- 17 hours ago
America Ferrera profiles the Heartland Institute's James Taylor as he crusades against clean energy; Mark Bittman conducts a yearlong investigation into the truths behind natural gas.
探讨气候变化和极端天气如何改变全球各地的生活，以及政府和民众可以采取哪些行动。
探讨气候变化和极端天气如何改变全球各地的生活，以及政府和民众可以采取哪些行动。
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LifestyleTranscript
00:13I was born in California. Now I live in New York. And between Superstorm Sandy here and the raging
00:21wildfires and the record droughts there, it's impossible to ignore global warming. It worries
00:26me a lot. So when I get a chance to meet a top energy executive whose company burns a lot
00:32of coal,
00:33oil, and gas, I'm eager to ask him some tough questions. The single largest source of carbon
00:39emissions in the United States, in the world, comes from power plants. And we own power plants.
00:44David Crane is the CEO of America's second largest energy generation company, NRG. When it comes to
00:52climate change and carbon emissions, so many people would say you're the bad guy.
00:57We make enough power to light up 40 million American homes. But in order to do that right
01:02now, we're emitting about 60 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere a year. We're the bad guy
01:08because we're keeping the lights on in everyone's home. And this is the way the lights have been
01:12kept on for the last hundred years. And so... But then he tells me something I wasn't expecting.
01:17He's trying to move away from oil and coal, and as quickly as possible. In Texas, his company
01:24is already one of the biggest providers of wind energy. So then is your interest in sustainable
01:30energy purely personal and moral? Or do you see... Does it make business sense?
01:36Oh no, it makes total business sense. You know, when we started, we sort of looked around
01:40to our left and to our right, thinking that, you know, ours is a pretty competitive industry.
01:44Well, where are, you know, all our competitors are going to be there and we're going to have to fight
01:47them. And we were alone. Why? I don't, I don't know. I don't, I can't ask that question.
01:53And David Crean isn't the only surprising person who's pushing for clean energy these days.
01:59About an hour from where I grew up, I meet the mayor of Lancaster, California,
02:03a tough-on-crime Republican who's trying to power his entire city with solar energy.
02:09Half the people think I'm nuts when I say these things. Half the people believe me,
02:13and then it happens. You know, nobody believed 97% of the city buildings would be
02:18net zero. What is net zero? Net zero is we are not creating a carbon footprint
02:23at all. That's attainable now. And it's not just companies and cities
02:28that are turning to renewables. Entire countries are too. People have been talking about solar and
02:34wind since the 1970s when, you know, Jimmy Carter was talking about this stuff. So it's been around
02:39for a while. But what's different now is that you've got Germany, Japan, Denmark, really large,
02:46sophisticated economies that are now sprinting towards renewable energy because we're cost
02:51effective. We create huge amount of jobs. We're local. So you don't have to worry about importing
02:56foreign oil or, or doing all of those things.
02:59So what's stopping our country from doing the same thing? Renewable energy seems to be more viable
03:06than ever. But I'm also learning there are some powerful forces standing in its way.
03:16Our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts on all of humankind. I'm here to say
03:25we need to act on a hot day last summer, the president laid out a new, more aggressive plan
03:36to rein in climate change. These are facts. Obama claimed to see a path forward from the dirty energy
03:42of the past to the clean energy of the future. But the energy source the president talked about the
03:48most wasn't wind or solar or even nuclear. It was natural gas. We're also producing more cleaner
03:55burning natural gas than any other country on earth. He called it clean, affordable and critical
04:02to stopping global warming. It can also help reduce our carbon emissions. These days, a lot of people
04:09are saying that natural gas is the solution to both our energy and climate woes. But I discovered that a
04:16handful of scientists have some problems with that claim, including one who used to work for the gas
04:22industry.
04:23The industry really wants the American people to believe. They really want the president of the
04:30United States to believe. They want all the state regulators and state legislators to believe what
04:37they're saying, which is, shale gas is our savior. Merry Christmas, America. It's going to make us energy
04:45energy independent, energy secure. It's going to keep prices low. It's going to kill coal. Well, all those
04:52things depend upon shale gas being clean. And we questioned that.
05:13When I started looking into the state of clean energy in America, everyone told me to go to Kansas. To
05:21the Native Americans who once lived here, Kansas means people of the south wind. They say that in some parts
05:27of the state, it never
05:28stops blowing. Today, more and more people in Kansas are trying to harness that natural resource. Wow. Look at that.
05:41It's huge.
05:46I'm here to meet with one of the pioneers, a rancher named Pete Farrell. I used to cuss the whip.
05:55There were days I'd come in with a headache from having to clamp my
05:58hat on so tight over my head. So at what point did your relationship to the wind change? It was
06:07out of strategic necessity. I realized a number of years ago that I was going to join the old dead
06:16rancher society. That's where you work 24 seven, 365 days a year until you fall over dead. And then a
06:24bunch of people gather around and congratulate you for what a fine job you did. Yeah, boy.
06:28Boy, he put away the hours, didn't he? And I've seen guys just work themselves into the grave. And I
06:34decided I didn't want to be a member of that society. I wanted to find a different way.
06:38But when he first put up these turbines, he had no idea they would end up saving his ranch when
06:44disaster struck. The worst drought in decades is causing pain across more than half the nation. Today, the U.S.
