An Insurance industry blog by Jared Wade. Strange Disasters includes a story about a crater in Turkmenistan caused by scientific laissez-faire about natural gas extraction.

Pennsylvania's natural gas drillers are still flushing vast quantities of contaminated wastewater into rivers that supply drinking water, despite major progress by the industry over the past year in curtailing the practice.

Some of the new data [Wikileaks] coming out today makes it clear that everyone’s suspicion that the U.S. was both bullying and buying countries into endorsing their do-little position on climate were even sort of worse than we had realized...

...the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks.