Wednesday, Jan 21

Welcome to Your Daily Dot where Dot will share tips, advice, and stories on how we can make our world better.

Dear Reader,

Dot has yet to venture into TikTok, though my Adult Children spend considerable time with their faces glued to tiny screens watching video after video after video. Turns out, my assumption that they’re watching drivel might be unfair. After all, they might be watching videos of Hawk Dunlap, or his partner, lawyer Sarah Stogner, both of whom have gained an avid following, according to this story in Mother Jones, “documenting the environmental disasters caused by abandoned wells here in the Permian Basin, one of the most productive oil and gas fields in the world.”

While abandoned oil wells aren’t just a Texas problem, Dunlap and Stogner have made the blight their problem. Or rather, they’re shining a light on the problem in the hopes that oil companies will, rightly, accept responsibility. “These thousands of forgotten wells are not just inert fossils of economic history,” the story tells us. “Many emit ­methane ­— a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide — and leach chemicals, including benzene, a human carcinogen. Recently, another problem has emerged: Old, dormant wells have begun mysteriously leaking — oozing brine onto the land — and shooting geysers of toxic water into the sky.”

Having once worked for oil and gas companies, fixing and plugging wells around the world, Dunlop now answers to a different descriptor: “Yeah, okay, I’m a tree hugger. I’ll hug any tree that doesn’t have thorns.”

And these days, Dunlap, Stogner, and a group of others have banded together to force their government and corporations to clean up the mess. Their viral videos don’t just entertain; they apply pressure. It seems to be working, though the 2025 law forcing companies to plug or reactivate wells that have been dormant for more than 15 years has a few too many loopholes for Dunlap’s taste.

Until he’s satisfied, he’ll keep TikToking and demanding change from an industry that employed four generations of his family. “We’ve been doing things wrong for a very long time,” he told Mother Jones, “and now that we know we’re doing things wrong, we need to start fixing it.”

Don’t miss this deep dive into some daunting and determined Climate Champs. 

Admiringly,

Dot

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