Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
were impressive. h e team had driven a carefully designed mobile labo-
ratory around the region in order to collect copious measurements of
the concentrations of all sorts of molecules in the air. Back at their
desks, they combined these data with other information about oil and
gas operations in the region to infer the volume of methane that was
leaking. h e results were even more troubling than the ones reported
by Howarth and his colleagues.
h e data were great. But as I started trying to reproduce the bigger
conclusions myself, I became concerned. h e authors' interpretation of
what the data meant didn't make sense. h ey had made some big assump-
tions about the mix of methane and other chemicals in the leaking wells.
h ey treated those as routine, but my math told me they were very conse-
quential, and once you got rid of the assumptions then their calculations
didn't actually tell you much at all about how much methane was leaking
from local wells. h e results, published in the same journal as the original
NOAA analysis, further reinforced my basic conviction: it is valuable to
reduce methane emissions in the natural gas industry, and important to
get a bet er idea of their precise nature, but the available evidence points
strongly to the conclusion that methane leaks aren't coming close to mak-
ing gas as bad for climate change as coal is. 44
m
m
m
As I curled up in my rented apartment in Copenhagen's Nørreport
neighborhood in the early hours of December 19, 2009, the possibility
that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions could tip the planetary balance one
way or the other was not the i rst thing on my mind. Like everyone else
who spends time worrying about climate change, I knew U.S. emissions
weren't ultimately what mat ered most. When it came to determining
how bad climate change would get, global greenhouse gas emissions
were paramount.
For the previous two weeks, delegates from 193 countries had gath-
ered at the Bella Center just outside town to hammer out a global cli-
mate change agreement. h eir assigned task was at once simple and
monumental: to negotiate a legally binding treaty that would spare the
world the worst of global warming. When I arrived a week into the
 
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search