Author: good grief

At an EPA meeting in 2010, Cornell scientist Robert Howarth warned that shale gas may be nearly as damaging to the climate as coal due to methane leakage during extraction and distribution. Methane is far more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat, and even small leakage rates could significantly worsen global warming. Activists urged the EPA to suspend high-volume hydraulic fracturing until scientific assessments were complete and climate risks more fully understood.