Methane, the major component of natural gas, punches way above its weight when it comes to damaging the climate. Humans send less than half a billion tons of methane into the air every year, only one percent of the amount of carbon dioxide we spew from our cars, homes and factories. Yet methane is responsible for about 20 percent of global warming. This fact should motivate humanity to reduce our reliance on natural gas as a fuel as quickly as possible and, in the meantime, plug even small leaks in the existing natural gas system from wells to gas-burning appliances, says Marc Fischer, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Researchers in Boston have been studying methane leakage in urban areas for eight years and the pandemic gave them a unique natural experiment to compare methane levels during the lockdown with those from normal activity. Publication of their findings this month give ammunition to scientists who have long contended that much more gas is leaking from city sources than has been widely believed. The findings
— source skepticalscience.com | 8 Nov 2021