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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.

Shell’s comedy of errors that is its Arctic drilling campaign never ceases to amaze. You would have thought the oil giant would have learned from its disastrous attempt three years ago when one of its drilling rigs, the Kulluk, ran aground. Another one, the Noble Discoverer, had a near mishap, too.

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.

Would you take it seriously if tobacco companies announced that smoking trends weren’t expected to change much over the next 30 years? And imagine then, that this is what governments used to make tobacco policy: “Forecasts show that people aren’t going to quit smoking, steady rates of smoking around the world are inevitable, so all anti-smoking policies will assume not much is going to change.”

State regulators in Utah yesterday heard arguments both for and against the country’s first billion dollar tar sands mine, which is currently being constructed in the east of the State.

The UK fracking industry was left in total disarray yesterday after Lancashire County Council voted overwhelmingly to oppose fracking in the North West of the country.

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