This headline from the @LATimes isn't just blatantly false and misleading; it's also the result of

[hunter]

55. Natural gas is the fuel that will destroy the world's natural environment as we know it...

... and likely our civilization as well. We need to quit now.

"Better than coal" isn't nearly good enough.

If we cut back on natural gas to the extent required to "save the world" there will be no reason to maintain the current natural gas distribution network.

In that case smaller users will switch to bottled gas, be it synthetic propane, butane, or DME, and larger industrial users may use synthetic methane if they can't use electricity or nuclear heat directly.

If we wish to maintain our existing high energy industrial economy and sustain our population of 8 billion, the only alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear power. We've worked ourselves into a corner here. If we quit fossil fuels without nuclear power then billions of us will suffer and die. If we don't quit fossil fuels billions of us will suffer and die. We are all dependent on high density energy sources, wealthy or impoverished.

On hundred years from now, if our civilization is still around, most high energy chemical synthesis will be accomplished in high temperature nuclear power plants. Solar and wind can't displace fossil fuels entirely and fusion energy is still a dream. We can't sit around waiting for miracles.

Once small modular reactor technology is commercialized it's probably going to experience rapid growth. This will reduce the demand for long distance energy transmission schemes of all types -- gas pipelines, underwater and overground HVDC lines, and oil or LNG supertankers. It will also make many solar and wind schemes redundant.