The French government is “totally opposed” to hydraulic fracturing, a drilling process to produce natural gas and oil from shale, French Environment and Energy Minister Delphine Batho said.
“As it stands now this technique is risky for the environment and health and that is why France banned it,” Batho said today in Paris after a meeting between Prime Minister Jean- Marc Ayrault and environmental groups. “The prime minister confirmed we remain opposed to hydraulic fracturing. The position is perfectly clear.”
French Government ‘Totally Opposed’ to Fracking
What's Up With Drilling and Earthquakes?
There has been increasing concern about the potential role of fracking in earthquakes. The worries prompted the the US Geological Survey to look into it, and scientists found that the increase in earthquakes is likely man-made, but probably caused more by wastewater disposal than fracking itself. Now, a fabulous new piece from EnergyWire looks a little more deeply at the wastewater connection.
Reporter Mike Soraghan visited Oklahoma, where state officials are taking their time investigating the connection between the industrial processes and a magnitude-5.6 quake that damaged homes and highways along the Wilzetta Fault last year:
As you read this, a menagerie of chemical pollutants is coursing through your body
What you do and how you live doesn't matter. You have inhaled them, you've eaten them, you've absorbed them through your skin. You're doing it right now.
If you are an average American, your personal chemical inventory -- embedded in your blood, your breath and your bones -- will include an alphabet soup of phthalates, mercury, perfluorinated compounds, bisphenol A, and assorted chemical flame retardant If you are a new mother, you are passing these chemicals to your child through your breast milk. If you are pregnant, you are delivering them through your umbilical cord.
Top Ten Things Climate Change Is Making Worse Right Now
The onslaught of extreme weather and record temperatures this year have had an impact on people globally, directly through drought and temperature, and more indirectly impacting food prices and public transportation.
Here are 10 impacts we’re seeing right now that climate change is very likely worsening, in some cases playing a major role:
Japan firm ‘told workers to lie’ about radiation dose
A subcontractor at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant told workers to lie about possible high radiation exposure in an apparent effort to keep its contract, reports said Saturday.
An executive at construction firm Build-Up in December told about 10 of its workers to cover their dosimeters, used to measure cumulative radiation exposure, with lead casings when working in areas with high radiation, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper and other media said.
Nurses demand disclosure of chemicals used in natural gas drilling
Imagine you are a nurse working in an emergency room, and a worker on a gas fracking well comes in covered in chemicals used in the drilling process. You call the gas company to find out what chemicals are being used to help in your assessment of possible health risks to your patient, and even yourself, but find out they don't have to disclose this information.
Or, imagine you are a public health nurse in a community with many natural gas fracking wells, and you notice complaints of well-water contamination. How can you assess the extent of the issue without baseline data on water quality or knowledge of the chemicals used in the fracking process?
Global Warming's Terrifying New Math
If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States.
That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe.
More Articles...
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- Whistle-blowing Truck Driver on Law-Flouting Fracking Companies
- Doctors and Scientists Present Gov. Cuomo with Fracking Health Impact Digest
- More than 500 penguins show up dead on Brazil beaches
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