"Jerry Lausted, a retired teacher and also a farmer, showed me the tawny ridges of sand that delineated a strip mine near the town of Menomonie where he lives. 'If we were looking from the air,' he added, 'you’d see ponds in the bottom of the mine where they dump the industrial waste water. If you scan to the left, you’ll see the hills that are going to disappear.'"

Outrageous #censorship RT @NPRHealth: Pennsylvania Doctors Worry Over #Fracking 'Gag Rule'

GOOD FOR THEM, MUST PROTECT THE BRAND

Brooklyn Brewery is worried your beer could become a cocktail of #fracking fluids. Watch: via @climatedesk

(NPR presents a series of reports on gas fracking):A natural gas boom is under way in the United States, with more than 200,000 wells drilled in just under a decade. But people living on the front door step of the natural gas bonanza have a question: Are these wells creating harmful pollutants? NPR explores why there isn't an answer yet.

@NPRHealth: You need to address the gag orders on docs to not reveal chemicals used in #fracking

RT @AntiAtomPiraten: Stellungnahme der @FDP_NDS zu #Fracking – und unsere Antwort. - wer FDP wählt, wählt auch: Fra ...

Tell @JerryBrownGov: Ban #fracking in California - before it's too late! via @CREDOMobile

Passed by the Obama administration requires that oil companies disclose the chemicals they use for cracking after they actually do their drilling and tracking. Originally the law call for disclosure to occur before drilling began but the oil companies and their lobbyists plot back. The rule only affects public lands although most tracking currently curse on private lands.

"Under a revised version of a rule proposed by the government, companies drilling on public lands would have to identify the chemicals used, but not until after drilling was completed." ... I LOVE IT, DID SCHLUMBERGER WRITE THE RULES?

Smart people RT @Timcast: Vermont first state in nation to ban #fracking for oil and gas

"The bottom line is that the environmental impacts of fracking are a real problem, but one to which neither prohibition nor laissez faire seems a sensible solution. Instead, we should look toward mitigation of impacts using economic tools that have been applied successfully in the case of other environmental harms."

RT @edyong209: The microbial consequences of #fracking. (and no, this isn't related to the last gonorrhoea tweet)

The Economist hoo-rahs the product of fracking - natural gas from shale. Although there is little discussion of the local effects of fracking, there are some interesting nuggets here - the fact that gas prices are plummeting, and the possible future of CNG-powered vehicles.