Atmospheric
methane continues to rocket up at record rates,
NOAA
reported
yesterday. As fracking booms, methane levels increased by 17 parts per
billion in 2021, breaking the 2020 record of 15.3 ppb. Concentrations of
this powerful greenhouse pollutant are now 162 percent of their
pre-industrial levels, as the Biden administration pushes for more
natural gas production and
export.
I will take this moment to remind readers that the EPA is undercounting methane pollution by 77 percent.
The essential Kate Aronoff castigates the incoherence of Democrats in Congress who claim to care about the climate crisis begging oil CEOs to increase fossil-fuel production, instead of acting to take their billions in windfall profits and stop their greenhouse pollution:
Appealing to these CEOs’ better angels is pointless. Although they hand fossil fuel companies billions in subsidies each year, American policymakers mostly confine themselves to begging or berating them into doing what they want.
As Adam Tooze writes in his review of three recent books by Andreas Malm:
To harp on the climate crisis while doing nothing about it is, in the long run, intolerable. Liberals’ failures make Trump look honest. He may deny the science, but at least he’s true to himself.