Here in California climate-altering methane gas pours out of a natural gas storage site and into the atmosphere, with severe impacts for local residents and the climate. Being called the “climate equivalent of the BP disaster,” the leak was first identified on 23 October. After six failed attempts, pipeline operator, the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas), announced its current remedy could take three months to plug the well.
Residents in the Porter Ranch area have complained of the gas’s foul odor as well as nausea and nosebleeds, all caused by additives intended to flag leaks. Such unbearable conditions have led to 2,000 requests for relocation and embody the terrible injustice associated with environmental disasters.
Methane’s climate impacts are extreme. Methane is a greenhouse gas (GHG) that has a short-term potency about 84 times that of carbon dioxide. The California Air Resources Board has estimates that methane is being released at rate of 50,000 kilograms per hour, with an effect similar to that of 160,000 cars on the road for one year. As we draw nearer the 2C tipping point, such failures are entirely unacceptable.
A lawsuit filed by the City of Los Angeles highlights the considerable human and environmental costs of the leak as well as SoCalGas’s failure to implement suitable precautions. Bringing to the fore America’s “ageing natural gas infrastructure” as well as the hazards of fossil fuel use in general, the leak is yet another demonstration of the urgent need to curb emissions and invest in the future of renewable energy.
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