If you don't live on the West Coast of the United States, you might not have heard about the massive natural gas well leak that's been venting natural gas into the atmosphere at a rate of more than 100,000 pounds per hour for over two months.
Infrared video that the Environmental Defense Fund captured in December shows that the natural gas is billowing like a volcano just above Burbank, California, on a hilltop in the Aliso Canyon area.
That video was taken over a month after the leak started on October 23, after the well had already ejected an estimated 80,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere.
For perspective, 80,000 tons of methane is equal to about a quarter of what the entire state of California - which is the 8th largest economy in the entire world - emitted between October 23 and November 20 in 2015.
And methane, which is what's mostly in "Natural Gas," is actually a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 in the short term, during the first 20 years it's in the atmosphere it can be up to 80 times more potent than CO2.
According to the Washington Post, the impact of the gases that have already been released from this one volcanic leak are equivalent to the impact, over 20 years, of six coal-fired power plants - or 7 million automobiles.
But this leak isn't just a crisis for the climate, it has also forced the evacuation of 1700 homes in nearby neighborhoods, the closing of two schools, and countless residents have reported that the stench has made them ill.
So how did all this happen?
Engineers are speculating that a 7-inch pipe ruptured about 500 feet below the surface, but they won't know for sure until they are able to seal the well off completely, something which the Southern California Gas Company says may not happen until March.
But according to a recent report from the LA Times and a lawsuit from local residents, the initial leak isn't what made this an environmental disaster for the history books.
No, the real problem here goes way back to 1979, when the Southern California Gas Company had the original safety valve removed from the gas well, and then simply didn't bother to replace it.
Mind you, it's not like the well was new in 1979 - it was already a quarter of a century old in 1979 - and 36 years after the company cut that corner, the well finally ruptured at 61 years old.
A spokeswoman told the LA Times that they didn't replace the safety valve simply because the company wasn't required to by law.
So the company simply didn't replace the safety valve, because the profit motive of a corporation means that it has no incentive - no motivation - to protect anyone or anything that it isn't required to protect by law.
