Sarah Laskow explains how progressives joined energy producers in loving natural gas. In places like Ithaca, New York, green advocates might be fighting to keep natural-gas companies away, but in Washington, D.C., progressive leaders and national environmental groups are ready to fight for natural gas as a source of clean energy. Take Tim Wirth. The former senator, who came to Congress in 1977 as a representative from Boulder, Colorado, asked climate guru James Hansen to testify about global warming in 1988 and worked in the State Department on climate-change issues during the Clinton administration. Long familiar with the natural-gas industry, Wirth, who now heads Ted Turner's United Nations Foundation, is pushing its leaders to cuddle up to their peers in the solar and wind industries. "What happens when the wind doesn't blow? What happens when the sun doesn't shine? It's natural gas that should be filling that gap," Wirth told natural-gas producers last summer at a conference in Colorado. "You should be the closest buddies of the wind and solar industry." Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits clouds of carbon, and its extraction can dirty air, water, and land. Yet natural gas has a place in the staunchest environmentalists' plans for the future of American energy. In part, they support natural gas because they know wind and solar will not be enough to meet America's fuel needs for years to come. More important, though, natural gas burns cleaner than coal. The climate bill that the House passed last June would give the coal industry plenty of leeway to keep its carbon-spewing plants open. If environmental groups want climate legislation that does more to clamp down on carbon emissions, the natural-gas industry is their ally against coal. "The emergency is coal and oil," says Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace USA. "And it's natural gas that poses a competitive threat." KEEP READING. . .
