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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.

Subsidy Spotlight: The fracking boom has had devastating health and environmental impacts in Colorado – and it likely wouldn't have been possible without government subsidies.

The UK had never seen a day like it. Yesterday, there were over a dozen protests against fracking across the country, from Wales to the North West, from London to Manchester.

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.

As so often in the past, where America leads, the UK obligingly and belligerently follows. It has been widely known for months that Britain was going to open up vast swathes of its densely-populated land for fracking, but now we have confirmation.

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.