Whooo, boy. Do you remember reading about a natural gas well blowout in rural Ohio in February of 2018? Residents nearby had to evacuate:
https://wtov9.com/news/local/well-pad-explosion-fire-forces-evacuations-in-powhatan-point-area
I don’t, to be honest, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t. We’re inundated with news of every type on every medium; a relatively localised natural gas well failure may be quickly forgotten.
The environment will have a harder time, however, because scientists say the damaged well platform leaked more methane than Norway or France do in a year: an estimated 60 kilotons.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/17/us/ohio-exxon-mobil-methane-leak-satellite-climate-change/index.html
A group of Dutch and American scientists used new satellite technology to figure this out, analysing the data; but Earthworks caught the stuff on infrared at the time of the leak.
ExxonMobil, well owner, ‘deeply regrets’ the incident (as always), but says the incident has resulted in ‘systemic well-design and monitoring changes to prevent it from happening again’, so that’s something, I guess.
But how is it that the responsibility for recycling and saving the environment has largely been shifted to us, the individual consumer, when the corporate body at large continues to pollute on this grand a scale?
Jesus fuck.
Ugh