Wilson and her crew at advocacy nonprofit Oilfield Witness are called “methane hunters” — but she simply points her camera at an oil and gas facility and can see a black cloud on screen as the instrument picks up hydrocarbons absorbing infrared in real time.

“The oil and gas industry says ‘Look, you can see our site — you can’t see anything.’” she said. “Well, yeah, you can with one of those cameras.”