vital part of it.’ And, as Scruton (2012:40 and 72) observes: ‘the truth of a proposition is often the least important among the many motives for believing it … science does not end our disagreements, even when they seem to be disagreements about the facts'. The same might be said of economics in so far as it styles itself as a science.

There are, however, further difficulties with being ‘scientific’. Jacques Barzun (2000:751) writes that:

 … despite the conscientious work of many trained minds, the reports of ‘science' on a wide range of subjects are contradictory … and the laity cannot decide what to believe: global warming, … additives to food, genetic tampering – an intelligent opinion about them cannot be formed. And when there is evidence that business and politics affect more than one ‘scientific' pronouncement, gone is the confidence in science.

A very substantial share of world gross domestic product is thought to be attributable to the ‘persuasion industry’ – ‘“sweet talk” is a key component in the contemporary economy’ (Alvesson, 2013:25). For Roebert (2013:3–4):

the upshot is that people hardly know right from wrong. So many currents and counter-currents of information and pseudo-information are being spread across the internet … that the buzz and chatter … are likely only to increase our confusion. It's hard to recall that there was actually a time when deception, in order to succeed, had to work in the dark.

4. The moral case for fracking

An overtly moral case was made for fracking by the then-Minister for Energy, Dipuo Peters, who said, on Ascension Day 2012 that:

it would be wrong for us not to use the resources that God left us with [when He ascended to heaven]. This is a blessing that God gives us, and that we need to exploit for the benefit of the people … going hungry. (News24, 17 May 2012)

This is an unsubtle, yet seductive, argument which resonates with the so-called Abrahamic traditionalist view (Taylor, 2010:10–12) whereby nature is accorded a purely instrumental value. As per Abram (1996:8): ‘The [Christian] Church had long assumed that only human beings have intelligent souls, and that the other animals, to say nothing of trees and rivers, were created for no other reason than to serve humankind.’ Snyder (1995:237) characterises this thinking as assuming ‘that the natural world is primarily a building-supply yard for human projects. This is what the Occident has said and thought for a couple thousand years'.

The Abrahamic argument is problematic on several counts which – for reasons of space – cannot all be rehearsed here. But one might, with considerably more justice, argue in similar vein that South Africa should exploit its comparative advantage – apropos of the superior marijuana it grows – by exporting cannabis to the many countries that are in the process of decriminalising the recreational use of it. It is, after all, written in Genesis 9:3 that: ‘Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things’ (Gillespie 1997:75). That surely would represent a ‘game changer’ for untold numbers of small subsistence farmers presently ‘going hungry'. Lest the reader take offence at the apparent slighting of a religious tradition, it must be pointed out that Judeo-Christian attitudes to the environment have been extensively revised in recent decades and have long since transcended the crude Abrahamic ethic reproduced here (Suzuki, 1997; Taylor, 2010; Christie, 2013). In 1991 the Archbishop of Canterbury said that: ‘The eleventh commandment is that the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, thou shalt not despoil the Earth, nor the life thereon’ (Gillespie, 1997:71).

Another objection is that the Minister's reasoning constitutes an instance of the ‘naturalistic fallacy’ first articulated by the philosopher David Hume. This involves deriving an ‘ought’ statement from an ‘is’ statement. Hume said, ‘that no description of the way the world is (facts) can tell us how we ought to behave (morality)’ (Orr, 2011). As per Singer (2011:4), we cannot ‘identify normative truths with facts about the natural world, whether about our biological nature  …  or about what we would approve of under some set of specified conditions, or any other causal or psychological fact'. To resort to an analogy: if the trees in an orchard are laden with ripe fruit (the ‘is’ statement), it might be said that we ought to harvest the crop. But this does not necessarily follow – there could be good reasons for leaving the fruit on the trees. The same holds true for arguments from possession of a natural resource to saying it ought to be exploited.

