The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has ordered the withdrawal of an ad extolling the virtues of fracking, ruling that it is misleading, exaggerating, and lacks substantiation. In the process it has undermined the Government's entire case for fracking in the UK.
Natural gas is widely touted as a 'green fuel'. But as Paul Thacker found in Colorado, fracking's national 'ground zero', it's anything but. Lives and health are being ruined by pollution from taxpayer-subsidized gas wells, flaring and refining plants, while property values collapse. Now a mass of environmental refugees are fleeing the ravaged state.
Hydraulic fracturing is roaring ahead in the Canadian Arctic, writes Ed Struzik. Companies are competing to exploit the Northwest Territories' 2-3 billion barrels of shale oil, as the NWT government ignores calls from indigenous nations and scientists for a moratorium on fracking pending an open review of its impacts.
Scientists in the US have established that chemicals used in fracking to extract gas and oil could represent health and environmental hazards, writes Tim Radford. Among the greatest hazards: biocides and corrosion inhibitors.
Among the risks of fracking are fragmentation of wildlife habitats, groundwater depletion, surface water pollution. The risks are compounded by a failure among companies and regulators to record or disclose essential information - from the chemicals used, to the time and place of toxic spills.
The UK has just opened a bidding round for fracking licences. But the rules contain only weak protections against fracking in National Parks and AONBs - and none at all for even the most important wildlife sites and drinking water aquifers.
The UK Government's policy is to frack at all costs, against public opinion and compelling evidence of environmental damage and poor returns, writes Paul Mobbs - a timely reminder that as far as the Government is concerned, it has a God-given right to rule over us, no matter what we think or want.
The UK's conservative Daily Telegraph warns: investors in fossil fuels are 'throwing good money after bad', reports Nathan Wood, as renewable energy takes off leaving a potential $19 trillion of oil assets 'stranded'.
Polish PM Donald Tusk is using the Ukraine crisis as a pretext to revive the EU's fossil fuel industries. His proposals spell disaster for EU emissions targets and the wider environment, writes Mark Siddi. Europe's energy future must be efficient and renewable!
A new scientific paper presents the radiation produced by fracking as 'natural' and harmless. But it's based on sketchy data, hyperbolic statistics and questionable assumptions, writes Paul Mobbs. Is it an attempt to stifle an essential public debate?
A study by the British Geological Survey and the Environment Agency reveals that almost all the the oil and gas bearing shales in England and Wales underlie drinking water aquifers, raising fears that widespread water contamination could occur.
After a five year battle against fracking companies, the New York Court of Appeals has ruled that towns and cities can pass zoning laws that forbid fracking and other industrial land uses. The verdict will inspire other communities across the USA to enact similar measures.
Lord Smith's views on fracking betray an total ignorance of a large body of published, peer reviewed science that contradicts his conclusions, writes David Lowry - not to mention those of his political masters. Is 'groupthink' leading the UK astray?
Why does the fracking lobby refuse to engage in open, public debate? Because, writes Paul Mobbs, it has already got its way, with the uncritical support of all the 'mainstream' media and political parties. You and I simply do not matter. So what are we going to do about that?
The US's drive to become a top global oil and gas exporter by fracking has been blown wide open by a 96% write-down of California's Monterey Shale - meant to hold two thirds of the US's shale oil. How long before the whole enterprise is exposed as a monstrous Ponzi scheme?
An internal police document has confirmed what many have long suspected: the Police Liaison Officers 'facilitating' protests and demonstrations are not just there to make friends - they play a 'pivotal role' in intelligence gathering.
The Government has let down Britain with its repeated failures to seize the opportunities of green growth, healthy local food, better housing, environmental protection - and is instead pinning all its hopes on flawed, outmoded ideologies that betray our futures.
UN climate negotiations get under way today in Bonn, Germany - and they offer a key opportunity for campaigners to gear up their fight against fracking, writes Jamie Gorman, because to stabilize the Earth's climate, the gas must stay deep underground.
A wholesale corruption of science underlies the UK Government's insistence that gas from fracking offers a 'low carbon', low cost route to energy abundance, writes Paul Mobbs. On the contrary: it's expensive, over-hyped - and just as bad for climate change as coal.
The fracking industry has a blind spot the size of an elephant, Biff Vernon wrote in this Open Letter to Mark Abbott, the MD of Egdon Resources - climate change, and the huge rises in sea level it will cause. 'Only carrying out orders' is no excuse.
Sixty-four environmental and community groups have filed a petition to the EPA demanding federal limits on toxic air pollution from oil and gas wells which threaten the health of 150 million Americans.
Large-scale fracking is a must for the UK economy, says a new report from the House of Lords. But it confuses opinion with fact, cherry-picks data, and six of its authors have a stake in the industry. The real solutions, writes Tony Bosworth, lie in energy efficiency and renewables.
Public Health England is guilty of gross scientific misconduct, writes Paul Mobbs, for its apparently deliberate whitewashing of the public health impacts of fracking. But it's all part of a pattern of maladministration that reaches to the heart of government.
Left-wing, progressive politicians hold sway across Latin America, writes Benjamin Dangl. But defying their own 'green' rhetoric, they are committed to mining and other environmentally damaging development. Now they face growing resistance from small farmers and indigenous peoples.
