March 28, 2024

Quiz: Can You See Through the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Greenwashing Tactics?

Climate change is here, and the fossil fuel industry knows it’s undeniable. So it’s switching up its playbook: by moving from denying climate change outright to delaying climate action through various forms of distraction, deceit, and false promises. Test your ability to see through this misinformation, and learn what we’re doing to fight back.

1. The fossil fuel industry has tried to frame methane gas as a climate-friendly energy source. It’s not. How does methane’s climate impact compare to CO₂?

Methane traps 40 times as much heat in the atmosphere as CO₂.

Methane traps 60 times as much heat in the atmosphere as CO₂.

Methane traps more than 80 times as much heat in the atmosphere as CO₂.

✔️ You’re correct!

There’s nothing clean or natural about methane gas: It’s a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere 80 times the rate of carbon dioxide. But the gas industry and its allies are spending a lot of time and money to convince you otherwise. For years they have tried to position methane gas as a climate-friendly alternative to coal.

In 2023, a dark money group with ties to the gas industry lobbied Ohio legislators to pass a law that misleadingly defines methane gas as “green energy.” Documents show that the group plans to push for similar bills in other states.

These greenwashing tactics aim to pave the way for utilities to replace retiring coal plants with methane gas, rather than clean energy. Earthjustice is working at state public utility commissions and other key agencies across the country to challenge these proposals and make the case for truly clean energy sources like solar and wind, paired with battery storage and energy efficiency.

This Dec. 22, 2018, photo shows a pump jack over an oil well along Interstate 25 near Dacono, Colo.

A pump jack over an oil well along Interstate 25 near Dacono, Colo., on Dec. 22, 2018. (David Zalubowski / AP)

2. How have fossil fuel industry groups tried to spread anti-electrification disinfo?

They have paid influencers to promote fossil fuel products over cleaner alternatives to heat American homes.

They have spent millions on social media ads to wrongly convince people that burning gas or propane in our homes is the way to go.

They have tried to charge their customers for creating children’s propaganda booklets pushing gas as “clean” and “safe.”

All of the above

✔️ You’re correct!

Fossil fuel industry groups have:

Paid influencers to promote fossil fuel products over cleaner alternatives to heat American homes
Spent millions on social media ads to wrongly convince people that burning gas or propane in our homes is healthy and safe.
In 2022, Oregon’s biggest gas utility tried to charge its customers for creating children’s booklets and other propaganda materials that presented methane gas, gas-powered buses, and gas appliances as “clean” and “safe.”

Earthjustice litigation and advocacy ultimately put a stop to the utility’s scheme, and we fight efforts by other utilities trying similar schemes to charge utility customers for lobbying and marketing expenses.

The truth is that electrifying our homes and businesses and powering them with 100% clean energy has huge potential to both cut carbon emissions and make our air healthier to breathe overall. That’s why Earthjustice has been working for years to pass legislation that will usher us into an electric, healthy era for our homes.

3. Fossil fuel companies want us to believe that hydrogen is a clean energy fuel. In reality, it is more often dangerous, dirty, and expensive. What is one of the very few sectors in which “green” hydrogen could have a limited role to play in the clean energy transition?

Replacing gas in power plants

❌ Try again ...

Transitioning to hydrogen-burning turbines in power plants threatens to increase air pollution, because burning hydrogen produces substantially more nitrogen oxides — which harms health and contributes to smog — than burning methane.

Burning hydrogen in power plants is also extremely inefficient, ultimately wasting about two thirds of the energy required to make it.

Heating our homes

❌ Try again ....

Contrary to spin from oil and gas companies, burning hydrogen in home appliances designed for methane gas risks polluting the air in our homes, embrittling pipes, leaking from gas lines, and explosions.

Electric heat pumps are more efficient (and cleaner and safer) than burning hydrogen for heat. It takes about five times more electricity to heat a home with green hydrogen than it takes to heat the same home with an efficient heat pump.

A worker solders an air heat exchanger, the heart of a heat pump, at a manufacturing facility in Germany.

A technician solders an air heat exchanger, the heart of a heat pump, at a manufacturing facility in Germany. (Roberto Pfeil / picture-alliance / dpa / AP)

Fueling cars

Steelmaking

✔️ You’re correct — with some big caveats.

