It's Not Really "Natural Gas." It's Gas, It's Unhealthy & It's Deadly ... Period

Green Living Plan: We're way overdue for a critical distinction between "natural gas" and what it really is: methane. Otherwise, we're all going to eventually choke to death on this stuff.

Charles D. Ellison | Publisher’s Riff

As conflicts expand in active battle spaces in both Ukraine and, more recently, the Middle East (and don’t forget about the Pacific as tensions rise in that area), there will be a considerable demand for fossil fuel from a source not typically viewed as a global leader in fossil fuels, until recently: The United States. Yet, that has increasingly become the case as European allies, primarily in the NATO consortium, become much more reliant on U.S. fossil fuel exports in the wake of rigid Russian petrol controls meted out as a form of geopolitical punishment for supporting Ukraine. With the situation more uncertain and becoming much more grisly in the Middle East as the Israel v. Hamas conflict intensifies, more countries may turn to a much more stable and willing U.S. to provide the gas export needed to keep their economies and energy infrastructures fueled.

This comes at a very sensitive time for the most important space we need to exist: Our planet. As fossil fuel usage continues unabated, even increasing, the planet is getting warmer and warmer (we all witnessed and sweated through the hottest summer on record and even September didn’t cool down as it should have). Governments are openly contradicting themselves; on one hand proclaiming they’ll shift away from fossil fuels and reduce emissions everywhere, but on the other hand still opening up the gas markets and refusing to put tighter restrictions on those industries to produce less and to invest more in cleaner or renewable sources (or, maybe, even go nuclear?). We see the doubling down on fossil fuels from the current Biden administration as it approves an extraordinary expansion of “liquefied natural gas” export facilities across the United States …

Simultaneously, ExxonMobil put, literally, all its money into a fossil fuel future with the astounding and historic $60 billion purchase of rival Pioneer Natural Gas resources … as if this summer of record, blistering, brush firing and melting heat wave didn’t happen and we’re not in the middle of a planetary crisis. It’s all headscratching in some ways since the decisionmakers all live on the same planet.

Or maybe it’s not since it’s all about politics and place. President Biden is, perhaps, a friend of the climate agenda; but, on the other hand, he needs enough friends on the other side to help him get a second and last term. Maybe in that term he’ll feel unrestrained enough to push for more ambitious climate resilience and clean energy goals. But, in the meantime, if we look at the map of expanding LNG gas facilities, he’s hoping the expansion of LNG jobs in Southern states or typically “red” places will endear a few otherwise solidly Republican voters over to him who, right now, think the concept of Bidenomics is not working for them. In the case of fossil fuel billionaires, they just assume they can continue living in places far from the worst impacts of climate crisis. Or, they envision a future where they can afford their own oxygen and, perhaps, access to their own safe spaces on the Moon while Earth turns into a rotted out industrial junkyard full of underpaid workers doing their bidding (think that’s crazy? Just ask Elon Musk why he’s so anxious to launch more SpaceX rockets).

There’s also the battle over perception: We keep calling this deadly, planet killing product “natural gas” - an industry euphemism softening the blow - when it’s really just gas and more diabolically and lethally methane. But there is nothing natural at all about it - it’s a gas. If we heard terms like methane more and were educated about how bad it is, versus the greenwashing we allow ourselves to get duped by in advertising like this …

… then we’d probably force policymakers and marketplaces to make the needed pivot from methane to actual cleaner energy solutions staring us in the collective face.

Climate crisis - or what this publication is calling the pollution apocalypse - is worsening because we’re not really dealing with the effects of a carbon dioxide emergency as much as we’re seeing the rapid acceleration of a methane emergency that’s accounting for 11 percent of chronic respiratory deaths. As the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Reports …

The threat that methane poses to global efforts to prevent dangerous climate change is becoming more well known. Methane emissions are increasing and because methane is many times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere, these emissions are supercharging global warming. However, an impact of methane emissions that tends to receive less attention, is that it is a key ingredient in the formation of another greenhouse gas, ozone, in the lower atmosphere. Ozone is a prime element of smog and is toxic to humans and plants.

If we had it under control …

Present American voter attitudes, however, don’t help with the current situation. As HEATED’s Emily Atkin’s shared, a recent Climate Nexus/Yale/George Mason University poll shows, the fossil fuel industry has been clever in its marketing of “natural gas.” Once eyeing the poll below, however, you can see public views change dramatically once they realize it’s not natural at all, it’s methane …

Not knowing that distinction continues fooling most Americans into believing it’s still an acceptable and safe energy source, and that fossil fuel companies will somehow save the day. As a much more balanced Pew Research poll (don’t rely on slanted American Petroleum Institute polls) offered last year, most adults are still favoring natural gas production to Europe …

It will be fascinating, yet troubling, to watch the politics of natural gas unfold as crises in the Middle East and Europe continues unraveling. Allies such as Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan will continue looking to the U.S. as a primary source of not just military support, but energy support; certain interests will push the narrative that clean energy can’t move fast enough to meet global energy needs. What’s also worrisome is that if wars expand on multiple fronts, the pollution apocalypse agenda will be put on the backburner … even as the effects of war from heightened munitions and fossil fuel use will make it worse.