Obama’s Speech Fracked Open

The San Fransicso Chronicle has a take on how the Obama climate change speech jives with the reality in the country's Shale Gas fields – like the one you live in.

Robert Howarth, a Cornell University professor who argues that methane leaks from drilling negate other climate benefits of gas, said in an email to The Associated Press that he is "extremely disappointed in the President's position" and said the support for natural gas "is very likely to do more to aggravate global change than to help solve it."

Not so, Obama said.

Advances in drilling, the president said, have "helped drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly 20 years," and "we'll keep working with the industry to make drilling safer and cleaner, to make sure that we're not seeing methane emissions."