For generations natural gas has been embraced as a clean alternative. Now a growing global movement of scientists and activists has cast it as a fuel so dirty that it should not only be avoided but even banned from new buildings. | Nick O'Malley
For generations natural gas has been embraced as the clean alternative to burning coal to make electricity, so clean indeed that we pipe it into our living rooms to sit around its warmth, to cook our food and heat our water.
Now a growing global movement of scientists and activists has cast it as a fuel so dirty that it should not only be avoided but even banned from new buildings.Despite its reassuringly benign name, natural gas is almost entirely methane, a gas that during its first decade in the atmosphere is around 84 times more powerful a climate warming agent than the carbon dioxide released by burning coal.
Because it is colourless and odourless, the amount of methane escaping unburnt into the atmosphere has been impossible to measure until recently. Now a new generation of satellites can track methane emissions and have proved a dangerous global increase.According to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the increase during 2021 was a record 17 parts per billion, following another record the year before of 15.3. Atmospheric methane levels averaged 1895.
Pursuing ambitious climate targets and seeking to sever its link to Russian exports, Europe is fast-tracking its efforts to dump gas, with the Netherlands in May announcing that it would ban the use of gas for heating in new homes from 2025.The industry is fighting back and was revealed last year to have paid social media influencers to post about how much they liked using gas in both the
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