The United States Department of the Interior has announced a final rule to curb methane emissions from natural gas waste during oil and gas production on the country’s federal and Tribal lands. The updated regulation modernizes rules that are more than four decades old. It will require oil and gas companies to stop wasteful practices, […]
Quick Key Facts What Are Fossil Fuels? Fossil fuels are fuels that literally come from fossils. Tens of millions of years ago, plants took energy from the sun and used it to turn carbon dioxide and water into carbon and hydrogen via photosynthesis. Animals ate those plants and stored the same elements in their bodies. […]
Pennsylvania children who grew up near oil and gas fracking sites are at higher risk for leukemia, a study published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives finds. The study’s findings are consistent with a plethora of research on health risks associated with fracking. Yale researchers using Pennsylvania cancer registry data, found children between the ages of 2–7 years-old who […]
When the UK government imposed a moratorium on fracking in 2019, climate campaigners breathed a sigh of relief. Now, however, there are concerns that the practice might be resurrected in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The government said on Thursday that fracking-company Cuadrilla did not yet have to seal and shutter two wells at […]
A new study shows that older adults who live near or downwind of unconventional oil and gas developments (UOGD), such as fracking sites and directional drilling, experience higher risks of early deaths. The study, published in the journal Nature Energy by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is the first time researchers have been […]
A new study correlates poorer surface water quality with nearby hydraulic fracturing but finds that the impacts aren’t major enough to be considered harmful by federal regulators. However, the researchers noted they weren’t able to study “potentially more dangerous” substances related to fracking because of a lack of data. While some published studies have already […]
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved dangerous chemicals that break down into PFAS for use in fracking in 2011, according to records obtained by Physicians for Social Responsibility and reported by The New York Times. Despite EPA scientists having identified preliminary evidence the carcinogenic, and birth-defect-linked substances could degrade into those “forever chemicals” and […]
A fracking boom in the Gulf of Mexico poses a major risk to human health and wildlife, a new report from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has found. The report, published Wednesday, calculated that oil and gas companies had dumped at least 66.3 million gallons of fracking fluids into the vulnerable waters of the […]