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Its hotting up down in Ohio between the oil industry and locals who oppose the dumping of millions of gallons of potentially toxic waste water.

Could this be the fracking industry’s Silent Spring moment? One of the most alarming aspects of fracking is how little we understand the long term risks of the technology. As the shale boom explodes in the US, concerns about the health and environmental impacts have been largely ignored in the rush to frack.

Last month, when the British Government announced that half the UK would be opened up to fracking, it was widely reported that the country’s treasured National Parks would be protected.

As the shale gas revolution continues a pace in North America, so does its wider environmental impact. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the burgeoning demand for frac-sand.

Just when fracking was due to take centre stage in Colorado’s November elections, two of the State’s top Democrats have agreed to a compromise deal, which you could argue will leave Colorado’s communities unprotected on the front-line of the fracking boom.

The conflict between California’s fracking industry and the State over protecting its precious water resources has been growing for months, made worst by California’s crippling ongoing drought.

Finally one of Canada’s leading independent tar sands producers has conceded that it is partly to blame for a series of leaks of bitumen in Alberta that have been going on for over a year.

As the evidence mounts that fracking is causing chronic air pollution and health problems, American civil society organisations are pressuring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action.

As the Senate is poised to take what could be a decisive vote on whether to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport Canadian tar sands across the US, America’s own tar sands industry is quietly expanding.

The North American fracking industry is hailing the production of its billionth barrel of fracked oil from the vast Bakken oil fields as a cause for celebration.