06:51Department of Agriculture reports almost half of all the nation's counties have been declared disasters because of this year's drought.
06:58We've had droughts before. We could measure them in months. So the first time in my life that I got
07:05to experience a three-year drought. And a drought is like a piece of sand you can never get out
07:11of your eye. It's always there. It always reminds you every day when you look out and you see the
07:17landscape dying.
07:19I don't know what my fellow ranchers... Well, I do know what they're doing. I know they're quitting. And they're
07:26losing their land and their livelihoods. And of course, my ace up my sleeve is that I have a wind
07:33farm which allows me to gain an additional track of revenue in spite of a drought.
07:39Wind is my best cash crop in a drought because wind blows even during a drought.
07:44So, Pete, talk to me about the history of this ranch. How long have you been here?
07:49My great-grandfather founded this ranch in 1888. This is where he spent his final years. He built this house
07:57as a 70-year-old just five years before he died.
08:00This very house. This very house, built 90 years ago by him. So I'm living in my great-grandfather's home
08:07and it's sacred ground.
08:10Pete says that at first, people were skeptical of his wind turbines. But a few years after he put them
08:16up, the whole state got behind wind energy in a big way.
08:21Kansas passed a law requiring that 20% of all electricity come from renewables by 2020.
08:29Now, more than half the states in the country have similar laws. They're known as renewable energy standards.
08:36And it's thanks in part to these laws that in 2012, wind and solar in the U.S. grew faster
08:42than any other energy source. Faster than coal or even natural gas.
08:48Kansas now has enough turbines to power nearly a million homes. And it's not just lefties who are happy about
08:55this.
08:56Kansas's Republican governor, one of the most conservative in the country, is a huge supporter.
09:01If we do this right, we will see the development of renewable energy corridor throughout the state of Kansas that
09:08will provide jobs for rural Kansas and clean energy for the world.
09:12I want Kansas to not only be known as the wheat state, but also the renewable state. And we can
09:19do it.
09:19But not everyone is happy about all the growth in renewables. And some groups are working very hard to convince
09:27people that wind and solar are a bad bet.
09:33We are at the World Series of Poker in the Rio Hotel and Casino, probably about 2,000 players, mostly
09:41poker professionals, few amateurs like myself.
09:47The game, it's so complex. There's patience, self-control, self-discipline. Then it's really important to be able to read
09:56people, understanding who they are, how they're playing.
10:00And for my job as an analyst for energy and environment issues and policy, like I would at the poker
10:06table, I need to know all the data, I need to know all the studies, I need to discern what
10:11each piece of data or study means fitted into the overall picture.
10:14The mere notion that climate is changing does not mean, A, that we're facing a crisis or, B, that we
10:20need to do something about it.
10:22James Taylor spends much of his time on the road.
10:25Good morning.
10:27Going from state to state to state, trying to shut down any government efforts to promote renewables.
10:33I've been to most of the state capitals to meet with legislators or state officials or to testify.
10:40For today's hearings, would you prefer that I emphasize more the economics, more the environmental issues?
10:46Emphasize the economic side. I don't think we're going to win the environmental argument.
10:52These are where the battles are fought regarding global warming and all sorts of other issues.
10:56The objective fact is that renewable power is substantially more expensive than conventional power.
11:03Natural gas, regarding the six principal pollutants tracked by EPA, natural gas cuts those pollutants by 90-plus percent.
11:10It's essentially an emissions-free power source.
11:12You are almost a wholly owned subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, are you not?
11:17Well, that's what the global warming alarmist the world would like you to believe.
11:21Taylor seems to be part of a vocal minority.
11:24I find a Gallup poll saying that three out of four Americans want the country to push harder on wind
11:30and solar.
11:31Why is Taylor so intent on stopping that?
11:36You'll win them back, don't worry. Trust me.
11:39Who is this guy?
12:03I've got to keep an eye out for golfers. Hopefully they're sending them off the other way.
12:07I want to get hit in the back of the head.
12:09It would take a very weird shot for us to get hit in the back of the head.
12:14I'm a columnist for the New York Times, and I write a lot about climate change.
12:19In the last few years, there's been growing excitement about natural gas as a clean alternative to coal and oil.
12:25And in cities like Fort Lupton, there's another reason to be excited. All the money that's flowing.
12:32This is an oil and gas operations area. It's within 400 feet, 300 feet of residential homes on the golf
12:39course.
12:40No complaints, no problems. This is the way it is, and people are okay with that.
12:44If there were any complaints, I can guarantee you that they'd be calling the mayor.
12:48So I would be able to hear that. I guess you'd know about it.
12:53When I first got elected, we were having foreclosures left and right, just like it was across the country.
12:592008, 2009.
13:00Yeah. And when I got in, the oil and gas came. And when that came, we started adding jobs.
13:07And so it made a huge difference. I mean, everybody's up at least 20% in their business, 20 to
13:1230%.
13:14We're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.
13:18Just a few years ago, America's energy future looked uncertain.
13:22Then fracking came along.
13:25It's an intensive process where millions of gallons of water and chemicals are injected underground
13:30to break up the rock and free countless tiny pockets of natural gas.
13:35For the first time, fracking made it possible to extract the gas from a type of rock called shale.
13:42Around the same time, massive new shale formations were discovered.
13:48Suddenly, America had a new domestic energy source worth more than $10 trillion.
