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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.

Big Oil has always been a bad, bad loser. And it is therefore no surprise that it has threatened to sue a small coastal city in Maine which on Monday night struck an historical blow against the industry by banning the export of tar sands from its harbour.

Last week the polling company, Ipsos-Mori, published its first ever Global Trends Report, which examined our attitudes to a whole host of topics such as technology, privacy, marriage, migration, health, globalisation, inequality, science and the environment.

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.

Yet another pivotal battle is brewing in Canada, over a little-known pipeline labelled the “mother of all pipelines” by the country’s First Nations.

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.

Late last week, the Norwegian government issued a license to energy giant Statoil to allow it to start drilling in the controversial Arctic waters of the Barents Sea.

Last Sunday was a grim and painful anniversary for the people of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec. It was a year ago that a crude by rail train, which was carrying highly volatile crude from America’s Bakken fracking fields, derailed and exploded, effectively incinerating 47 people.

Later today, a scientific study which has examined the health impacts of the toxic tar sands on the health of Canada’s First Nations at Fort Chipewyan in Alberta, will be released.