Methane madness

An article in the New York Times, called “E.P.A. to Roll Back Regulations on Methane, a Potent Greenhouse Gas” talks about efforts made by the Environmental Protection Agency to deregulate the emission of methane gases, which is a known greenhouse gas coming from oil wells, pipelines and other facilities in the oil and gas industry. In the light of all the awareness brought to climate change and environmental problems, this article seemed very newsworthy to me, as it shows that the US continues to reduce their efforts to combat climate change, while most of the world is trying to up their efforts.

The article does a good job staying objective and presents the facts of the matter as well as quoting both sources supporting the role back as well as sources condemning it. It also briefly talks about the role of oil and gas companies in this issue and states that most of those companies actually do not support the rollback. This is an interesting aspect in my opinion since the rollback on methane regulations is a result of Trump’s executive order to eliminate regulations that hold back growth in those oil and gas industries.

The high volume of information and lengthy nature of the article aims at an older audience that has enough interest and prior knowledge to value all the extra information.

Link to the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/29/climate/epa-methane-greenhouse-gas.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

One thought on “Methane madness”

  1. A well-written comment, Nik. NYT stories are heavy on context, at least on their website. Some day I should compare them to the print story to see if they contain all the same content.

    Organization: True. Someone who already has a pretty good understanding of the issue could bail pretty quickly and still have the main news.

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