13:55Soon, we are fracking at an almost inconceivable rate, drilling more than 35,000 new wells a year.
14:09I've heard lots of complaints about fracking, water catching on fire, toxic chemicals, even earthquakes.
14:15But to me, it seemed like maybe the pros outweighed the cons.
14:19Natural gas, I learned, produces just half as much carbon dioxide as coal.
14:24And when it comes to climate change, that's a big difference.
14:28But not far from the natural gas fields of Fort Lupton, a scientist was making a surprising discovery
14:35that would challenge the conventional wisdom about natural gas.
14:58We started doing measurements in the Denver basin, north of Denver, in 2008.
15:03We had equipped a tower with instruments to measure methane, carbon dioxide, and a few of the gases.
15:12And we noticed interesting readings.
15:17We had a signal there we had never seen before.
15:21In 2008, Gabby Patron, a top government scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
15:28couldn't believe what she was seeing.
15:31High levels of methane, a greenhouse gas up to 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
15:37Enhanced methane, propane, butane, almost in every sample.
15:42Methane is a strong greenhouse gas.
15:44And I had never seen these kind of measurements.
15:47So we're like, okay, let's try to understand better what this tower is telling us.
15:52And we started driving around.
15:55Patron needed to find out where the methane was coming from.
15:58So she turned this old van into a high-tech mobile methane detector.
16:02Soon, she was criss-crossing vast stretches of northeastern Colorado, taking thousands of measurements.
16:08Here, so we're taking.
16:10She thought the methane might be coming from landfills, or the 2.6 million cows in the area.
16:16But the source turned out to be something she didn't expect.
16:22Methane, mm, methane is right there.
16:25But look at these levels.
16:27There's no questioning where the methane is coming from.
16:29It's natural gas, okay?
16:31Definitely.
16:31We saw a lot of emitters in these oil and gas fields.
16:36Every well pad had some kind of signature.
16:40What she was finding was alarming.
16:43But was enough methane leaking to make it a serious problem?
16:46To find out, she needed more data.
17:00James Taylor is a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank.
17:06They promote right-wing views on all kinds of issues.
17:09But what they're really famous for is denying man-made climate change.
17:14Right now, Taylor's focus is trying to repeal renewable energy laws all over the country.
17:20But how does someone like him influence legislation in dozens of states?
17:25I find out Taylor is working with a powerful group called the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
17:33The name sounds dull, but ALEC's members have included some of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, as
17:39well as thousands of mostly Republican state legislators.
17:43Together, behind closed doors, they write bills that the legislators then take home to their individual states and try to
17:50get passed.
17:52ALEC boasts that more than a hundred of its bills become real laws every year.
17:57Arizona's harsh immigration law started its life as an ALEC bill.
18:01So did the controversial Stand Your Ground law that was enacted in more than two dozen states.
18:08And we're going to the state capitol, please.
18:10And then there's the Electricity Freedom Act, co-written by James Taylor.
18:15It seeks to repeal renewable energy standards all over the country.
18:20Today, he's in Kansas.
18:23Many states are on the verge of rolling back the renewable power mandates.
18:27They're very close, especially since the fracking revolution, where we've been able to produce more natural gas.
18:33And oftentimes, when one state takes that first step, that enables others to follow.
18:40I think Kansas is going to be one of those states that is going to set the tone in the
18:47next few years.
18:49And with Heartland and ALEC at his back, Taylor has direct access to lawmakers across the country.
18:57So my friends, Dennis Hedke and Forrest Knox here in the Kansas legislature, we share ideas on a frequent basis.
19:04And we're meeting together to discuss those issues.
19:07Good to see you again.
19:08Dennis Hedke is the chairman of the House Energy and Environment Committee and a member of ALEC.
19:13He's trying to put a stop to Kansas' renewable energy mandate with a bill inspired by Taylor's Electricity Freedom Act.
19:21These renewable power mandates here in Kansas and elsewhere, they're requiring you to dismantle power plants that are in existence.
19:30Electricity demand, it's only growing at about 1% per year.
19:33So if you were to get to 20% by 2020, it means you have to take out existing perfectly
19:39good power facilities in order to build more of the wind and solar to make the 20%.
19:43A lot of folks really just can't handle the truth. That's the way it is, but we've got to try
19:48our best.
19:49That's a great point.
19:50Heartland introduces me to ideas and concepts that I wouldn't generate on my own.
19:55They have studied the issues in significant detail, and so they make recommendations to policymakers like myself.
20:02So that's the value to me. It saves me time. Big savings of time.
20:08Anything I can do to help in terms of providing information or reaching out to people, just let me know.
20:12Happy to do it.
20:15So if forces succeed in rolling back the renewable energy standard, what does that mean for wind farmers?
20:22The rollback would have huge effect on farmers and ranchers who then would no longer have the opportunity that I
20:30had to have a wind farm on their property.
20:33They have a drought. They have no other option. They're just done.
20:44Around the same time that Gabby Patron was driving her van across Colorado, another scientist at Cornell University in New
20:52York was starting an investigation of his own.
20:54Of course, we want to make sure that we're accounting for all the methane that might be flowing into the
21:00volume over that area.
21:02Tony Ingrafia is a professor of structural engineering and an expert in rock fracture mechanics.
21:08He spent many years consulting for the oil and gas industry, but now he's one of the industry's biggest critics.
