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A new peer-reviewed scientific paper, published today in Reviews on Environmental Health, adds to the growing evidence of harm from fracking, especially to women and young children. But men also should be worried too.

Today is the nineteen anniversary of the muder of the writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, by the Nigerian junta for his campaign against the oil giant Shell.

We can’t go South, we can’t go West, we can’t go East, so, hey, lets’ go North”. That is the latest thinking of the Canadians in their increasingly desperate attempts to export the dirty, carbon intensive tar sands from Alberta.

For years politicians in Britain have been looking with increasing envy at the burgeoning shale boom in the US, believing that it could be replicated in the UK.

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.

For the oil industry business comes first. After years of preparation, on Saturday Exxon began drilling a $700 million well in the Kara Sea in Russia's Arctic. It is Russia’s most northerly well.

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.