The Surprising Root of the Massachusetts Fight Against Natural Gas
https://eos.org/features/the-surprising-root-of-the-massachusetts-fight-against-natural-gas
Excerpt: ...Beacon Hill street in Boston ...many of the trees have grown ill and died in the past several years. ...Camargo and many others blame natural gas leaks as a driving cause of the trees’ afflictions. The city has thousands of gas leaks in old, cracked pipes and joints under sidewalks and streets. ...Today Massachusetts has some of the most progressive laws in the country regulating gas leaks. They’re largely thanks to a powerful coalition of organizations and researchers called Gas Leaks Allies taking the state’s energy system to task. The movement to plug leaks has gained steam over the past 2 decades and evolved into a campaign to quit natural gas altogether. Although the campaign has broad ambitions, the movement started with protecting community trees. The fight in Boston over the future of natural gas is also playing out across the country. Municipalities like San Francisco have banned gas in new buildings, and President Joe Biden singled out gas leaks in an executive order on combating climate change. ...The United States is the second-largest producer of methane emissions in the world, behind Russia....