21:15It all started a few years ago when he decided to take a closer look at what happens to natural
21:20gas when it leaks into the air.
21:22Natural gas is essentially methane, CH4, the simplest of all of the hydrocarbons.
21:30It's colorless, it's odorless, it's tasteless.
21:33Methane, when it's burned, produces less carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than coal or oil.
21:40It's less dirty.
21:41Less dirty than coal or oil, by far. No question about that.
21:45But the problem with methane is that if it gets into the atmosphere without being burned, it becomes a very
21:51potent greenhouse gas.
21:52Worse than carbon dioxide, by far.
21:55How many times worse?
21:56Ask this question. I put a pound of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, I put a pound of methane into
22:01the atmosphere.
22:02If you wait 20 years, methane is anywhere from 72 and 105 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
22:09Wow.
22:11So you'd have to leak 80 pounds of carbon dioxide to do the same harm as one pound of methane.
22:17It makes for a thicker blanket than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.
22:21Exactly.
22:21Makes the Earth's atmosphere a better greenhouse.
22:25Therefore, we have to make sure we don't leak very much methane.
22:29Any leaks make natural gas less clean than advertised.
22:32And the more it leaks, the dirtier it gets.
22:35The question is, how much methane can leak before natural gas starts to get as bad as coal, the dirtiest
22:42fossil fuel?
22:44Most experts say the threshold is about 3%.
22:47As long as no more than 3% of the natural gas we produce ends up leaking into the atmosphere,
22:53it's not necessarily good, but it's still better than coal.
22:58Engrafia and his team wanted to collect all the data they could get their hands on to estimate just how
23:03much methane was leaking across the entire country.
23:06And over a period of two years, we gathered the information we could from the EPA, from the Department of
23:13Energy, from industry sources.
23:15We would pick up the phone and call people at gas companies and oil companies and ask them.
23:19And in most cases, they were quite willing to say, yeah, here's the information, here's the data.
23:24No one had pieced all this together before, and what they found looked like very bad news.
23:29We published our paper and we said, look, we concluded that as an upper bound, 7.9% of all
23:38the gas produced by a shale gas well during its lifetime would not get burned, but would get emitted.
23:44At the lower end, we said about 3.6%.
23:48That's the range. It could be this much.
23:50But even if it's only this much, natural gas is not any better than coal or oil.
23:57And if it's this much, it's way worse.
23:59Even at the low end of the range, the news was bad.
24:02Yes. But I emphasize, we weren't going out and measuring anything.
24:05We don't have the resources to do that.
24:08You were really guessing at the amount of methane that was leaking.
24:11You really didn't know at that time.
24:13We really didn't know, but I object to the word guess.
24:16We were using best available scientific estimation methods.
24:20To estimate, but we didn't know. We don't know now. No one knows.
24:25Even so, the natural gas industry maintains that the leak rate is only about 1%.
24:31And they didn't take kindly to Ingrafia's results.
24:38As I investigate the future of wind and solar power in America,
24:42I'm realizing that many of the biggest decisions aren't made in Washington, D.C.
24:47They're made in state houses, like this one.
24:50This is where James Taylor has been focusing his energy,
24:54trying to convince local lawmakers that renewable energy is too expensive.
25:00Today, I'm meeting Kimberly Swati.
25:02She's a consultant for the wind industry here in Kansas,
25:05and she's been on the front lines of this local battle.
25:09So one of the biggest things that I hear is that if my state decides to switch to wind or
25:15solar,
25:16ultimately, I'm going to end up paying for it.
25:18My utility bill is going to go through the roof. Is that true?
25:22We have seen in the last several years, as utilities have bought more renewable energy
25:27and they've integrated onto their system, the price impact has been de minimis, is what they say.
25:32Zero to 1.7% impact. So not in Kansas. Your rates will not go up in Kansas.
25:37It's no surprise that Swati would say good things about wind,
25:41but a report by the state of Kansas itself backs her up.
25:45And while it's true that in some states, renewable energy isn't as cheap as fossil fuels,
25:50prices are falling incredibly fast.
25:53Wind and solar dropped by more than 50% just between 2008 and 2012.
25:58And here in Kansas, wind has also generated tens of millions of dollars for landowners,
26:05brought in billions in investment, and helped create over 12,000 jobs.
26:10The forces that are interested in pulling back are primarily external forces.
26:16And who are they?
26:18We've seen organizations like the Heartland Institute has come into Kansas and put out information that is misleading about the
26:29cost of wind and renewables.
26:31And what is it that they're saying about the cost of renewable?
26:33They're saying that renewable energy costs a lot more than what it really does in Kansas.
26:37And I'm seventh generation Kansan, and this is a very important place for me.
26:44We have good things happening here right now.
26:47And it's very frustrating to see people come in and provide information that's not accurate for our state
26:54to try and undermine policies that have absolutely worked for our state.
27:11We'd like to present the facts on various topics, energy and the environment, budget and tax, to people who are
27:18influential.
27:18If you are a state legislator here in Colorado, or you have been a state legislator, could you just raise
27:25your hand or...
27:26Now there are a few more.
27:28It's our privilege to have with us, in person, the real James Saylor.
27:34Going to a Heartland event feels like entering an alternate universe.
27:39There are hundreds upon hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that show that humans are not causing,
27:43global warming is not causing an increase in extreme weather events.
