ALTHOUGH the referendum has been the dominant debate on the political agenda in Scotland, other issues haven't gone away, not by a long way.

The UK Government recently carried out a consultation on proposals to make life easier for the fossil fuel industry which is keen to begin fracking in Scotland.

This controversial technique involves drilling hundreds of metres below ground and injecting a chemical cocktail to fracture underground rocks and release shale gas.

It has caused huge environmental damage in the US, and has also provoked direct action in the UK when community activists and environmental campaigners joined forces in the Balcombe area in Sussex to oppose test drilling by the company Cuadrilla.

Now, within a week of Scotland's referendum the Tory/LibDem coalition has agreed to pass laws to let fracking companies drill below people's homes without consent.

Even if we ignore the question of whether people under threat from this industry might have been less willing to vote No if this announcement had come a few days earlier, there is a huge democratic deficit in this decision.

The coalition parties have no mandate from their election manifestos to do this, and the decision was taken after a consultation in which an astonishing 99% of people said no to the Government's plan.

I know that consultation exercises aren't designed to examine the full range of public opinion - only those people who choose to take part are heard.

But with such a negligible level of support from the people who did respond, and clear evidence from opinion polls that the public as a whole opposes the Government's plan, there is a clear need to stop and think again.

No doubt the UK Government believes that exploiting shale gas is important enough to force the issue through against public opinion in this way.

The effect of course will be to add massively to the existing stocks of fossil fuels available to us, at a time when it is clearer than ever that we can't afford to keep burning the stuff.

The recent climate summit in New York has reminded us yet again of the profound threat we face if we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Yes, private companies will make a lot of profit in the short term, and some landowners too will laugh all the way to the bank.

But the legacy the rest of us are left with will be a planet teetering on the brink of disaster.

Every one of us, every community, every economy, and every species we share this world with depends on the life support system that climate change is placing under unprecedented pressure.

This isn't a fight we can afford to lose.