Howdy y’all! It was another exciting month for us. Charlie is in a new documentary, Sharon gave a TEDx talk at the New England Aquarium and likely set the record for largest indoor optical gas imaging display and Justin talked about LNG at MIT.

Sharon speaking at the New England Aquarium for Planet Action 2025/TEDx

TEDx Boston Planet Action 2025

Sharon was invited to speak at this event where she told her story about how she became a methane hunter and showed the audience optical gas imaging videos of oil and gas pollution. As usual, people were stunned and horrified by the images. We look forward to sharing her full TED talk video that the event producers are currently editing.

Our Work in the Media

Atmos published a profile of Sharon.

“What began as a local crusade now has international implications: Wilson has briefed regulators and journalists in the United Kingdom, Japan, and across Europe.

In the past decade, Wilson has taken up a new weapon in her fight: an imaging camera that visualizes the emissions billowing from the myriad oil and gas wells that puncture central and western Texas. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, cannot be seen by the naked eye—but through the lens of Wilson’s camera, it shows up in startling oranges and reds.

Filming from public roads, her infrared lens reveals what she calls “egregious emissions” from facilities that often have few, if any, workers onsite to prevent major leaks. “And they can do that because it’s invisible,” she said. “The industry can tell you anything, and there’s no way you can verify it by looking at the site unless you have a camera like I do.”

France’s Liberation published a feature on the damaging impacts of the New Mexican oil and gas industry that is based in large part on the fieldwork the reporter did with Charlie. You can also view some video of the work in this Instagram post by the reporter.

“The moment the car door opens, the air burns your throat. A pungent odor, a mixture of gas and metal, saturates the atmosphere. A few meters away, an oil well…Its beige paint is peeling with rust. Officially inactive, it still breathes – an invisible, toxic breath. Charlie Barrett, khaki shirt, long blond hair under a dark cap, he unfolds his tripod and sets up his infrared camera. On the screen, gray swirls appear immediately: methane and other harmful vapors escape from the corroded valve and rise into the heavy sky.”

Canada’s National Observer published a piece based on both Tim’s fieldwork in Canada and an interview with Sharon and Justin.

“Methane — a greenhouse gas with 80 times the warming potential of CO2 — isn’t visible to the naked eye, so it wasn’t until an investigator from Oilfield Witness showed up with gas sensing camera equipment that Patry learned just how much gas was spewing from the wells a short distance from her home. “When he pointed the camera and told me to have a look at this, it was difficult to hold it together.”

The Santa Fe-New Mexican published Charlie’s op-ed pointing out that regulations without enforcement are meaningless and the outcomes are a disaster.

“It has become painfully clear to me that despite the regulations intended to protect our environment, they do nothing without enforcement…In practice this means I frequently find and document emissions events near residential areas, schools, senior living centers and businesses. It is heart-wrenching to see an elementary school so close to an oil site, where children should be able to play and learn without fear of toxic exposure. This is not just an environmental issue; it is a public health crisis looming over our communities.”

Sharon and Justin were also quoted in an article from Yale Climate Connections and Justin was quoted in an article on methane in the Financial Times Sustainable Views.

The Land of Sacrifice documentary

Charlie attended a screening in Gallup of the new Land of Sacrifice documentary about the impacts of oil and gas production on New Mexico. Charlie’s work and Charlie are a big part of this documentary and he was part of a panel of speakers after the screening. Justin also appears in the documentary which was recently accepted into the Durango Film Festival.

Watch the full documentary here.

Education

Justin spoke on a panel at the annual MIT Rural event and talked about the impacts of the LNG industry on Louisiana.

Sharon spoke to an engineering class at Villanova about the topic of ethical investments. She made the point that we no longer need to invest in oil and gas, and it cannot be done without harming the climate and the people living nearby.

Our Writing

Jack commented on the recently proposed concept of exporting New Mexican LNG from the West coast of the U.S. and he had some questions.

“This bizarre situation raises some obvious questions. New Mexico is landlocked, so how are they planning to get gas to Japan? What coastal state will cooperate and why aren’t they involved in these discussions? Without an explicit deal with Japan and other Asian countries who would put up money to build export infrastructure? Will Japan continue to be interested if the next presidential administration scuttles the tariff deal? Most bafflingly, why is a governor that is committed to achieving net zero emissions negotiating with a foreign country to encourage fossil fuel expansion?”

Justin wrote about how the most popular estimates for oil demand destruction as a result of the electrification of transport are likely underestimating the real impacts.

“It also seems highly likely that the current oil glut facing the world is due to structural changes in the world’s use of oil and that oil demand destruction will be significantly higher than 5 million bpd by 2030 which will likely be an economic catastrophe for much of the world’s oil and gas industry.”

Jack wrote about the new UN report on global methane emissions.

“This leads the UN to conclude that we cannot just reduce emissions from oil and gas emissions, we must also reduce oil and gas production.”

Videos

This video by the Alianza Mexicana Contra el Fracking is based on the Texas Permian fieldwork that Sharon and Miguel did with the group.

– TILL THE END OF OIL

The Oilfield Witness Team