27:46Don't let anybody tell you differently.
27:47In reality, the scientific consensus on climate change is effectively unanimous.
27:53It is extremely likely that humans are mostly to blame for temperatures that have been climbing now for decades.
28:00How sure are these scientists? They say about 95% certain.
28:05And in science, 95% is pretty darn certain.
28:08The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, brings together thousands of scientists from more than 50 countries.
28:17Their latest report might be the most comprehensive scientific assessment in history, and its conclusions are dire.
28:24But to challenge the findings of the IPCC, Heartland and others set up their own group, the NIPCC.
28:31We're producing, look for it, the Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change,
28:35the updated report, Climate Change Reconsidered, explaining what's going on.
28:38Heartland even came up with a billboard campaign in 2012 over a busy Chicago highway
28:44that equated people who believe in global warming with terrorists.
28:49I'm starting to wonder, who's behind the Heartland Institute?
28:53So I'm heading to California to meet two people who have studied Heartland for years.
29:04I'm on my way to meet with Mark Bolling, a top executive with Southwestern Energy,
29:09the fifth largest natural gas producer in the nation.
29:13I want to ask him about Dr. Engrafia's paper, which estimated that more than 3% of all the natural
29:19gas produced in the U.S. is leaking.
29:21We are not going to let those profits go up in the air.
29:25So that's part, I'm not sure whether that's the real answer to your question,
29:31but it's from our perspective, from industry's perspective, we said, well, of course it can't be that high.
29:37We'd be fired if we allowed our leak rate to be that high.
29:42It's obviously a touchy subject, because he's the only industry official who would agree to talk on camera.
29:48And he wants to show me how preventing leaks is just smart business.
29:53That's where we capture all of the gas from the minute that it comes back from a hydraulic fracturing flow
29:58back
29:58and put it right into the sales line.
30:01Several years ago, Southwestern started doing what it called green completions to capture gases including methane that would otherwise escape
30:09into the air.
30:10The old way we used to do it, like this, we would vent probably 16 million cubic feet of gas
30:17on average from each well that we are now capturing.
30:21Multiply that by the amount of money you make per thousand cubic feet, it pays for itself.
30:27So you're making money on it because you're selling the 16 million cubic feet that you're capturing.
30:32Absolutely.
30:33Air combined with fresh snow, and you kind of had to...
30:37Doling says Engrafia's research just focused on the dirtiest wells.
30:41When I looked at some of the assumptions they used to come up with their numbers, then I go, oh,
30:46well, the study lost credibility with me in that regard.
30:52And the kind of work that was put into it was really wasn't what it should be to come out
30:59and make those statements like, hey, natural gas is dirtier than coal.
31:04That just didn't seem right to me.
31:05After talking to bowling, I try to find out how many other companies are actually doing green completions.
31:12No one seems to know, not even the government.
31:15Nevertheless, when it comes to methane leaks, the government more or less agrees with the industry estimates.
31:21The Environmental Protection Agency says the leak rate is just 1.5%, well below the 3% threshold.
31:31I wanted to find out how they get that number.
31:34But for some reason, the EPA declined to talk to me on camera.
31:39But then I found a former EPA official who was willing to talk.
31:43And he explained how the agency comes up with its estimates, which are officially called emission inventories.
31:49I worked 38 years with EPA and actually formulated the techniques for developing emission inventories.
31:57I was responsible for them right from the start.
31:59They're of necessity guesses.
32:02That's because the EPA doesn't do comprehensive measurements.
32:06As crazy as it sounds, when the EPA says methane emissions are going down in the U.S.,
32:11they're pretty much taking the gas industry's word for it.
32:14All these emission inventories, by the way, are derived from industry-supported data.
32:20So when EPA publishes estimates of methane, of leaks of methane, that data is coming from industry.
32:28Industry, right.
32:30Is it all independently verified?
32:32No.
32:33No.
32:34You know, Mark, in my experience developing and maintaining emission inventories nationally for many years,
32:41every time we looked further, we found more emissions.
32:45And every time there was some sort of large growth in a particular industry, there were unforeseen emissions.
32:53And we're in the same situation today, certainly with the gas drilling that's going on now.
32:59The extensiveness of it is unbelievable.
33:03But EPA's recently less lowered their estimate of methane leak rate.
33:08Well, where did the data come from?
33:11The data came from the industry.
33:14Right.
33:15Now, that's like Farmer John sends the fox out to say, how many chickens do I have?
33:22And he comes back and says, you got 10 less chickens this year than you had last year.
33:26Yes.
33:27It seemed like everyone was guessing about methane leaks.
33:31But in Colorado, Gabby Patron's research was finally yielding some concrete results.
33:42I've come to California to meet with Lisa Graves, the executive director for the Center for Media and Democracy.
33:49And Brendan Demel, who runs an investigative website called Desmog Blog.
33:55They've made it their business to learn as much as possible about the Heartland Institute and other groups that deny
34:02climate change.
34:03Heartland has this storied history of attacking climate change.
34:06They've sort of molded their position to fit the times.
34:09Originally, they started out as outright deniers, saying it's not happening, it's a hoax.
34:13When the science was clear, you know, they sort of shifted to, well, if it's happening, it's not that big
34:19of a deal, to, actually, it might be good for us.
34:22It might be beneficial.
