Introduction

Natural gas warms our planet, and produced dangerous chemicals which can build up in our homes, harming our health. 

Companies often burn off excess gas because it can be more expensive to harvest from drill sites than it would be worth to see. Even when companies do capture it for use, a small percentage leaks at the drill site, then each time it is loaded or offloaded from ships, then again from faulty equipment, including stoves that are turned off. Since the industry has continued to expand this "small percentage" lost at each stage, is turning out to be increasingly alarming as studies find higher rates of loss than the gas industry has been reporting to the public. 

Old wells often leak, and are costly to plug. Earthquakes, and the mere fact that many orphan wells are hard to find even with historical maps, means that even when these holes are plugged, they can later be damaged, releasing natural gas into the environment again.