As an energy source, shale gas is said to be ‘only half as bad for climate change as coal’ (Levi, 2013:97) in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions. This is a factor that has been warmly contested (Howarth et al., 2011:679; Vegter, 2012:57–60; Ingraffea, 2013; Levi, 2013:102–3) but it warrants environmentalists’ careful consideration. There is a body of opinion that is unimpressed by the continued use of any form of fossil fuel (Levi, 2013:80), and that will only settle for zero emissions as proffered by ‘renewables’ such as wind and solar-generated power. This cohort advocates immediate, radical action to combat climate change and sees any dalliance with alternative fossil fuels as window-dressing procrastination, akin to ‘closing the stable door after the horse has bolted’. The climate change threat is deemed to be too pressing to waste time and resources on half-measures. Yet there must remain good moral grounds for replacing coal with shale gas (NPC, 2011:143). If, for example, a smoker just cannot kick the smoking habit, perhaps halving their cigarette consumption is the next best, albeit imperfect, outcome one could hope for?

Is economic growth, counter-intuitively for some, ultimately beneficial for the environment? In that case we should do whatever is necessary to increase levels of affluence throughout society. Such views were advanced by Julian Simon (1996) and later by Bjorn Lomberg who argued that the richer a country is, the better it protects its environment (Kealey, 2009:272). Ridley (2011:281) says much the same and ascribes the opposing view to an unwarranted pessimism. For Ridley, ‘the whole point of human progress’ is that ‘the world will not continue as it is'. To assume ‘that the future is a bigger version of the past’ is a false extrapolation. Vegter (2012) also deplores the sort of environmental alarmism that pessimistic assumptions generate. Scruton (2012:14) finds that ‘serious poverty is a major cause of environmental degradation … a certain level of prosperity is necessary if people are to free the energy and resources required to protect their environment'. Complications may arise, however, depending on the catalyst for this economic growth. As Scruton (2012:31–2) also points out:

enthusiasm for free enterprise is seldom tempered by any recognition that free enterprise among citizens of a single nation state is very different from free enterprise conducted by a multinational company, in places to which the company and its shareholders have no civic tie.

Compounding the problem even further is the unfortunate situation that where ‘enterprise is the prerogative of the state, the entity that controls the law is identical with the entity that has the most powerful motive to evade it’ (Scruton, 2012:8). In theory then, increased affluence might well conduce towards better care for the environment but much depends on the probity of the generators of that affluence.

There are two mutually related trump cards that will almost certainly be played in the ‘fracking wars’ – building a diverse and resilient energy portfolio (Levi, 2013:199; NPC, 2011:144), and national security achieved via a reduced dependence on imports. These are classically the sorts of outcomes that nation-states, rightly or wrongly, think they ought to strive for. The trouble with scaremongering appeals to the collective good, especially where national security is invoked, is that they can be, and sometimes are, used to justify virtually any course of action no matter how atrocious or reprehensible.

Two cards that the State has already put on the table are the ‘economic growth’ and the ‘job creation’ gambits. These ‘carrot cards’ are intended to demonstrate a commitment to making good its perennial undertakings to the electorate in these respects. Yet neither of these desiderata is a foregone conclusion. Apropos of increased gross domestic product, Mills (2010:203) has pointed out that by some estimates Nigeria would be some 20% better off today were it not for its oil industry, which has had the effect of severely stunting the private sector. Thus a natural resource can function as a national liability. It is almost impossible to predict how many direct jobs the shale industry might create – or destroy. But whether these jobs would be awarded to already existing Karoo residents seems doubtful (see Gleason [2013] for an account of how ‘hundreds of Chinese labourers’ have supplanted ostensibly insufficiently skilled local labour in KwaZulu-Natal). In so far as local economic multipliers and indirect jobs (‘the service industry’) are concerned, the effects of a shale gas industry could be very considerable (Levi, 2013:26; Shell SA, 2013). Just how sustainable such jobs would be remains to be seen, however (Milton & Dean, 2010). Much also depends on what sort of time horizons are invoked. Will the state look no further than the next couple of elections, or will it take a longer view? If so, how long? Twenty years? Fifty years? The short-termism of political expediency rests uneasily with the ‘long wave’ nature of environmental events.

