The official situation in Scotland is that the current Scottish Government is neither for nor against fracking but has introduced a moratorium on fracking operations (but not test drilling) so that the environmental risks associated with fracking can be assessed adequately and discussed with the Scottish electorate. The issue here is that if fracking is going to cause environmental and health damage that is disproportionate to the benefits gained from it, once the fracking has taken place the damage cannot be undone. So best to have an understanding of potential outcomes before the event rather than after.
http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Mor...king-1555.aspx
With regard to the opinion poll results referred to in posting #13 and in the context of the Scottish Government listening to Scottish electorate opinions about fracking in Scotland, as far as I am aware there are no live commercial fracking extraction operations in Scotland. Although Ineos have a licence for test drilling in the Central Belt of Scotland, I do not think that they have started test drilling anywhere in Scotland. Instead Ineos managers have been out on the road trying to influence public opinion by giving presentations about fracking in various locations in Scotland, and trying to sell the idea that fracking would give Scotland economic independence from the rest of the UK through cheaper energy. They even had a stand at the last SNP Annual Conference trying to sell the concept of energy and financial independence for Scotland through fracking.
Therefore I find it a bit difficult to understand why an opinion poll asked Scottish voters whether there should be more or less fracking when there is currently no commercial fracking in Scotland. I also find it a bit difficult to understand how the polling company can put the results forward as being representative of the views of the Scottish people when the questions do not reflect the reality on the ground of no current test or operational fracking in Scotland.
There have been other public opinion polls that have shown that of those people who have a preference, more of the Scottish electorate are against fracking than for it.
https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/20...oes-it-matter/
(The results of the Survation fracking poll are almost at the bottom of the results page)
However, for the Scottish Government to treat opinion polls only in a narrow one dimensional way of either one way in favour or the other way against is missing the point. Apart from opinion polls results being influenced by the way that questions are worded, in a democracy politicians should be paying attention to what everybody is saying including minorities. Therefore the Scottish Government decided to listen to both viewpoints and imposed the moratorium to give time for sufficient scientific evidence to be collated so that objective fact based decision making can be undertaken in due course whether or not to allow fracking.
To my mind, this all seems a sound and democratic way of doing business and I would much prefer that the Scottish approach were to be followed in England.