Renewable Energy · Strategy · Peer-reviewed

Call it "natural gas" and people like it.
Call it "methane" and they don't.

Natural gas is mostly methane. In a randomized experiment with nearly 3,000 Americans, the name alone moved feelings about the fuel from warm to cold, and some of the alternatives split the parties.

Academic research by XandY's co-founders and colleagues · Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2021 · 4 minute read

Americans feel much better about natural gas than about coal or oil. About three in four have a favorable view of it, which is closer to how people feel about wind and solar than how they feel about other fossil fuels. Yet the fuel is 70 to 90 percent methane, a greenhouse gas with roughly 25 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide over a century. This study, led by Karine Lacroix at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication with co-authors Matt Goldberg (Yale) and Abel Gustafson (University of Cincinnati), asked a simple question: how much of that goodwill comes from the name? It is academic work by XandY's co-founders in their university roles, summarized here.

The researchers randomly assigned 2,931 U.S. adults to see one of six labels: "natural gas," "natural methane gas," "methane gas," "methane," "fossil gas," or "fracked gas." Everyone rated their positive and negative feelings toward the term, then wrote down the first words that came to mind. The gap was large. 54% had a positive view of "natural gas." Only 15% felt positively about "methane," and 14% about "methane gas." Putting the word "natural" in front of "methane gas" lifted positive views to 25%, which is a direct measure of what that one word is worth.

Same fuel, six names: who has a positive view? Share of respondents who reported positive feelings about the term they were shown 0% 20% 40% 60% "natural gas" 54% "natural methane gas" 25% "fossil gas" 24% "fracked gas" 22% "methane" 15% "methane gas" 14% LACROIX ET AL. (2021), J. ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY · U.S. ADULTS, 2020 · N = 2,931
Figure 1. Each respondent saw only one of the six terms. "Natural gas" is viewed positively by more than half; the methane terms by about one in seven. The difference between "natural gas" and "methane" is large by any standard (Cohen's d = 0.94).

The word associations explain the gap. "Natural gas" brought to mind energy, "clean," and cooking and heating at home. "Methane" brought to mind energy too, but also livestock (37%), harm and pollution (28%), and global warming (24%). "Fracked gas" was dominated by harm (42%). Fewer than 6% of people who saw "natural gas" mentioned methane at all, and only one in five correctly picked the diagram showing that natural gas is mostly methane. Most people do not connect the two.

What comes to mind? "What is the first word or phrase that comes to your mind?" Share of respondents whose answers fell in each category. "natural gas" Energy 27% Clean 19% Harmful 16% Environment 15% "methane" Energy 57% Livestock 37% Harmful 28% Global warming 24% "fracked gas" Harmful 42% Energy 20% Environment 15% Extraction 13% Positive associations Negative associations Mixed / neutral LACROIX ET AL. (2021), TABLE 1 · OPEN-ENDED ASSOCIATIONS CODED INTO 24 CATEGORIES · TOP 4 SHOWN
Figure 2. Top-of-mind associations for three of the six terms. "Natural gas" evokes a clean energy source; "methane" evokes cows and warming; "fracked gas" evokes harm. Categories are colored by the average feeling respondents attached to them in the study.

Party mattered, but in a specific way. Republicans felt more positively than Democrats about every term (d = 0.85), and both parties cooled as the label moved from "natural gas" to "methane." But "fossil gas" and "fracked gas," the terms climate advocates have promoted, were polarizing: Republicans felt positively about them and Democrats felt negatively. For communicators, the implication is clear. "Methane gas" or "methane" lowers positive feelings for both parties without splitting them. "Fossil gas" and "fracked gas" should be used with care, depending on who is listening.

Fewer than 6% of people shown "natural gas" mentioned methane, and only 20% correctly identified that natural gas is mostly methane.

Source. Lacroix, K., Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., Rosenthal, S. A., & Leiserowitz, A. (2021). Different names for "natural gas" influence public perception of it. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 77, 101671. doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101671

About this research. This study was carried out through the authors' academic positions at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the University of Cincinnati. This page is XandY's plain-language summary of the published findings.

Method. Preregistered, randomized experiment with six between-subjects conditions. U.S. adults recruited on Prolific in August and December 2020, N = 2,931 (1,469 Democrats, 1,356 Republicans, 62 other), with a roughly balanced party split by design. Affect was measured on separate positive and negative scales and averaged; word associations were content-coded with an independent second coder on a 20% subset. Opt-in online samples are not fully representative of the U.S. population. Funded by the High Tide Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the 11th Hour Project.

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