To summarise: the moral case for fracking is an instrumentalist one (nature exists for human benefit) that, with a strong admixture of duty, lays stress on how government ought to do whatever is necessary to promote economic development, job creation, and national security. Human need trumps all. In so far as human need is satisfied by environmental integrity, meeting this need will be contingent on whatever resources State prosperity (taxation) frees up to restore the environment in the aftermath of fracking operations. This is consistent with moral consequentialism whereby the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined according to the desirability, or otherwise, of its outcomes.

The moral stance of the exploration companies is very straightforward. They have a mandate from their shareholders to make money and that is the imperative which governs their operations. They also have a duty to obey the law and thus take their cue from the government of the day as to what is, and what is not, permitted. They would also be bound by whatever codes of business ethics they may have voluntarily committed themselves to. Any corporate social responsibility programmes are entirely incidental to their raison d'etre – these companies have no moral obligation to provide such goods.

5. The moral case against fracking

According to Levi (2013:46) the biggest challenges attendant upon fracking might not be those that, in principle, can be solved by technical means – disposal of toxic waste water, for instance – but rather the ways in which communities are adversely affected: ‘Natural gas development can be an enormously disruptive activity. In places … that lack a large number of properly trained workers, the hordes of young men who move in … to work in the industry’ can disrupt local communities. As though this was not vexatious enough, Levi (2013:2) relates his encounter with ‘the hundred decibel fury of the [drilling] operation’ prior to the 10-storey rig being moved to make way for an endless procession of trucks which, ‘for a couple of weeks near each well … drive around twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, disturbing neighbourhoods and sometimes wrecking inadequate roads’ (Levi, 2013:47). Quite how the authorities in the Karoo would provide services for an uncontrolled influx of work-seekers, without prejudicing local interests, is an open question. Should people's constitutional right to an environment which is not harmful to their health be vitiated by fracking on the grounds that the state may grow wealthy enough to discharge its constitutional obligations elsewhere?

Fuller (2008:84–5) evokes a nightmarish picture of landscapes ‘indelibly’ ravaged by fracking operations in Wyoming. She also speaks of ‘the depression and lawlessness that comes to communities that have been blessed with the dubious gift of nearby mineral wealth'. Such a community ‘experiences an increase in crime, drug use, alcoholism, violence, and cost of living, and a decrease in just about everything good except, arguably, money'. This is a quintessentially local problem. It is the kind of fallout that prescriptive newspaper editors and bureaucrats in Gauteng are comfortably far away from. There seems to be every likelihood that fracking will leave a trail of social dysfunction in its wake. Shell speaks of plans to ‘develop the entrepreneurial and life skills of the youth’ in the Karoo but evidently makes no provision for the kind of remedial social work that is going to have to be done within its communities (Moolman, 2013c:9).

For the pro-fracking cohort, however, poor communities in the Karoo would prefer to take their chances with whatever windfall wealth might come their way – and address the social consequences later, if at all. The historian Emma Griffin (2013) has shown that, contrary to the received wisdom of Engels, Toynbee, and a host of left-leaning scholars, the agrarian working class during the Industrial Revolution were completely indifferent to the charms of the English countryside. They could not get off the land fast enough to throw in their lot with Blake's ‘dark, Satanic mills’ where the pay was (relatively) very good and where they could even find employment for their small children. This is a line of argument broached by Vegter (2012:79), who says that ‘the thousands of rural poor’ who are in dire need of employment are not being listened to, and would, by implication, welcome fracking with open arms.

This raises delicate, complex issues concerning the desirability, or otherwise, of paternalism in governance (‘the nanny state’). As an example, and in so far as local communities benefiting from resource extraction is concerned, Fioramonti (2013:158) cautions that:

a resource-rich subsoil has become the ultimate curse, as extractive industries have been willing to do whatever it takes to secure profits at the expense of local communities. Paradoxically, most societies endowed with a wealth of natural capital have become the poorest in the GDP [gross domestic product] world.

