Enviroment
For centuries, Americans have spearheaded the exploration, development, and exploitation of our nation’s resources, as well as those of others. The impetus behind our industrious aspirations being the desire to conquer the unknown and harvest the spoils. Many, then and now, would claim it ordained by God. Sadly, the misguided manner with which our predecessors have gone about this has finally begun to come to fruition. Throughout the industrialization of America, and even several decades into the 20th century, Americans had plausible deniability. It was not understood that were paving the road to a global environmental catastrophe. The IPCC has found, in their 2013 AR5 report, that the current concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) are “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years,” and adds that, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal”. We have known for decades that anthropogenic activities were harmfully impacting our atmosphere. Now we must, in short order, drastically reduce emissions of nitrous oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC), methane (CH4), and especially carbon dioxide (CO2) if are to avoid the more dire climate change scenarios that read like an apocalyptic science fiction film. One important step in this quest is to wean our society off of fossil fuels. Although, natural gas is itself a fossil fuel, it is, by far, the cleanest burning fossil fuel. The arduous process of transitioning to alternative sources of energy will not be accomplished in the near future. However, there must be a source of energy that can bridge the gap between the two. Natural gas is that bridge.