I’m heading into the July 4th holiday thinking a great deal about patriotism, methane, satellites, and children. An odd combination, but it all connects.
On patriotism, “devotion to and vigorous support of one’s country,” says a dictionary. Noting: “country.” Not necessarily its political leaders, not all its political, economic, moral decisions. More a notion, some ideals, of what the United States stands for, as a country.
One of those, for me, has always been a spirit of “can do”—an ambitious striving, an intention to lead, a desire to better ourselves and to make lives better for all. I was the kid who was thrilled by the moon landing. I was the teenager absorbed by science fiction. I’m the adult who every single day marvels at the feats of engineering, technology, scientific research, medical breakthroughs, and all the many things we do in the name of love, respect, diversity, honor. Do we fail? You bet. Over and over. But we try. We can do it.
Today, I’m dismayed—I’m heartbroken, actually—by how the President and the EPA Administrator are trying to dismantle, stall, or cripple every single investment this country has made in doing a very simple but monumentally important thing: Cutting climate pollution. Cutting the methane and carbon emissions that warm our planet, that will ultimately render it uninhabitable. All this happened while the country sweltered under a massive heat dome that, like a Stephen King novel, flickered with the horrors of a climate too hot for people.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants
But what did we do? Our elected representatives just passed a most unpatriotic bill. I’m calling it a Can’t Do bill. As in: Can’t cut pollution. Can’t create new energy sources. Can’t create thousands of new jobs. Can’t protect our children. Can’t give those who need it help. Can’t collect taxes from those who don’t need more money. Can’t responsibly steward our Earth and all the creatures with whom we are so blessed to share it.
The Can Do spirit fell to dark forces.
Methane and satellites
More than a decade ago, Moms Clean Air Force joined our colleagues at the Environmental Defense Fund, under President Fred Krupp’s direction, in an effort to rein in methane emissions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, 80 times more potent than carbon in trapping solar radiation in our atmosphere, even though it doesn’t last as long. Alone among environmental groups, EDF launched an effort to identify and measure methane emissions from an energy source that was quickly becoming dominant due to fracking technology: fossil fuel gas. Moms began to talk to people about all the toxic stuff that leaks into the air along with methane, from wells drilled even near day care centers and playgrounds and schoolyards—and the need to stop the pollution. This was considered a controversial advocacy campaign, remarkably enough, not just among fracking companies, but among environmental groups. It was seen as “abetting” the industry; we were supposed to talk only about banning fossil fuels. Well, try telling that to the mothers whose children were playing or sleeping in their day care cribs near well pads—and already breathing the pollution, living with it. We felt compelled to tackle it.
Then EDF got super ambitious. Why not send up a satellite that would measure methane leaking across the globe and collect huge amounts of data that would help countries and companies plug leaks? After years of effort, MethaneSAT was launched in March 2024. Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund, the New Zealand Space Agency, and other donors underwrote the $88 million cost of building and launching, as well as the cost of collecting and analyzing data. Seem like a high price tag? Of course. But compare it to the billions of dollars we the people pay when we are made sick from pollution, from toxic chemicals, from the chaos of extreme weather. And the costs of rebuilding lives, rebuilding health, the cost of sky-rocketing insurance. You get the picture. So to my eye this kind of endeavor looks like a very sound investment.
Early pre-launch test reports showed that oil and gas producers in the U.S. were emitting methane at four times the rates estimated by EPA, with the largest emitter being the Permian Basin in Texas. The satellite went on to collect and beam back reams of data.
And now that little satellite, just over a year old, is lost in space. We just found out this week. We will never hear from it again.
Such are the perils of shooting for the stars. There are other satellites, other ways to find and measure methane leaks, other governments to step up. What’s so sad right now is that the U.S. government isn’t leading the way in solving the global warming catastrophe that the U.S. has contributed more to than any other country.
Our children
As the news of the satellite’s disappearance unfolded, the Senate was killing investments in building out cleaner renewable energy. EPA Administrator Zeldin seems to have gone bonkers on a POLLUTION SPREE, attempting to undo pollution controls from power plants, cars, trucks. To top it off, he has asked for the President’s blessing to stop EPA dealing with climate pollution at all. And the president has signed Presidential Free Passes to Pollute for lots of industrial plants, including coal plants.
I wish I could say this was mystifying, but it isn’t. Trump told us all what he was going to do when he announced to the oil and gas industry that if they made significant donations to his presidential campaign, he would protect the beloved liquid gold.
What’s mystifying is why no one making those deals seems to care about the consequences—for all of us. Which gets me to the children. I probably don’t need to say more. But. Do any of the Senators, the cabinet members, the corporate executives who want to pollute think about the world their children are growing into? Do any of them care?
Billions of dollars seem to be worth more than billions of children.
That’s the disgrace—and that’s the assault on an ideal of a country that can solve problems just as well and faster than it creates problems. That’s the ideal I am devoted to, and that’s the ideal that makes me feel patriotic, trammeled as that ideal is right now.
Tell EPA: Hands Off Climate Pollution Limits for Power Plants