Is the sub-text of Fioramonti's warning a paternalistic directive to refrain from resource extraction? If so, does its paternalism warrant dismissing it out of hand?

As in the United States, it is the case in South Africa that ‘the biggest environmental concern [comes] down to water’ (Levi, 2013:45). Misgivings have also been expressed about the chemicals that will go into the fracturing fluids. Here again, as with the question of shale gas emissions, it is difficult to find anything approaching scientific consensus (see Van Tonder et al., 2013). Whatever hazards are identified by scientists are countered by assurances from industry that, although the existence of the hazards is acknowledged, the risks of their coming to pass are minimal. Research conducted by Du Toit (2013) reveals that ‘of the 34 sizable towns within or close to the Karoo Basin's shale gas exploration concessions, 31 depend wholly or partially on underground aquifers for drinking water'. It is not necessary to enter into the minutiae of this debate to see that any ‘accidents’ would be nothing short of catastrophic and their blight might bear comparison with the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl. There are of course also serious concerns about noise, air, and light pollution (Moolman, 2013c).

Levi (2013:4) recounts that in the United States, for the anti-fracking lobby: ‘Drilling … for new oil and gas [seems] so patently foolish … so transparently insane … that only special favours and borderline corruption could explain why anyone would allow it to advance'. Much the same sentiments are felt by many of those who oppose fracking in the Karoo. For this constituency, an ethic that valorises the intrinsic value of nature – a good in and of itself – is the only one which conduces to nature functioning as an instrumental good for humans. This is to argue that damage to the environment cannot but redound to the ultimate harm of humans.

For Socrates, wrongdoing could only arise out of ignorance because wrongdoing harms the soul and no one in their right mind would knowingly harm their soul. Something similar pertains where humans are believed to be of nature, and not simply contingently in it – only the ignorant or the insane would damage the environment. The end can never justify the means if the means are inimical to environmental health (see Gillespie [1997] for a full treatment of these considerations).

By way of showing how ‘strongly held moral beliefs’ come to trump arguments predicated on economic expediency, Kellert (1997:144) adduces the fact that every year untold millions of surplus cats and dogs are incinerated and yet ‘proposals to ship this excess to hungry people around the globe elicit almost universal scorn and rebuke'. Similarly, proposals to harvest ‘surplus’ whales are met with outrage because ‘whales no longer represent a material resource'. Should New York's Central Park be given over to real-estate development on the grounds that it is just too valuable for mere recreational purposes (Kellert, 2012:92)? What price breathing space in the megalopolis?

Another philosophical ‘hard case’ is advanced by Thomas Nagel (2012a), who points out that we would be appalled at the notion that we should grind up our dead family members for pet food even though, if this practice was institutionalised, it would make good economic sense, especially for indigent households. Without, of course, wishing to equate such a hypothetical scenario with fracking, it is nevertheless the case that for very many people, whereas remote, pristine environments once represented an ‘open Sesame’ to entrepreneurial capital, this form of heedless plunder is no longer to be countenanced. For these people, emotional and otherwise, such cavalier appropriation constitutes the straightforward violation (or rape, to put it bluntly) of a sacred trust (Suzuki, 1997). They will not be party to Faustian deals which sanction such activities, no matter what the economic rationale.

For Niall Ferguson (2012:136), ‘mineral wealth has been revealed to be as much a curse as a blessing’ for those nations so ‘fortunate’ as to possess it. Concerning the ‘resource curse’ it is instructive to note that:

Japan … became the second richest country in the world in the twentieth century without significant natural resources, and some well-endowed countries have not been able to turn their natural resources into national wealth or power … To the extent that [natural resource] wealth leads to corrupt institutions … it may inhibit the development of national power. (Nye, 2011:62)

Ridley (2011:320) notes that ‘African countries are often also cursed by sudden windfalls of rich mineral wealth … which serve only to corrupt democratic politicians, strengthen the power of dictators, distract entrepreneurs, spoil the terms of trade of exporters and encourage reckless state borrowing’ (also see Collier, 2010).

