fracking

Did fracking turn this squirrel purple?

One of the explanations being floated for the purple squirrel recently captured in Pennsylvania: An organobromide overdose caused by fracking. Yeah, it sounds a little far-fetched, but doesn’t it sound more interesting than “it fell in a port-a-potty”?

Critical List: GM seed plantings expand; restaurants for vultures

Last night’s caucus put GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum back in the game, so we could be hearing a lot more about how global warming is a “hoax.” The total area planted with GM seed around the world rose 8 percent last year, according to the biotech industry; a food and water NGO is disputing […]

Critical List: Australia floods break records; industrial agriculture is booming

Floods in Australia are rising to record levels. We told you Australia is screwed. Guys. GUYS! Mitt Romney also gave out renewable energy loans as governor of Massachusetts OMG WTF SOLYNDRA BRAIN EXPLODES. San Francisco is working to integrate electric bicycles into its car share service. Russian scientists have drilled a hole through two miles […]

‘Gasland’ director arrested for filming in Congress

This is probably not the way for the U.S. to regain our recent huge losses on the Press Freedom Index. Josh Fox, director of the Oscar-nominated (and Emmy-winning) documentary Gasland, was arrested this morning for trying to film a committee meeting about fracking.

Critical List: Connecting climate change to the Texas heat wave; ditching plastic straws

Climate scientist James Hansen says he can prove that climate change caused the Texas heat wave. Maine fishermen caught more lobster last year than ever before. Wave and tidal energy could provide enough electricity to meet 15 percent of current demand in the United States. In London, plastic straws are the new plastic bags. No […]

Critical List: ‘Super fracking’; pollution threatens Lake Titicaca

Natural gas companies are looking into "super fracking," which uses larger, deeper cracks and draws power from our planet’s yellow sun.

West Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and Ohioans are all hoping that Shell will choose to build a petrochemical refinery in their state, because the plant promises jobs.

Maybe it's time to abandon Ulysses S. Grant's laws for federal land, which dictate that hard-rock mining is the best use for any plot.

Critical List: Toxic chemicals on the rise; baby seals in trouble

The EPA may retest water in Dimock, Pa., where residents have linked polluted water to fracking operations. In its first round of testing the town's water, the EPA declared it safe.

GM is fixing up the Volt in order to avoid in real-life battery fires like the ones that started during testing.

As winter sea ice disappears in the Arctic, fewer baby harp seals are making it.

The amount of toxic chemicals shunted into the environment went up 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, according a new EPA report.

Yeah, looks like fracking caused Ohio quakes

The Youngstown, Ohio area has had 11 minor earthquakes since last March, and according to seismologist John Armbruster of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, you can blame those rumbles on fracking. A fracking wastewater disposal well has been identified as the source of the quakes -- extraction companies inject the briny wastewater into the well, and the pressure from that injection ripples outwards, Armbruster says. The injection well that caused the Youngstown quakes has been shut down, but the area can still look forward to another year of uncharacteristic seismic activity.

Don’t count on that shale gas revolution

Over at some raggedy-rag called Slate, energy futurist Chris Nelder takes a deep dive into the available data on how much natural gas we can get out of the rocks beneath the U.S. via fracking. His conclusion is that we could run out of natural gas in a decade, especially if we make a mass […]