Blog

Later today, the award-winning journalist and host of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman will walk into a law enforcement office in North Dakota and hand herself over to the authorities. She stands accused of participating in a “riot”.

One of the most important battles against pipeline expansion in North America is happening right now in North Dakota.

According to a new analysis the US now holds more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Russia, the first time this has happened. The crux though will be whether the US shale industry can access the finance to carry on exploiting shale. And that remains to be seen.

There are a staggering amount of old and new wells with the potential to release methane. At least 3.5 million wells have been drilled in the US, with a quarter of those still active. Many old and new ones are leaking the potent greenhouse gas.

The safety of crude by rail trains looks set to rocket up the political agenda again after a Union Pacific train carrying volatile Bakken crude derailed and exploded in Oregon's beautiful Columbia River gorge on Friday.

As the fossil fuel disinvestment movement gathers a pace, the loses of US oil companies have reached record levels.

Eventually what goes down, must come up. And to the relief of everyone in the oil industry, the global energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that there are signs that oil prices "might have bottomed out.”

Well we will have to wait for another day and another trial for an American jury to rule on the “necessity defence” for direct action to prevent climate change.

History will be made later today in an unassuming grey court room in Snohomish county in Washington State, when five activists – known as the Delta 5 - who blocked an explosive crude by rail train last year, will argue that their actions were justified by the threat of climate change.

The US shale revolution is slowly grinding to a halt as the continuing low oil price takes its toll on the viability of fracking in the country.