Recent aerial and satellite surveys show that landfills and oil and gas operations around the world are releasing far more methane, a potent greenhouse gas, than governments realized. That’s a problem for the climate as well as for human health. It’s also why the U.S. government is tightening regulations on methane leaks and wasteful venting, most recently from oil and gas wells on public lands. The good news is that many of these leaks can be fixed—if they’re caught quickly.

Riley Duren, a research fellow at the University of Arizona and a former NASA engineer and scientist, leads the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, which is planning a satellite constellation to monitor methane. Its first satellite, a partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Earth-imaging company Planet Labs, is scheduled to launch in 2024. (Riley Duren, The Conversation, more at phys.org)