To: Governor Tom Wolf
Tell Corbett to Release Report on Climate Change and Shale Gas
The Department of Environmental Protection must release the legally-mandated report on climate change in Pennsylvania. The people need to know the effects of natural gas drilling on our environment. It is outrageous that you are keeping this information from the people for over a year and a half.
Why is this important?
This story from State Impact PA tells it best: http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/08/27/dep-attempted-to-supress-controversial-study-that-criticized-shale-gas/
A state report outlining how climate change will impact Pennsylvania is currently a year and a half late – and there’s still no indication of when it will be released publicly.
The Department of Environmental Protection missed its legally-mandated deadline to publish the report in the spring of 2012.
Today at a meeting of the DEP’s Climate Change Advisory Committee, the department said the report is still going through the review process.
However StateImpact Pennsylvania has obtained a copy of the original draft climate report and internal DEP emails, which reveal an attempt by its Policy Office to suppress controversial research that questions the benefits of natural gas.
The DEP’s Policy Office wanted a team of Penn State scientists who authored the climate report to remove all references to a 2011 study from Cornell University.
The peer reviewed paper, by professor Robert Howarth, has been the subject of intense debate. It concludes that from a climate change perspective, natural gas is dirtier than coal.
Although natural gas is much cleaner-burning than coal when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, methane can leak throughout the gas production process.
Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and it’s 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas (although it remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time period).
Howarth believes this methane leakage negates any climate change benefits derived from burning natural gas.
A state report outlining how climate change will impact Pennsylvania is currently a year and a half late – and there’s still no indication of when it will be released publicly.
The Department of Environmental Protection missed its legally-mandated deadline to publish the report in the spring of 2012.
Today at a meeting of the DEP’s Climate Change Advisory Committee, the department said the report is still going through the review process.
However StateImpact Pennsylvania has obtained a copy of the original draft climate report and internal DEP emails, which reveal an attempt by its Policy Office to suppress controversial research that questions the benefits of natural gas.
The DEP’s Policy Office wanted a team of Penn State scientists who authored the climate report to remove all references to a 2011 study from Cornell University.
The peer reviewed paper, by professor Robert Howarth, has been the subject of intense debate. It concludes that from a climate change perspective, natural gas is dirtier than coal.
Although natural gas is much cleaner-burning than coal when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions, methane can leak throughout the gas production process.
Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and it’s 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas (although it remains in the atmosphere for a much shorter time period).
Howarth believes this methane leakage negates any climate change benefits derived from burning natural gas.