Liberal Democrats blast environmental damage caused by fracking. Green party MP Caroline Lucas stands at the entrance to the Cuadrilla exploratory drilling site in Balcombe, West Sussex, which has attracted anti-fracking protests.
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats have poured scorn on George Osborne's push for a shale gas revolution in the UK, saying the process of fracking has caused extensive environmental damage and water pollution in the US. The comments, in official policy papers, come as a new Opinium/Observer poll shows strong public opposition to fracking, with resistance particularly strong among women. What Do Food and Fracking Have in Common? We Need Information to Make the Best Choice. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel that I spend a lot of my time in stores trying to read the ingredients and nutritional information on package labels.
And it can be bewildering, not just because of the tiny print. But I also know that reading those labels impacts what I eat – even if my choices are not always the best, at least I had a chance to consider the content. Public policy isn’t something that happens in Washington or the state capital, it is also in the choices that citizens make every day—what to buy, where to live, who to vote for, and when to raise their voice about an issue they care about.
Case in point is hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—for shale oil and gas. We are in the midst of a boom in drilling for shale oil and gas in the US, make no mistake. The Facts on Fracking. (Image: Fracking silhouette via Shutterstock)Hydraulic fracturing or fracking — a method of extracting natural gas from underground shale formations — has become a contentious issue across America, especially in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, states that sit on top of the Marcellus Shale, the largest known deposit of shale gas in America.
The shale formation could contain nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of gas — enough to power all American homes for 50 years. Oil and mining companies want to get the gas out, but environmentalist groups say the process is not safe. Pour le Périgord Noir, l'exploitation des gaz de schiste, c'est la mort économique !
Gaz et pétrole de schiste, un phénomène qui secoue la planète. Kassie Siegel: 5 Fatal Flaws in President Obama's New Fracking Regulations. They're popping up all over America's public lands, bringing toxic chemicals and dangerous pollution to beautiful wild areas and nearby farms and communities.
Fracking rigs have spread like poisonous mushrooms across land managed by the federal government, which leases millions of acres a year to oil and gas companies. Most Americans don't know that 90 percent of wells drilled on our public lands are now fracked. There is, however, growing awareness of the dangers of fracking. This process, also known as hydraulic fracturing, involves blasting millions of gallons of water, mixed with industrial chemicals (including carcinogens), into the earth to fracture rock formations. Dans l'enfer de la fracturation. The Mines that Fracking Built, Part Two. A frac sand mine near Cooks Valley, Wisconsin.
(Photo: Mike Ludwig)This is the second installment of Truthout's Fracking Road Trip series on the wide-reaching impacts of the fracking industry. To read part one, click here. Keith Fossen never expected to join a grassroots environmental group, let alone help organize one from the ground up. "I was so far over there on the conservative side … whenever I heard of anyone trying to do something for the environment, I was suspicious," Fossen said during an interview with Truthout. Etats-Unis: le boom du gaz de schiste change la donne économique de Keystone. La malédiction du gaz de schiste. Le documentaire Zamosc, en Pologne orientale : au hasard d’un tournage dans cette région rurale, Lech Kowalski rencontre en 2009 des paysans sur les terres desquels de grandes firmes américaines ont commencé à prospecter pour extraire du gaz de schiste.
Fissures dans les murs des fermes, pollution des eaux, bulldozers investissant des champs à quelques dizaines de mètres des habitations… Les villageois sont inquiets. Or cette situation locale n’a rien d’anecdotique et témoigne d’un phénomène qui menace aujourd’hui toute la planète. Bradford County, aux États-Unis, est au gaz de schiste ce que l’Arabie Saoudite est au pétrole. Mais on est loin de l’image idyllique d’une "énergie non conventionnelle" propre et d’exploitation aisée que veulent donner les industriels.
Etats-Unis : la fracturation hydraulique et les gaz de schiste à l’origine de 1 000 milliards de litres d’eaux toxiques l’an passé. Sacramento, Etats-Unis : des militants manifestent contre la fracturaiton hydraulique devant le siège de l’Agence Californienne pour la Protection de l’Environnement en juillet 2012. © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images/AFP.
Fracking Water: It’s Just So Hard to Clean. Another crack in the “fracking is safe” story for the industry to address.
You know that fracking thing? For the uninitiated, hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. fracking) is the technique of injecting water, sand and chemicals at high pressures into shale and other tight rock formations to release the fuel trapped inside. Combined with horizontal drilling, fracking has allowed us to access huge amounts of heretofore unrecoverable natural gas. What a bonanza: a new and sizable source of natural gas. And, at first blush, a fuel that’s good for the environment: natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and has already begun displacing coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in U.S. power plants. A Texan Tragedy: Ample Oil, No Water. This story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
The video was produced by Climate Desk's James West and reported by the Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg. Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night in June when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water.
"The day that we ran out of water I turned on my faucet and nothing was there and at that moment I knew the whole of Barnhart was down the tubes," she said, blinking back tears. FrackMap. Gaz de schiste : il faut en finir avec le XXème siècle ! Il y quelques jours, la tribune offerte à M.
Médaisko à propos du gaz de schiste a suscité de vives réactions sur les réseaux sociaux ainsi que dans la presse spécialisée.