All these misgivings may be valid but they are up against a probable gas panic on the eastern seaboard. NT fracking around Daly Waters could inject gas into the new pipeline to Mt Isa. There's talk of extending the Alice Springs pipeline to SA. The southern gas fields like Bass Strait and Cooper Basin are contributing gas to Gladstone LNG export yet they have been worked from the 1960s.

The various substitutes for gas are more expensive. Critics of renewable energy suggest it is a facade for gas generation behind the scenes. It is expected that Finkel's energy intensity scheme will boost gas demand regardless of price. That won't change unless we get energy storage on a massive scale which may not happen. As the $$ signs flash before the NT government plus appeals to help out I think they will relent. If not in 2017 by the early 2020s.

"How do we best respond to such profound threats to our health and land from fracking?" Indeed. Let's start by defining the profound health threats. The article was written by a GP so it should provide a good start and some case histories. Cancer? Poisoning? Infections? Blindness? Nausea? Dementia? Convulsions? General malaise? Keep searching because there's nothing there but fear-mongering. And I bet she doesn't like nuclear energy either.

The author was brought up in a household where she was taught that the end of the world is at hand, in spite of overwhelming evidence that the world is actually doing very well, thank you very much. This article is nothing more than a bland repetition of all the extreme, worst case expectations of the green movement's anti-everything attitude to any form of development which might improve the well being of people.

I wonder what her reaction is to those Aboriginal groups that want fracking to occur on their land?

A health issue eh? So also is poverty, drought and the flow on effects of millions of displaced people! Yes the north and the world needs affordable energy! If not fracked gas, tight oil and or mined coal, what then? Nuclear?

As always these sun worshiping simpletons know what we can't have but rarely if ever identify an affordable alternative! Other than, unreliable wind and solar? [Chanted all day long, every day, as some kind of mind altering mantra?]

Or batteries, all of which may well come with their own environment issues, such as the mountains of toxic waste created by the solar panel factories in China? Similarly, batteries can create environmental problems during manufacture or in land fill etc/etc.

Suggest you go to google tech talks and thorium, where you'll find a short, very informative and interesting talk on green energy, as Super Fuel!

As an irrevocable case for thorium.

Or if you like just type in the case for thorium and then scroll down to a downloadable PDF, but only if you like science, complete factual, fact checked data that includes diagrams and comparative charts, irrefutable evidence etc. The whose who of science bibliography at the bottom is quite impressive!

If reading that causes a strange burning smell to emanate with smoke from ears? Try not to worry too much, given it may well be an overload problem for previously unused cerebral circuits? A feature, it would seem, common to some (around half) green ideologues?

Let's hope it's not contagious? We've quite enough pea brains rattling in their protective thimbles?
Alan B.

How can people who are smart enough to get a medical degree be as dumb as this lady, & all the others who obviously can't understand the mechanics of fracking, or the garbage that a bit more CO2 can cause global warming?

There is a much better argument that CO2 can reduce global temperature, if you actually take the time, & put in the effort to understand how radiation works, rather than follow group consensus.

I wonder if she still believes the old consensus that stomach ulcers are caused by stress? Even more than 97% of doctors believed in that one.

OK, Hasbeen, I'll bite:
What is this argument that you imagine the world's climate scientists are all ignorant of?

And why do you think it hasn't resulted in global cooling?

BTW although stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, most people with the bacteria that cause them don't have them. Stress does appear to be the highest risk factor for actually developing stomach ulcers (in those whom that bacteria's already present).