34:23And that's where James Taylor really, you know, his position is that global warming will be beneficial for humans.
34:28The scientific evidence is really against them, but they say things so boldly and stridently that it makes some people
34:34believe that they must be telling the truth.
34:35So who are Heartland supporters? Where do they get their funding?
34:38Well, there's a number of things we know about Heartland's funding and some that we don't, because as of 2007,
34:45they don't disclose their donors.
34:46One thing they do know is that Heartland is just a small part of a vast climate denial network, with
34:53hundreds of millions of dollars behind it.
34:56Through a combination of public tax records and leaked internal documents, a lot of the money has been tracked back
35:03to two major sources.
35:06ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, gave at least $27.4 million to climate denial groups between 1998 and 2010,
35:15including hundreds of thousands of dollars to Heartland.
35:19And fossil fuel billionaires Charles and David Koch, who own Koch Industries, have funneled more than $72 million to the
35:26cause through a dizzying array of foundations and front groups.
35:30But recently, the money trail has gone cold.
35:34Foundations or companies that gave money directly are now, through this mechanism called Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund,
35:41able to shield their donors.
35:43Which makes it harder for the public to put pressure on those funders to not support.
35:48How do you hold someone accountable if you don't know who they are?
35:50Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund act as middlemen between wealthy donors and groups they want to secretly fund.
35:58The donors are able to remain anonymous.
36:01Much of Heartland's funding now comes from a single anonymous donor.
36:06And with the help of Donors Trust, more money is pouring into climate denial than ever before.
36:11A staggering $558 million just between 2003 and 2010.
36:18And Brendan and Lisa tell me that climate change isn't the only issue where Heartland has been on the wrong
36:25side of science.
36:26One of the things we've seen with Heartland and with the other groups is a real effort to muddy the
36:30waters.
36:31And that's right out of the tobacco company's big PR playbook.
36:34In 1969, a tobacco executive wrote a memo in which he said that doubt is our product.
36:40If they were going to confuse the public, they needed to suggest to them that there's no link between tobacco
36:45and cancer.
36:46So we're going to sell this idea that there's confusion among scientists and continue to perpetuate doubt in the public
36:53mind.
36:54And Heartland was one of the key players in that.
36:57In the 90s, with funding from Philip Morris, Heartland tried to discredit the science linking secondhand smoke to cancer.
37:05In a fundraising letter, Heartland's president boasted about how valuable the organization was to tobacco companies.
37:12And many of the same scientists now denying climate change got their start defending cigarettes.
37:18Brendan, can you tell us more about who James Taylor is?
37:21Sure. So James Taylor, his expertise is in the law.
37:24You know, he's a lawyer. He's a great talker. You know, he's a very personable guy.
37:29But it's kind of shocking to me that anyone would rely on a lawyer to give them advice about science
37:35matters.
37:35You know, it's kind of like asking your dentist what to do about your heart condition.
37:39You know, he might have some interesting things to say about it, but he's probably not the specialist you should
37:43be listening to.
37:44Ever since I started following this battle over renewables, I've wanted to meet James Taylor face to face.
37:51I get my chance when he agrees to meet in New York.
38:04After more than two years driving around collecting samples, Gabby Patron had a wealth of data showing leaks throughout the
38:12entire natural gas system in the Denver basin.
38:14What did you do with that information? Where did that go?
38:17We wrote a paper and we estimated at the time that on average 4% of the gas that was
38:25extracted from the ground ended up in the atmosphere instead of in the pipeline.
38:29You're showing a leak rate that's much, much higher than EPA estimates and much four times as high, minimum of
38:36four times as high as what the industry says there is.
38:38That's right.
38:39I mean, this is real information produced by scientists using real instruments.
38:44And peer reviewed. I mean, peer reviewed, impartial, etc.
38:47You present this information to the industry and they say what?
38:54They have a lot of questions. I don't think that everybody's happy with what we found.
39:01Here was an independent study produced by top government scientists suggesting that, at least in the Denver basin, natural gas
39:10is far from clean.
39:12Not surprisingly, the industry argued that Patron's results were just an outlier, a single snapshot of a vast natural gas
39:21system.
39:38Here was a mystery in the area.
39:39I've never been to the doctor, but I could be the other yeah.
39:39I've never done it.
39:39I've never been here.
39:44I have never done it.
39:45I've never been here.
39:51I've never been here.
