TV News LIES

The concern that hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to extract natural gas is contaminating groundwater is overstated, claims a new report. Charles "Chip" Groat, associate director of Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, led the study.

Fracking, though, has become highly controversial, with claims that the pressurised fluids can find their way into water courses and drinking supplies, and also trigger small earthquakes.

The UK government's scientific advisory group found no link between childhood leukaemia and proximity to nuclear power plants, but German and French research has found an alarming doubling of risk. Matilda Lee reports.

The study, conducted by the Institut de Radioprotection et de Surete Nucleaire (INSERM) and reported in the International Journal on Cancer in January 2012, looked at child leukaemia cases nationwide diagnosed between 2002 and 2007, with addresses coded around 19 nuclear power plants. It demonstrated a stastically signficant doubling of the incidence of leukaemia childhood near nuclear power plants.

Questions about the authenticity of the leaked Heartland Institute documents are fading, as projects described therein are confirmed. Heartland’s senior fellow James Taylor confirmed the existence of the climate-denier classroom curriculum project to ThinkProgress Green yesterday.

Now, anti-science blogger Anthony Watts has confirmed that Heartland is funding his project to display weather station data, detailed in the leaked fundraising plan. In a comment at Andrew Montford’s Bishop Hill blog, Watts claims there are no “nefarious motives” in his project:

Internal documents acquired by ThinkProgress Green reveal that the Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank funded by the Koch brothers, Microsoft, and other top corporations, is planning to develop a “global warming curriculum” for elementary schoolchildren that presents climate science as “a major scientific controversy.”

This effort, at a cost of $100,000 a year, will be developed by Dr. David E. Wojick, a coal-industry consultant.

Since 1996, 200 farmers have reported health problems to the agricultural branch of the French social security system that potentially are a result of pesticides.

But prior cases by farmers against Monsanto have been less successful, as they tried to argue about health problems accumulated over time.

The Butler County story is extremely sad…..Kim McEvoy wrote her governor “Since the fracking and flaring have begun, the air quality has deteriorated. We can’t play outside without getting a headache or a sore throat”. Kim’s neighbor, Janet McIntyre,   reported……”One man died just over a week ago.” she said “Mr. Dennis Peterson, 49, had reported last September that he had ‘rashes all over his body,’ and he was diagnosed with leukemia by December.”

Half way through the story, you are prompted to click on the related story where one of Janet’s three dogs died.  Her other two dogs refused to drink the water and are still alive.

BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill is still affecting the lives of many Americans, particularly the tens of thousands that have not settled lawsuits with the company.

Yet the company has bounced back from the billions it lost in the wake of the spill. BP announced today that its 2011 profit totaled $26 billion, a 114 percent jump from the year before, when the company’s “failure of supervision and accountability” caused the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The plan, which covers all uses of forest — including timber harvests, grazing, recreation and wilderness — is expected to become final in early March. Until then, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack could still make changes.

But when Vilsack announced the plan last week, he called it "a strong framework to restore and manage our forests and watersheds and help deliver countless benefits to the American people." The plan is being published Friday in the Federal Register.