It was in fact in the natural gas sector in the 1960s that ‘the well-known “Dutch disease” phenomenon was first observed', whereby ‘monetary windfalls that accompany natural resource discoveries adversely distort a country's currency by making it stronger and thus devastating the export sector and increasing domestic unemployment’ (Moyo, 2012:198–9).

To summarise: the anti-fracking lobby insists on the state making good its constitutional obligations vis-à-vis individuals’ right to an environment that is not prejudicial to their health. It believes that it would be irresponsible to gamble with the environment (most especially with its water supply) and it invokes the Karoo's environment as an intrinsic good which must not be sacrificed on the altars of political and economic expediency. This is consistent with moral absolutism, whereby certain actions are always wrong quite irrespective of their outcomes.

6. The middle ground

Those who are still non-committal about fracking in the Karoo tend to advance two justifications for this. The first is that there are just too many imponderables at play. Arguing on the grounds of ‘known unknowns’ serves no practical purpose. Until such time as exploration has confirmed the extent of the Karoo's shale reserves, and the economic viability of retrieving them, the fracking debate is premature. As de Wit (2011) says, ‘should we not at least find out what we have in our own backyard?’ It goes without saying that this is certainly the view of a range of lobbyists and analysts who are doing all they can to twist the arm of government into giving permission for exploration to commence (Moolman, 2013c:8–9). On the face of it, however, this is not an unreasonable suggestion, from the middle ground's perspective, and there is nothing especially normative about it. De Wit (2011) also makes the useful point that exploring for shale gas could be linked to a simultaneous search for new water reservoirs. But this does imply that exploration licences should be granted and there is a moral argument against this that can be elucidated by the analogy which follows.

For those against exploration, permission to explore for shale gas is like saying bank robbing is forbidden until it can be ascertained whether the bank has enough cash to warrant robbing it. This is tantamount to saying: ‘we agree that in principle crime is wrong but if it should be found to pay dividends we reserve the right to abandon our principle'. The moral dimension in this case is that there are absolute truths that do not admit of being relativised – either fracking is wrong, or it is not. If wrong, then there is no latitude for any ‘it all depends’ arguments. Those who would await the results of exploration to make up their minds are tacitly assuming a consequentialist stance – in terms of the analogy, if crime can be shown to pay ‘let's go for it'. This analogy is, of course, not intended to insinuate that exploration is on a par with any sort of criminal activity, although many activists would certainly condemn it as an environmental crime.

The second justification broached for occupying the middle ground is that fracking in the Karoo should be subjected to a thoroughgoing cost–benefit analysis, taking all factors into account, and that until this has been performed it is pointless to engage in disputes over isolated facets of the ‘big picture’. This too is a pragmatic approach that, on the face of it, is entirely reasonable, but once again moral objections can be brought against its tacit consequentialism.

The unsatisfactoriness of cost–benefit exercises involving the environment is a constant refrain in the literature. The notion of formal cost–benefit analysis arguably originated with Jeremy Bentham, the founder of utilitarianism in the early nineteenth century. In accord with his Greatest Happiness Principle, ‘every rule, practice or institution in society should … be subjected to an objective test as to its value or utility – in effect a cost-benefit analysis’ (Norman, 2013:243). What was at issue was ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ which was ‘the measure of right and wrong’ (Norman, 2013:243).

This was not therefore an analysis denominated by costs and benefits expressed in monetary terms. An intractable problem that has hobbled utilitarianism from its outset is the impossibility of deriving a universally agreed metric that quantifies human happiness. As Thomas Nagel (2012b:15) points out: ‘One of the things that drive the various reductionist programs … in spite of their inherent implausibility, is the lack of any comprehensive alternative'. Although Nagel is primarily referring to attempts to reduce mind to matter, his observation is equally apposite to efforts to reduce the social–environmental nexus to the financial. As Nagel (2012b:13) elaborates:

The conflict between scientific naturalism [for which we may substitute ‘economics’] and various forms of antireductionism is a staple of recent philosophy. On the one side there is the hope that everything can be accounted for at the most basic level by [economics] … On the other side there are doubts about whether the reality of such features of our world as [the social and environmental] can be accommodated in a universe consisting at the most basic level only of [economic calculus].

Such a reductionist exercise appears as an attempt ‘to reduce the true extent of reality to a common basis that is not rich enough for the purpose'.

Advocates for reduction would protest, on pragmatic grounds, that although economic reductionism is not ideal it is the best tool we have for decision-making. For the anti-reductionist, however, this is the reductionist's problem – not the anti-reductionist's – and the onus lies with the reductionists to devise a metric that better captures the richness and complexity of life. One has only to read of the ‘mess’ occasioned by academic journal ‘impact factors’ to appreciate how ill-conceived metrics, driven by ‘major business operations’, can assume a life of their own notwithstanding the collateral damage they do (Butler-Adam, 2013). There is no compelling a priori reason why cost–benefit tasks should be devolved to economists as opposed to, say, environmentalists, or even philosophers for that matter. It was, after all, John Maynard Keynes who wrote: ‘We destroy the beauty of the countryside because the un-appropriated splendours of nature have no economic value. We are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend’ (quoted in Judt, 2010:156). In the light of financial journalists advocating fracking ‘the daylights out of the Karoo’ (Business Day, 5 August 2013), we see that Keynes spoke more prophetically than he could have suspected.

To pursue the cost–benefit issue: if a marksman and a swordsman are challenged to a duel, should it be fought with pistols or rapiers? One of the problems with abandoning monetisation as a base for cost–benefit analysis is that of convertibility. Kealey (2009:76) illustrates this with reference to the analogous limitations imposed by systems of barter in the marketplace.

Barter allows traders to swap a pig for, say, twenty ducks, or three banana trees for half a deerskin, but if one pig is worth twenty ducks, and if six ducks are worth one banana tree, and if three banana trees are worth half a deerskin, then how many ducks does a trader get for a deerskin, and how many pigs for a banana tree?

Where cost–benefit denominators are allowed to proliferate, the calculus involved becomes far too unwieldy to facilitate decision-making. Then there is the difficulty of reaching consensus on what variables should feature in the calculus in the first place, not to mention the question of what equivalences should apply between the differing goods to be offset against one another. The scope for disagreement is almost limitless.

Another objection to cost–benefit analysis is the danger that ‘we know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth’ (Judt, 2010:1). Gillespie (1997:39) makes the point that an academic degree ‘that can be bought is not worth buying’ but this does not make degrees worthless. Judt (2010:211–6) goes on to say that ‘there is more than one kind of cost to be considered when deciding among competing priorities: there are opportunity costs too – the things we lose by making the wrong decision'. Apropos of fracking we should note that ‘the economics of sustainable yield is still a primitive art, and the psychological benefits of natural ecosystems are almost wholly unexplored’ (Wilson, 1998:8). Wilson (1984:25), for instance, likens the economic arguments for the deforestation of Brazil as being akin to ‘burning a Renaissance painting to cook dinner'. For Gillespie (1997:41) any attempt to convert the environment to ‘terms that do not apply to it’ is just a giant ‘category mistake’.