39:57that's where we're going it's making measurements every one second
40:05practically as soon as we started to leave vernal it went up yeah it's starting to go up
40:10the uinta basin in eastern utah is home to thousands of natural gas and oil wells
40:15and not much else i'm here with a team from picaro a company that's working on cutting-edge
40:22technology for measuring methane emissions normally these guys are hired by the gas companies
40:28themselves to find and fix leaks this time though they're heading out on their own dime
40:33they want to know if the methane problem could possibly be as bad as patron's numbers suggest
40:38and to find out they brought the big guns equipment that's a thousand times more sensitive than what
40:44most companies use to detect methane the blue dots are natural gas wells yes or natural gas
40:50facilities of one type or another it's insane we're driving down this road and we took that
40:58right turn and then within minutes at first doubled now it's now it's sitting at triple yeah that's
41:11correct it takes two weeks to fully cover the area they find leaks everywhere there's so much gas in
41:19the air that methane readings are sky-high over the entire 700 square mile basin i was surprised by what
41:27gabby patrone showed me in colorado it's starting to look like utah is even worse
41:48what is your point of view where do you stand on climate change well we know that carbon dioxide to
41:56greenhouse gas if you add more to the atmosphere you're going to get some global warming so it's you
42:01human nature to see change and fear change but the best evidence out there the best scientific
42:06evidence and data show that the moderate warming that is occurring is beneficial to human welfare as
42:12it always has been throughout human history can you talk to me about who supports you and the heartland
42:18institute who your funders are yeah first of all working on policy issues i make it a point not to
42:24know i don't want that to influence you know what i write and think and even if i wanted to
42:28know the
42:29heartland institute prevents me from knowing you don't know who your funders are i have a general
42:33idea of some oftentimes because some global warming activists or people that don't like the
42:37heartland institute they'll you know assert that you know we receive money from this group or that
42:40in general terms what i do know is that the vast majority of our funding comes from private
42:44individuals and from foundations and if you look at corporations that have a stake in the energy
42:50debate uh especially fossil fuel companies that that would be a very small percentage why is this
42:55something worth fighting why is renewable energy bad yeah people like to talk about carbon dioxide
43:01and global warming but they don't talk about the 1.4 million birds and bats including many endangered
43:06species that are killed each year by wind turbines also according to the wind energy industry itself it
43:11requires 300 to 600 square miles of wind turbines to replace a single conventional power plant don't we need
43:17those things to help us jumpstart a new economy or a new solution to fighting a modern problem like
43:25climate change well if global warming were a very serious problem then certainly we would be
43:30wise to look into that but the science indicates that it's not a very serious problem but james i'm really
43:36confused because 97 percent of climate scientists say that it's real and that it's a problem and that
43:47it's man-made and you with all due respect you're a lawyer right i'm a lawyer by training you're a
43:53lawyer
43:53by training but you're not a scientist by training well i'm a scientist by training as well you're a scientist
43:59i-i-i successfully completed ivy league atmospheric science courses so i'm a scientist by training
44:07okay but let's get to your question well well my question is that that i'm confused because there's
44:13over here kind of a mountain of evidence that suggests it's a problem it's man-made people will suffer
44:21so why focus on on the smaller evidence versus the mounting evidence well i think
44:29your premise is wrong in fact more than 31 000 scientists signed on to a letter a summary of
44:34the science explaining why global warming is not a human-caused crisis that letter you're talking
44:39about is that that's the organ petition yes indeed i'd heard about this from brendan and lisa in la
44:45the oregon petition right it's one of the you know the original sort of efforts by the denial industry to
44:50suggest that they had thousands of scientists on their side that would say that global warming is not a
44:55problem but then as you look through those lists they were fictitious names everyone from star wars
45:00characters to a member of the spice girls have shown up on that list there certainly are some
45:05scientists you know they're meteorologists they're geologists or biologists you know certainly people
45:10with expertise in their area but they're far outside their specialization most of these people
45:15they're not climate scientists there was a name on it that was one of the spice girls who told you
45:20there were names there were names on it if you if you look at the petition itself if you contact
45:26the
45:27uh the scientists who put it together they will present documentation they have it on their website
45:31more than 31 000 scientists have signed it and it's documented it's documented
45:39after meeting james i did some more research his science training consists of a few undergraduate
45:45courses he took over 25 years ago as for the organ petition it turns out anyone with an undergraduate
45:53science degree can add their name the website brags about the number of signatures but less than one
45:59percent even claim to have an expertise in climate science the whole thing seems kind of ridiculous to
46:07me but with all the money pouring in the denial campaign seems hard to counter and i wonder how all
46:13this
46:13will play out in kansas where the vote on renewable energy is about to happen
46:24when we got to utah i was shocked i have never and i have done measurements all over the world
46:31i have never seen a situation ever over hundreds of square miles the number of leaks in you is staggering
46:38a few weeks after our trip to utah eric crosson from peccaro was analyzing the data we collected
46:44what he's finding is hard to fathom we did a back of the envelope calculation and came to the conclusion
46:51that the leak rate coming out of the uenta basin was about 11 percent utah in other words is even
47:00worse than
47:01colorado and on the heels of peccaro's findings another group of noaa scientists looks at methane
47:09emissions coming from a mixture of oil and gas wells in the los angeles basin their number
47:1917 percent we hear industry say there's just not that much in the way of leaks maybe we're losing one
47:25percent it's not that high it's not that big a problem what do you say to that they're wrong they're
47:32they're just flat out wrong in terms of what these emissions are the epa is flat out wrong as well
47:39but
47:40it's like so many other inaccuracies in life if you repeat them often enough and if you repeat them
47:47loud enough and you defend them vociferously then that kind of becomes accepted as truth
