Back in July, Data for Progress published a national poll with a shocking result: 50 percent of likely voters believe natural gas is a form of clean energy.That’s bonkers. Natural gas is not a form of clean energy. It is a high-polluting fossil fuel made almost entirely of methane, and its climate and public health impacts have been well-documented by scientific literature over many decades. So why do so many people believe otherwise?Turns out, it’s not because people are stupid. It’s because we’ve all been subject to a decades-long industry influence campaign targeted at politicians and the public, designed to convince us that methane gas is ‘natural’ fuel that’s good for our bodies and the environment. In 1972, the American Gas Association launched a communications strategy emphasizing that gas ‘burns with no smoke and virtually no emissions,’ that it ‘is clean energy,’ that it ‘does not ruin the air we breathe,’ and that it ‘can help us have a cleaner world.’ Source: Center for Climate IntegrityA 1972 ad from the American Gas Association. Source: DesmogAnd here’s the kicker: The people behind this decades-long ‘gas is clean’ campaign have pretty much always known that gas wasn’t actually clean. That’s according to a recent investigation published by the Center for Climate Integrity, which uncovered decades of internal industry documents showing how fossil fuel companies promoted gas as a clean alternative to other fuels, even as their own internal research revealed its significant pollution and climate risks.A New York Times story covering the CCI investigation.The gas industry is still using this misleading marketing today. But now, they’re also using it to try to change policy across the country. Four states—Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and Louisiana—have already passed laws officially classifying natural gas as ‘clean’ or ‘green’ energy. And on November 3, Colorado voters will decide on a ballot measure that would create a new constitutional right: the right to buy and sell natural gas. The practical effect of this initiative would be to override climate and environmental policies that limit the use of this high-polluting fuel. To justify its passage, the initiative’s sponsors (a billionaire-backed dark money group) are claiming that methane gas is a form of clean energy. Given all that, I thought it was a good time to take a deep dive into the industry’s claim. What makes this idea—that ‘natural gas is clean’—so convincing? Is there any truth to it at all? What important context is getting left out? And how has the industry’s PR campaign shaped what so many of us believe?To answer those questions, I spoke with climate journalist Rebecca Leber, who co-authored the Center for Climate Integrity’s investigation. Together, we unpack what the ‘clean gas’ claim actually gets right, the whole buttload of context it leaves out, and how the industry has worked to shape public understanding of the fuel for decades.My hope is that this conversation can serve as a resource to return to—and share—the next time you hear the claim. Because I promise this won’t be the last time.You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or read our condensed conversation below.HEATED articles and podcasts are free for everyone—you never need to pay. But if you do have the means and appreciate all the work that goes into communicating the reality of the climate crisis, becoming a paid subscriber ensures we can continue doing it.This conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.Emily Atkin: I have to start with a basic question. What exactly is natural gas? Because we’re not talking about the stuff people put in their cars.Rebecca Leber: Right. Natural gas is not the same as gasoline, which is refined crude oil. Natural gas is almost entirely methane, which is a greenhouse gas that’s over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period.It’s currently the biggest source of electricity in the U.S., at about 40 percent. People also cook with gas, heat their homes with gas, and heat their water with gas.EA: And I feel like a lot of people don’t actually know that.RL: I think a lot of people don’t know. That’s something I’ve come across in my own reporting and conversations, but there’s also polling to back that up.My organization, the Center for Climate Integrity, partnered with Data for Progress and found that when you say ‘natural gas,’ people are very favorable toward it. But when you explain what natural gas actually is—that it’s a nonrenewable fossil fuel—favorability drops considerably.I think this is a main reason natural gas has had such an advantage in public messaging. It combines this idea of ‘natural,’ which is vague to a lot of people, with a gas that people don’t necessarily know much about.EA: This is actually why I don’t use the phrase ‘natural gas’ in my reporting anymore. I’m using it for this episode because that’s the language of the claim we’re examining. But I’ve switched to calling it methane gas, partly because of a 2022 article you wrote for Vox arguing that the name itself misleads people. Can you tell us about that?RL: That story was inspired by conversations with people who didn’t realize that when you turn on your gas stove, you’re burning a fossil fuel in your home.The name actually came about to distinguish gas that comes directly from the ground from manufactured gas made from coal. There’s a fair bit of luck here. If the oil and gas industry concocted the name ‘natural gas,’ I haven’t found evidence of that.But having ‘natural’ attached confers real advantages.EA: Yes. The name is doing a lot of work. But let’s get into why people believe natural gas is clean, because it’s not just the name. I want to play a clip from Kit Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the Colorado ballot measure we discussed earlier.It is a very clean fuel. And we have to remember when we say clean, there’s all sorts of stuff that goes into the definition of dirty, let alone the definition of clean. And I think so often we have a very narrow lens on CO2, which is an important lens to have, and we know why we have that. But we can often miss the more traditional pollutants, the mercury and the benzenes and the heavy metals and all these things that actually do come along with things like coal and sometimes some oil extraction and stuff.What I hear him saying is that when it comes to traditional pollutants like mercury and heavy metals, methane gas is better than coal and oil. How much of that is true?RL: He’s right that there are some traditional pollutants, like sulfur emissions and mercury specifically, that natural gas does a lot better on when compared with coal.Natural gas, though, does produce emissions when burned. There’s a lot of research spanning decades supporting that.One of the major pollutants to be concerned about is nitrogen oxides. Gas produces these both outdoors and inside the home. Elevated nitrogen oxides are associated with all kinds of health problems, especially respiratory problems.Gas also contributes to ground-level ozone, commonly called smog. Methane interacts with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce this ozone, which worsens air quality.And there’s been interesting research, especially out of Stanford, detecting benzene, carbon monoxide, and other problematic pollutants from gas stoves.EA: Pfeiffer also says that burning gas is ‘just producing CO2 as an effluent.’ What does that mean? Is there some truth to the idea that gas is clean-burning?RL: He’s right that burning gas produces less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels. When you compare it with coal, it’s about half as much CO2 per unit of energy. Compared with oil, it’s about a third less.But just because gas produces less CO2 doesn’t mean it produces none. And when unburned gas escapes from pipes or incorrectly installed appliances, it releases methane into the atmosphere, which causes a whole associated list of problems, including for climate change.Subscribe nowEA: That helps explain why someone might hear that gas is clean and think it makes sense. It’s being compared with other extremely dirty fossil fuels.But there’s also the climate argument—that natural gas can help us fight climate change. That was a favorite argument of President Barack Obama. Here’s what he said in his 2014 State of the Union address.Natural gas. If extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change.What do you think when you hear that?RL: The bridge fuel talking point has been around for a really long time. Democrats, and occasionally Republicans, really love this argument that gas can be a bridge to renewable energy.The implication is that it’s temporary—something useful while we scale up renewables, and then we phase it out.In reality, that’s a lot more complicated. Gas requires lots and lots of infrastructure. We’re talking about hundreds of miles of pipes and massive liquefied natural gas facilities being built to export gas around the world. These are expensive projects. The idea that you can just swap gas out for something else isn’t really what’s happening.And the timescale is a big piece here. What’s rarely defined when talking about a bridge fuel is how long that bridge is. Science shows that we have to scale down our fossil fuel dependence, but we’re actually building out more infrastructure.The industry has shifted its messaging, too. Gas was a ‘bridge,’ then a ‘partner’ for renewables. Now the popular talking point is carbon capture and storage for gas.EA: That brings me to another argument, which comes from former Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan and former Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu. Both work with a pro-gas group called Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future. Here’s what they said in an Earth Day video.As we’re going into Earth Day, I think it’s really important for people to recognize how much natural gas can help us reduce emissions by displacing coal. One of the many benefits of natural gas and our domestic supply is that we can also export our natural gas. And as we provide natural gas more in the United States and abroad, we can eliminate international coal.That’s a huge impact around the world that we should not just blow off because we did it here in the United States. Natural gas did that. It reduced our emissions here in the United States. And we can do that around the world.So what’s true about that?RL: Gas does produce less CO2 per unit of energy compared with coal and oil. So as a pure substitution, you’re talking about fewer carbon emissions.But methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. And as our gas system keeps growing, the data show that natural gas is pushing up carbon dioxide emissions around the world.That’s a very different way of looking at it compared with saying, well, if we’d built all this coal instead, we’d be in a much worse place.And there are studies finding that when you account for methane leakage, various gas operations can actually perform worse than coal. Methane is so potent that even a little bit leaking from operations really undercuts any advantage gas has.EA: Right. Gas helped the U.S. reduce emissions when coal made up a much larger share of our energy supply. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re on track for a safe climate.What about their argument that exporting American gas overseas can help other countries replace coal? That sounds pretty appealing.RL: It sounds appealing, but whether exported gas is actually replacing coal depends on the circumstances.We’ve seen parts of the world turn to U.S. gas instead of Russian gas, for example. So that can be a gas-for-gas replacement.And then there’s the process of exporting it. You have to turn gas into a liquid before putting it on a ship, then turn it back into gas when it reaches its destination. Both sides of that process are really energy-intensive.Some research from Cornell’s Bob Howarth has found that when you account for these different factors, exported gas can actually be worse for the climate than coal.EA: Right, the gas isn’t just teleporting to another country. And there’s also the possibility that new gas infrastructure replaces investments that might otherwise have gone toward renewable energy.Subscribe nowI feel like we’ve established that there are some real facts underneath this claim. Gas does produce less pollution than coal in certain respects. But that leaves out a whole buttload of context about how polluting gas still is, the methane leaks throughout the system, and the risks to public health and the planet.And yet even after explaining all of that, I’m left with the question: Why do so many people still believe natural gas is clean?RL: That was really a driving question of this big investigation I worked on with Rebecca John, who’s an investigative journalist in the UK.We were looking at what role the oil and gas industry played in creating this idea that gas is clean, and what