There are no laws and no limits on emissions from burning fossil fuels. There is no law against flaring or methane leakage. Methane, the principal component of natural gas, is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It traps heat in the earth’s atmosphere at a rate cited as 34 times higher than carbon dioxide over 100 years, but over 20 years it is 100 times as bad as carbon dioxide. This is because methane does not stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide does, which complicates comparison of the two. “From a greenhouse gas perspective, the problem with fracking lies in the huge number of wells being drilled....This represents a huge increase in the potential pathways for methane leakage directly into the atmosphere.”15

Fracking increases the potential for methane leakage, a potent greenhouse gas, and the number of wells drilled increases the potential for leakage into the atmosphere.

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Greenhouse Gases

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