47:55los angeles basin up to 17 percent now granted that's one basin utah was another basin colorado
48:05was another basin but these basins are starting to line up all the data comes out so far
48:13doesn't bode well for the final answer looking like it's way low like the industry says oh less than
48:19one percent impossible absolutely impossible noaa measured got levels of 17 percent in the los angeles
48:27basin you know it it takes a lot of one percent emissions to bring that average back down i can
48:37tell
48:38you that i looked at the uh the studies that noaa did and and i know uh something about the
48:44peccaro
48:44instrumentation and i think some of those numbers they certainly concern me how could you say that
48:51that um methane emission rate was one and a half percent very very difficult to get there from here
48:58for that after what i've seen in working on this story for months the one percent leak rate industry
49:04wide countrywide sure that really seems laughable no question there's work to be done but we can all
49:10waste our time about is it four percent is it eight percent is it one percent or we can all
49:14just say
49:15i don't care what anyone thinks it is let's go out and fix the problem it's nice to hear someone
49:21from
49:21the industry at least acknowledge there's a problem president obama has acknowledged it too and promised
49:27to study it and in colorado the environmental defense fund successfully campaigned for tougher
49:33regulations on methane leaks but actually fixing the problem might not be that easy some say technology
49:39like the kind i saw at mark bowling's facility is the answer and a study last year by the environmental
49:45defense fund showed that these so-called green completions can help quite a bit but in colorado
49:51where more and more wells are doing green completions gabby patron still hasn't seen methane emissions go
49:57down then i started thinking about all the places across the country where gas can leak
50:05not just the hundreds of thousands of wells but a pipeline system 1.5 million miles long with tens of
50:13thousands of compressor stations countless valves and corroded pipes running under towns and cities
50:20everywhere even under the very city where the future of natural gas will be decided
50:33you can check these first
50:39this one we can smell it yeah you can smell it just walking up oh yeah i think it's saturating
50:46my
50:46instrument 11 that's a dangerous concentration yeah that's barked that would blow up rob jackson is
50:55a scientist with duke university he's been using paccaro technology to find methane leaks in cities
51:01he just finished a study in boston where he found thousands of them and now he's finding the same thing
51:07here this is a partial map of the of the city the red is is all the road miles in
51:12the city the yellow are
51:13the leaks when you literally have thousands of very small leaks spread out all across the city
51:18it's death by a thousand cuts so that's 45 percent gas for that that's almost pure methane coming out of
51:26the ground there's so much methane there that you actually couldn't light that because there's not
51:31enough oxygen not that that's much consolation there's a lot more we still don't know but from everything
51:38i've seen it seems like right now natural gas could be making our climate problem worse rather than
51:44better i think we need to ask ourselves if that's a risk worth taking because the natural gas boom in
51:50this country is just getting started the bill that would dismantle kansas's clean energy law is up for a
51:59vote today and pete farrell is on his way to listen in in april 2009 this legislature passed mandates
52:06to quote protect end quote u.s citizens from the dangers of a colorless odorless tasteless and i
52:14submit to you harmless gas and the co2 the existing mandates are why we're here today political winds
52:21shift the composition of the legislature shifts and maybe it shifts because of bad decisions that
52:28were made before this is about generations of kansans to come if the vote is a yes kansas's renewable energy
52:36law will be repealed i'm in support of this amendment i just cannot support this bill what are we doing
52:42here what are we doing i will move forward this motion this is starting to get a little ridiculous i
52:47will not support this and i too question why we're just playing with numbers i disagree and so i would
52:53suggest that this legislation does advance reasonable policy for the citizens of kansas all right we'll call
53:02for a vote on the amendment all in favor say aye aye aye all opposed say nay nay uh chair
53:11is in doubt
53:12we'll call for a raise of hands to clarify the vote all in favor raise your right hand please
53:19showing nine okay all opposed
53:25nine ten the motion fails this meeting is adjourned thank you
53:33we survived by one vote one vote kept us from destroying the renewable energy standard in kansas so
53:41it wasn't like it was a slam dunk or anything and did they really think that that's in the best
53:47interest of the people in kansas no i don't think they think it's the best interest in the people of
53:52kansas i think they think it's the best interest of powerful corporations
53:59america this is absolutely my favorite spot not only is this where the ashes of my parents and my
54:08sister and loved ones are but it's the best view of the world in my opinion i mean we've got
54:13everything
54:14up here we've got the most gorgeous tall grass prairie in the world and we have a state-of-the
54:20-art
54:20wind farm as a backdrop but i heard you say that you think they're beautiful but but because of what
54:26they symbolize yeah what they represent uh the ability to generate electricity without putting
54:32carbon in the air and that's it's always been a central point for me you know we're going to run
54:36out of oil and coal do we want a hard landing or a soft landing and i i think moving
54:42to renewables
54:42provides a soft landing for us in the end despite the efforts of heartland alec and others not a
54:50single state voted to repeal its clean energy law in 2013. instead four states actually increase their
54:57goals for renewables but taylor is planning to continue the fight i'm very optimistic i'm very
55:04pleased with the way events have been unfolding in the states sure i would like to have had some renewable
55:09power mandates rolled back by now when i say by now it's only been a couple years that we've really
55:14turned the momentum but i really think that that i have a strong hand in terms of what i'm advocating
55:19in the climate debate and i i'm very comfortable in my own skin in that debate just like i am
55:24at the
55:40poker table
55:41we're only a severe drought away from the near collapse of the egyptian government climate helped
55:47contribute to that chain of events next time on years of living dangerously the most immediate problem
55:52is food desperate people take to the streets corporate america accounts for more than half
55:57of the country's greenhouse gas emissions we've been working on trying to do a fully biological diaper
56:03three months after sam over 7 000 people were still without power it's not our fault as a society what
56:09do we want these people to do when there's some natural disaster this is my room that i've been waiting
56:14for two months
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