The only form of hydrogen that has a role to play in our climate future is green hydrogen, which is produced in an energy-intensive process with renewable energy, and could have a role to play in parts of the economy that currently use dirty hydrogen made from fossil fuels, like fertilizer manufacturing, or that we may not otherwise be able to electrify, like steelmaking.

Congress has created generous subsidies for hydrogen projects. Recently, the Department of the Treasury proposed new rules that get it right by setting strong criteria around new, major tax credits to encourage truly clean hydrogen that is produced using only new sources of zero-carbon electricity. Some companies are lobbying hard to try to weaken Treasury’s good rules so they can reap the lucrative credits for their dirty hydrogen production.

Earthjustice is urging Treasury to hold the line to ensure that funding doled out from the Inflation Reduction Act goes to projects that are truly clean. We are also working to prevent the $8 billion Hydrogen Hub program created under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law from propping up projects that would hurt our communities and climate.

Earthjustice is fighting for an electric, zero-emissions future through our Right to Zero campaign, helping communities better understand hydrogen projects being proposed nearby, and encouraging policy makers to look under the hood of hydrogen projects through our report, “Reclaiming Hydrogen for a Renewable Future.”

The closed Shell Convent Refinery in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The refinery is the site of a proposed blue hydrogen production facility. (Brad Zweerink / Earthjustice)

4. Which of the following health and safety risks is not associated with carbon capture and storage?

Earthquakes

Drinking water contamination

Convulsions and death from CO₂ poisoning

All of the above are risks of carbon capture and storage

✔️ You’re correct!

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, are technologies that capture carbon emissions at fossil-fueled power plants and industrial facilities. The carbon is then injected underground in carbon waste injection wells, reused in products, or, most commonly, repurposed to extract more polluting fossil fuels. CCS projects also pose health and safety risks to communities, including earthquakes, drinking water contamination, and CO₂ leaks that can cause convulsions and death.

Companies like ExxonMobil are using tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act to fund CCS projects, producing materials that tout it as a “climate solution” that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions while continuing to produce oil and pollute. Despite what polluters want us to believe, carbon capture does not make it safe to keep burning fossil fuels.

We also don’t need to keep burning fossil fuels with CCS when we can produce energy cheaply from wind and solar, and use battery storage, energy efficiency, and demand response.

Earthjustice and our partners are fighting back against CCS projects that prolong the use of dirty energy. We’re also advocating for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct strong oversight over the buildout of carbon waste injection wells and make sure communities are protected.

Employees work on a section of the Mississippi Power Co. carbon capture plant in DeKalb, Miss. (Rogelio V. Solis / AP)

5. How can you help?

✔️ Tell the Department of Energy not to give taxpayer loans to corporate polluters for projects that will perpetuate the harms of fossil fuels and delay real climate action.

Clean Energy Program

Earthjustice’s Clean Energy Program uses the power of the law and the strength of partnership to accelerate the transition to 100% clean energy.

Quiz: Can You See Through the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Greenwashing Tactics?

1. The fossil fuel industry has tried to frame methane gas as a climate-friendly energy source. It’s not. How does methane’s climate impact compare to CO₂?

2. How have fossil fuel industry groups tried to spread anti-electrification disinfo?

3. Fossil fuel companies want us to believe that hydrogen is a clean energy fuel. In reality, it is more often dangerous, dirty, and expensive. What is one of the very few sectors in which “green” hydrogen could have a limited role to play in the clean energy transition?

4. Which of the following health and safety risks is not associated with carbon capture and storage?

5. How can you help?

Make Every Day Earth Day.

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The Law Makes Change

Quiz: Can You See Through the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Greenwashing Tactics?

1. The fossil fuel industry has tried to frame methane gas as a climate-friendly energy source. It’s not. How does methane’s climate impact compare to CO2?

2. How have fossil fuel industry groups tried to spread anti-electrification disinfo?

3. Fossil fuel companies want us to believe that hydrogen is a clean energy fuel. In reality, it is more often dangerous, dirty, and expensive. What is one of the very few sectors in which “green” hydrogen could have a limited role to play in the clean energy transition?

4. Which of the following health and safety risks is not associated with carbon capture and storage?

5. How can you help?

Make Every Day Earth Day.

The Stories to read on Fossil Fuels

What you need to know this week

About

Get Involved

Member Center

The Law Makes Change

1. The fossil fuel industry has tried to frame methane gas as a climate-friendly energy source. It’s not. How does methane’s climate impact compare to CO₂?