The growing debate over fracking in the UK has so far focused on two main issues. Supporters of fracking are emphasising its potential to address fuel poverty, while its opponents stress the associated environmental risks (News, Letters, 30 August).

Environmentalists who have commented on the risks of water pollution, methane escape, and earth tremors have chosen to emphasise the links between fracking technology and climate change. This is summed up in a leaflet on fracking produced by the diocese of Blackburn, which concludes: "Any consideration of an issue like 'fracking' has to be viewed in the context of global climate change, which . . . raises questions of justice, fairness, provision, stewardship and love for God, his creation and his creatures, including our global human neighbours."

In order for this argument to be more convincing, however, we need a robust expression of environmental theology, which examines further the relationship between human beings and the earth, as well as their relationships with one another and with God.

A speaker from the United States at an environmental-law conference in Cambridge in July referred to the attitude of some members of the House of Representatives who, while accepting the scientific basis of fracking and the environmental safeguards that were in place, none the less felt that the process was "just wrong".

That perception arises perhaps out of the sheer violence of a process where wells are drilled and toxins and chemicals are added to huge amounts of water to cause hydraulic fracturing, with its attendant risk of earth tremors and the need to dispose of large quantities of toxic waste water. There is much that is not right about this.

It may, of course, be argued that the coal-mining industry, particularly with its dismal record of loss of life, and its cruel disregard for the well-being of men, women, and children, has been little better. But in fracking we have a process where, unlike the gradual development of mining techniques, speed is of the essence, and the violation of the earth is rapid and brutal.

Whereas in previous centuries, the idea that human activities could affect the climate was laughable, in a time of global warming, the deliberate release of greenhouse gases through fracking is environmentally criminal.

Water supply may not be an issue in the pleasantly damp areas of rural Sussex. Yet Water Aid says that roughly 768 million people worldwide have no access to safe water. To introduce fracking into the developing world, beginning with South Africa, where a year-long moratorium has recently been lifted, would be an environmental disaster.

The use of a technology that is so dependent on the availability of water, and that carries a high risk of drinking-water pollution, in countries where not fuel poverty but water poverty is the real issue, is an offence against our neighbour of the highest order.

SO WE have a situation where the interdependence of God, human beings, and the created world is uniquely in jeopardy. Despite the protestations of companies that they are acting in the interests of poorer people in providing cheaper fuel, and that carbon emissions are ultimately reduced (while the emission of methane is increased), the commercial interests of a few are poised to threaten the well-being of rich and poor alike across the world - from property-owners in the south of England and the United States to people in developing countries whose supply of safe water is fragile or non-existent.

The conscious release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has an impact on all of us, but particularly on people in poor countries, who are affected by climate change to a disproportionate extent. And the injection of toxins into the earth calls into question our willingness and ability to safeguard God's good creation.

A theology of climate change demands that we consider our relationships with one another, as well as with the natural world. We damage our relationship with our global neighbours when we attack, rather than defend, their water supplies; when we increase, rather than reduce, our harmful emissions. And the injustice of fracking makes an additional demand: that we consider whether we are further damaging our relationship with God and his creation.

The fruits of the earth, including the various forms of energy that we have made indispensable to our current lifestyles, are the result of that interdependence of God, human beings, and the earth on which we live.

This is expressed most powerfully in the bread and the wine of the eucharist. Environmental theology needs to bring under one umbrella the concerns for human flourishing that are to be found in relational theology and the respect for the earth that is enshrined in eucharistic theology. It should now take seriously the Eastern Orthodox concept of compassion for the earth as well.

Fracking is the snatching of the earth's resources in a way that is potentially harmful to the water we drink and the air we breathe. The opportunity to challenge fracking may not be open to us for long, but a strong environmental theology makes it imperative that we do so.

The Revd Dr Paula Clifford is Assistant Curate of St Giles and SS Philip and James with St Margaret, Oxford, and a former climate-change adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury.