Remember the gargantuan alien spacecraft hovering over the world’s cities in the original “Independence Day” with Will Smith? To all but a foolish few, they represented apocalyptic danger. Unfortunately, many of us are unaware of a vaster, more pernicious danger to the Four Corners; a massive methane plume.

County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt certainly knows about it. She has spent her life protecting our community’s health, economy and environment. Astute, balanced, intelligent, Lachelt knows both the benefits and dangers of the more than 40,000 gas and oil wells in the San Juan Basin. We have all benefited from the fossil fuel economy. The economic growth that it has facilitated is undeniable. Equally undeniable are the effects of hundreds of millions of years’ worth of sequestered carbon injected into the atmosphere in a little over a century. Climate change is real and imminent. While carbon dioxide is a powerful greenhouse gas, methane is worse.

In Jacob S.Hacker and Paul Pierson’s brilliant book American Amnesia, the authors contend that America’s incredible growth and economic dynamism were not achieved by capitalism alone but by well-regulated capitalism. The American century occurred due to the development of government institutions working in tandem with private industry.

Thank goodness then for people like Lachelt. Lachelt does not propose we shut down gas wells. Instead, we need to plug the leaks. Dedicated public servants like Lachelt provide a win-win opportunity; gas producers conserve a precious saleable resource and methane is prevented from reaching the atmosphere.

So back to those alien ships in “Independence Day.” Remember those naïve confused souls incinerated atop Los Angeles’ US Bank Tower? Today, we have gas industry shills standing blithely beneath that methane plume. Thank goodness for people like Gwen Lachelt.

BTW: Exxon Corporation has known about human-caused climate change since at least 1982. Its current position is “Increasing carbon emissions in the atmosphere are having a warming effect.”

Patrick Owens

Durango