Media Reporting on Methane Impact on Climate Change Is Wrong

SEJ member Francis Koster, America's Optimistic Futurist, offers a slide show illustrating how most reporters are not using up-to-date information on leaking methane and its impact on climate change. Topics include methane potency, life expectancy, leakage volumes and locations (with graphics) and more.

The main points are:

1. U.S. EPA is reporting the climate change potency of leaking natural gas on its 100-year impact. The gas lives 12.4 years.  IPCC says there is no reason to cite the 100-year impact, and that 20 years is a perfectly acceptable time frame, widely used around the world. The video contains the footnotes.
2. EPA is using 2007 leakage numbers when 2013 (much higher) exist and have been peer reviewed by IPCC.
3. If EPA understates impact by using 100 years, and understates leakage, and understates revised (upward) potency, the cumulative misleading impact is almost 1,400 percent understatement.
4. Most reporters go to the EPA website for primary source…and it is incorrect.