NEWS FROM JULY

Howdy, yall! It’s August, it’s hot and we’re busy!

OUR WORK IN THE MEDIA

As more people learn about our work and the reality of the ongoing methane emergency, we are getting opportunities to share what we have learned.

Sharon and Justin wrote an op-ed for Scientific American about the economic realities of methane in the Permian while cautioning against believing that satellite monitoring of methane emissions will change oil company behavior.

The op-ed concluded with the following statement:

“The facts are clear that the only viable path to addressing methane emissions is strong and courageous intervention from government to rapidly build out clean energy resources while phasing out oil and gas production.”

OK Energy Today wrote a response to the op-ed with an accurate headline, “Journalists call for government intervention to stop Permian Basin pollution.”

Sharon and Justin wrote a second op-ed for Climate and Capital media explaining the physical realities of methane and oil and gas production.

“We are facing a methane emergency. There are plenty of loopholes in the regulations requiring oil and gas producers to eliminate methane emissions. But there are no such loopholes in the laws of physics. That’s why the only solution to stop methane emissions from oil and gas production and transportation is to rapidly transition to clean energy and phase out the oil and gas industry completely. The laws of physics, nature, health and economics are demanding action now.”

MAKING INVISIBLE POLLUTION VISIBLE

We know that when people see the oil and gas pollution through the lens of our OGI camera, it is powerful. We are working on expanding our efforts to reach a much larger audience through video.

We are pleased to see the media starting to cover the methane emergency.

OILFIELD WITNESS OBSERVATIONS

In addition to producing and sharing our videos, we also continue to work with journalists, share information on social media and write directly on our blog.

Miguel wrote a blog post about the realities of how oil companies control regulatory agencies in Texas. If you aren’t from Texas, you likely will be shocked.

ORGANIZING UPDATE

More Perfect Union published their 9 minute news segment on the Permian trucker’s campaign for improved working conditions and preventing wage theft. These truckers transport frac sand–a necessary component for fracking operations. Oil companies like Halliburton are forcing Texas truckers to wait hours in their trucks during this process of frac sand transportation–sometimes with no restrooms and no pay.

The video follows the July 1st protest at the Halliburton headquarters in Odessa. This is yet another example of the lack of worker safety, dignity and input in the oilfields. We also see this in the case of Jeff Springman–a worker who was gassed at an oil and gas site while conducting a common procedure called “manual gauging.” He is currently terminally ill, suffering from cardiac arrhythmia, nervous system damage, and a blood clot in his lung.

Workers currently are not the decision makers of how the industry operates–those decisions are made by multi-millionaires in executive offices in Houston, New York, or London. Oil and gas workers are not the enemy of the climate movement–but instead key stakeholders in winning a healthy, safe, livable future.

GOOD NEWS

We will only reduce methane emissions at the rate we need to by switching off of fossil fuels. The good news is that the largest utility in the country just said that renewables are “cheaper and faster” than methane (natural gas) for new power plants.

“These results support our belief that the bulk of the growth demand will be met by a combination of renewables and battery storage…we also are well aware of the realities of new build gas-fired generation, it’s more expensive in most states, is subject to fuel price volatility and takes considerable time to deploy…” John Ketchum, NextEra CEO

And that is a big reason why Texas is now leading America in clean energy production.

“In the first half of 2024, wind and solar accounted for 38% of electrical output in the state’s main grid, which is managed by ERCOT. Together with nuclear, clean sources comprised 47% of the mix.”

We have the solutions we need to transition off of fossil fuels to clean energy. And that is great news!

- TILL THE END OF OIL

The Oilfield Witness Team

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