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The largest ever scientific study examining the overall health of people living near fracking wells in the US is being published today and once again it sends alarm bells ringing.

Yesterday over a hundred members and supporters of the UK-based art collective Liberate Tate carried out their latest art protest against the oil giant BP in the Tate Modern’s iconic Turbine Hall in London.

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.

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.

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.

The oil industry’s public relations arm, the American Petroleum Institute (API), has reached new lows in its attempts to twist the on-going debate about the safety of crude-by-rail trains in the US.

The BP gulf oil spill may not have happened without government subsidies. In fact, at least two major subsidies were used both before and after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon to support BP.

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.

For anyone concerned about the rising spate of crude by rail accidents across North America, the derailment and explosion last July of a crude by rail train in downtown Lac Megantic, Quebec, which killed 47 local residents, has become something of a cause célèbre.