IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/deveza/v32y2015i5p539-554.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Ingle
  • Doreen Atkinson

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Ingle & Doreen Atkinson, 2015. "Can the circle be squared? An enquiry into shale gas mining in South Africa's Karoo," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(5), pages 539-554, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:deveza:v:32:y:2015:i:5:p:539-554
    DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2015.1044076
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0376835X.2015.1044076
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0376835X.2015.1044076?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:deveza:v:32:y:2015:i:5:p:539-554. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CDSA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.