A further pitfall associated with crude costing exercises is the matter of time horizons alluded to earlier:

Ecological and evolutionary time, spanning centuries and millennia, can be conceived in an intellectual mode but has no immediate emotional impact. Only through an unusual amount of education and reflective thought do people come to respond emotionally to far-off events and hence place a high premium on posterity. (Wilson, 1984:120)

Values may change with time; a worthless glass of water can come to represent infinite value depending on changed circumstances (Gillespie, 1997:47). Then there is the question of forcing ‘square pegs into round holes’:

Markets have a natural disposition to favour needs and wants that can be reduced to commercial criteria or economic measurement … But what of those goods which humans have always valued but which do not lend themselves to quantification? What of well-being? What of fairness or equity … ? Such considerations mean much more to most people than aggregate or even individual profit or growth … ‘wealth' itself cries out for redefinition. (Judt, 2010:169–71)

In essence then, those who occupy the middle ground are those who are holding the door open to be persuaded by a consequentialist argument provided that it is sufficiently compelling. They do not subscribe to the notion that fracking is indubitably wrong.

7. Conclusion

One of the most enduring faultlines in any system of ethics is that between moral relativism and moral absolutism. According to Snyder (1990:193–4): ‘The critical argument now within environmental circles is between those who operate from a human-centred resource management mentality and those whose values reflect an awareness of the integrity of the whole of nature.’ This fundamental split, while it may well pertain within the environmental movement, can also be extrapolated to society as a whole. It is this moral division that, in essence, may be said to characterise the fracking debate. Is nature for us – or are we for nature? Is nature essentially ‘other’ such that we could damage it without harm to ourselves? Or are we so closely entwined with nature that damage to it must, ipso facto, entail harm to ourselves? Should we even be concerned with ourselves or should we subordinate our needs to those of nature's (Weisman, 2008:240–4)? This question may have sounded absurd just 20 years ago but if we are indeed on the brink of environmental meltdown perhaps it has acquired greater saliency.

Levi (2013:209) cites mutual suspicion as constituting the biggest barrier to progress being made with the fracking impasse. The warring parties are simply unwilling to credit one another's bona fides. As Hallowes (2011:181) drily remarks of Sasol: ‘Rebranding itself as an environmental leader is perhaps [its] greatest innovation.’ The cynical opportunism with which ‘Big Oil’ has sometimes embraced an environmental ethic has not gone unremarked. Levi (2013:206–7), in explaining why environmental activists are so wary of reaching accommodating compromises with oil companies, details how, although oil companies (including Shell) joined a coalition in 2007 in the United States in support of

an ambitious cap-and-trade program to rein in greenhouse gas emissions … , they did not put their muscle behind any serious legislation; when it came time to fight for change, they did not help. In many cases they seemed to be playing both sides of the issue, remaining members of other groups … that were actively lobbying against every climate or oil-saving bill.

Yet the winner-take-all approach to fracking that some activists espouse may be tactically ill-advised. According to Scruton (2012:114–5), conflicts:

can often be resolved by discussion. But they will never be resolved if the parties believe themselves to be involved in a zero-sum game. They will be resolved by negotiation and compromise, and a shared willingness to give way for the sake of good relations.

For the more militant, Scruton's advice will be dismissed as no more than ‘motherhood and apple pie’ and ‘good relations’ are out of the question. But, distasteful as overtures between contending parties may be to the protagonists, some sort of accommodation might be in everyone's best long-term interests. This is why the heat that accompanies the fracking debate needs to be moderated and must not be allowed to turn the debate into an ad hominem slanging match. Where opposing factions demonise one another they will never agree to ‘sup with the devil’ they have made of their adversary.

This article has focused on fracking in the Karoo – a fragile ecological biome that, notwithstanding hubristic urban bias which proclaims the contrary, is characterised by widespread entrepreneurial vibrancy and significant economic potential of an environmentally-friendly nature (Milton & Dean 2010; Marais & du Toit, 2013). Would the same arguments used against fracking in the Karoo necessarily apply in already distressed industrialised environments, such as those of the Free State goldfields? Or offshore for that matter? It is perhaps unfortunate that the debate has remained hitherto fixated on the Karoo as though this was the only region in the country ‘in play’. Perspectives from other exploration ‘precincts’ might serve to open up the range of solutions available to the Karoo. If the state would only play open cards with the public, this might clear the way for a compromise solution that all parties could assent to, albeit under sufferance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.