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A report by the UK Task Force on Shale Gas has called for greater safety and transparency measures to be implemented before widespread fracking occurs across the country.

Often the debate about the ecological and cultural impact of the Canadian tar sands focuses on the day to day: the carbon intensity of the mining operations and routine air and water pollution impacting the First Nations and other local communities.

As much of the world is pre-occupied with the Greek financial crisis, oil giant Shell is quietly carrying on with its plans to drill in the Arctic.

There was more bad news for the fracking industry yesterday when New York State became the first US state to officially ban fracking.

Last week, a new peer-reviewed study was published by the University of Texas at Arlington which found toxic chemicals in over two-thirds of drinking wells near fracking sites.

When the US Environmental Protection Agency issued its long awaited landmark report into the impacts of fracking earlier this month, the headlines were largely positive towards the technology.

If the oil giant Shell has learnt anything over the last few weeks, it is that it has few friends in its quest to drill in the Arctic.

A state of emergency was declared yesterday in southern California after 105,000 gallons of oil poured out of a ruptured pipeline near Santa Barbara.

Twenty years ago, the oil giant Shell was plunged into a corporate crisis after it was internationally criticised for trying to dump the redundant Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea and for being complicit in the murder of the acclaimed Nigerian activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa.

The Obama Administration seriously undermined its chances of a positive environmental legacy yesterday by giving approval to Shell’s highly controversial Arctic drilling program.