Is leaking methane heating things up, or is it just me?

It’s hot in here and I don’t think it’s just me!

Did anybody else listen to the NPR report, Dangerous Heat Wave Bakes Midwest, this morning?

The heat is taking a huge toll

• heat advisories issued in 27 states,
• more than 20 people have already died, at least 13 in Kansas City,
• “scores” of heat related illnesses in hospitals,
• demand on nation’s power grid causing power outages,
• pavement is buckling on highways,
• crops are dying,
• “hot cows don’t give as much milk,”
• livestock are dropping dead, at least 1500 cows died in South Dakota, dairy cows in Wisconsin and Minnesota and thousands of turkeys and chickens have died from the heat.

But, hey, natural gas is cheap! It’s so cheap this industry just lets it boil into the air. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) study, Federal Oil and Gas Leases: Opportunities Exist to Capture Vented and Flared Natural Gas, Which Would Increase Royalty Payments and Reduce Greenhouse Gases, on shore there are 302 billion cubic feet of lost gas. But industry itself admits to letting 750 billion cubic feet of gas leak out into the atmosphere.

I say screw the royalty payments! That’s methane, the most powerful greenhouse gas, just boiling out into the the atmosphere. Could we talk about how cheap natural gas is in relation to the biggest threat to humanity and the cost of that instead of how much money you can make off royalty payments?

Frame natural gas leaks in terms of human survival not in lost royalty payments!