the industry knew about the fact that it wasn’t.We read thousands of pages of studies and archival documents, conducted interviews, and filed public records requests.What we found is that, in the industry’s own words, they knew gas was a pollution problem. Going back to at least the 1960s, they knew gas was an air pollution issue. A little later, they knew it was also a serious climate pollutant.And despite this knowledge, they created a campaign to promote and maintain this idea that gas is clean.EA: Let’s talk receipts. When did the gas industry start promoting the fuel as clean?RL: There was a concerted campaign starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s.We found documents from the American Gas Association’s advertising firm, J. Walter Thompson, describing this campaign in depth. They created the slogan ‘Gas: Clean Energy for Today and Tomorrow’ and spent millions on advertising on TV, in magazines, and other places. A lot of it addressed women directly.One reason they started this campaign was because their own internal polling showed they had a perception problem. The public associated gas with pollution. Some people thought it was worse than oil or dirtier than electricity, which was its main competitor.The industry hired advertising and PR advisers to change that perception. And the polling we found showed they were successful in convincing people gas was clean.EA: But we’ve established that gas does produce less of certain pollutants than coal. Where does favorable marketing become something more nefarious?RL: The American Gas Association hired J. Walter Thompson for this campaign. And the advertising firm itself recognized in its documents ‘the lack of clear, simple, substantiating facts on the pollution aspects of natural gas.’That was a recognition that they didn’t actually have the support backing up what they claimed about gas being clean.Even while the industry was crafting this campaign, it was aware that there were pollution issues associated with gas that it wasn’t informing the public about.EA: Can you give us some concrete examples of what gas companies were acknowledging privately versus what they were telling the public?RL: All the way back in 1907, gas executives were discussing in their own meetings how incomplete combustion of gas produces carbon monoxide. And they recognized even then that it was a poison.The American Gas Association was also involved in or commissioned studies throughout the 1970s and 1980s examining gas stove pollution and indoor air pollution.There were studies acknowledging that methane was leaking from gas operations. In 1966, Shell described gas being released from oil fields around the world in ‘embarrassingly large quantities.’In 1968, an American Petroleum Institute–commissioned report detected methane in the atmosphere.And there was a 1979 study from a gas research group identifying large amounts of methane emissions based on field estimates.So the industry had all this knowledge about the pollution associated with its product.EA: And what was it telling the public?RL: It wasn’t acknowledging all of those risks—that gas had climate problems and air pollution problems. It was presenting a much more simplified case that gas was the solution to pollution.EA: We’ve been talking about a marketing campaign that really ramped up in the 1960s and 1970s. How do you think we’re still seeing its effects today?RL: The very idea of a ‘bridge fuel’—that phrasing—was introduced by the gas industry itself in 1988.The American Gas Association and related groups were promoting gas as a climate solution. They introduced this idea to the public in a Washington Post article about gas as a bridge fuel.So that’s one way they literally wrote the script for talking points we still hear from politicians today.Gas has also become part of this culture war. The Colorado ballot initiative is part of a political backlash against efforts to phase out new gas hookups in some cities. There’s this idea that gas is under threat.But when we look at the situation today, gas isn’t under threat. It’s growing in dominance, not shrinking.And I think there’s a similarity here to the famous story about the tobacco industry, which misled the public about the dangers of smoking to sell more tobacco.Here we have companies that have misled the public about the dangers of gas in order to build out a much larger gas system.EA: I think this conversation would be very different if we didn’t have other viable alternatives to natural gas. But we do! We have electric stoves, induction stoves, heat pumps, and electric heating. Solar and wind are getting cheaper, batteries are getting better, and we have more options than ever for moving away from fossil fuels. So it seems to me that the industry’s claim that gas is clean is becoming more important to its business model. Because how else do you convince people to keep investing in a polluting fossil fuel when increasingly affordable, cleaner alternatives are available? RL: I think the point you made earlier—that gas is not necessarily replacing coal, but is replacing renewables in a lot of cases—is a really important one.The whole idea that gas could be a transition fuel was based on the assumption that we would have policies in place to ensure that transition to renewable energy. Without those policies, we’re seeing gas actually competing with renewables.And I think calling gas clean, or calling it a climate solution, just flies in the face of climate science. We know we urgently need to scale down emissions to have any hope of containing warming to a manageable level. To say that gas is the ultimate solution is ignoring that.Subscribe nowEA: If someone came into this conversation believing natural gas was clean, what’s the one thing you hope they remember the next time they hear that claim?RL: I think I would leave people with the realization that many of our political and policy assumptions about gas are built on a very intensive industry messaging effort stretching over decades.That includes studies, co-opting regulation, and obstructing oversight. And I think it’s important to recognize how much that has shaped the assumptions we have today.EA: I think you also have to look at who’s making these claims. When I hear people arguing that gas is clean or that it’s a climate solution, it’s often coming from people and organizations with financial ties to the fossil fuel industry.RL: Right.EA: Rebecca Leber, thank you so much for joining us on HEATED.RL: Thanks for having me.