Regarding the April 22 front-page article “Their high ground is up a tree,” which reported on the desperate effort of 61-year-old tree-sitter Theresa “Red” Terry and her adult daughter to halt construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline:

State Sen. Charles W. Carrico Sr. (R-Grayson County) asserted as if established fact the dated and dangerous idea that natural gas is cleaner than coal and, therefore, a desirable bridge fuel until renewable energies can be developed. He’s wrong.

A 2017 report by Physicians for Social Responsibility, “Too Dirty, Too Dangerous,” cited studies that report that cumulative methane releases during the life cycle of natural gas — which includes extraction, transmission and combustion — make it dirtier than coal, because methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas, fully 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years.

If the multibillion-dollar Mountain Valley Pipeline is built, and billions more are spent to construct or convert power plants to the use of natural gas, Virginia will be locked into higher greenhouse-gas emissions for decades. For the sake of future generations, this can’t be allowed to happen.

David Kuebrich, Fairfax, Virginia