This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

When the first study arrived in September 2013, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it made news by identifying fugitive methane leakage rates from gas extraction that were ten to twenty times lower than those in most other studies to date.56 But the study’s design contained serious limitations, the most glaring of which was allowing the gas companies to choose the wells they wanted inspected. Robert Howarth, the lead author of the breakthrough 2011 Cornell study on the same subject, pointed out that the EDF’s findings were “based only on evaluation of sites and times chosen by industry,” and that the paper “must be viewed as a best-case scenario,” rather than a reflection of how the industry functions as a whole. He added, “The gas industry can produce gas with relatively low emissions, but they very often do not do so. They do better when they know they are being carefully watched.” These concerns, however, were entirely upstaged by the priceless headlines inspired by the Environmental Defense Fund study: “Study: Leaks at Natural Gas Wells Less Than Previously Thought” (Time); “Study: Methane Leaks from Gas Drilling Not Huge” (Associated Press); “Fracking Methane Fears Overdone” (The Australian); and so on.57