“We’re suffering because Jerry Brown is so not involved in this,” Matt Pakucko said. “There he was in Paris, saying look how green California is, while 10 years of green stuff is going into the air right now.”

Ghilarducci disputes this. “This concept that nothing happened and the governor was not engaged until he issued a state of emergency on Jan. 6 is just absolutely not correct,” he said. “Let’s face it: We deal with so many emergencies out here. This is not Vermont, this is not Oklahoma. ... This is a nation-­state.” He continued, “The governor is very confident that he doesn’t need to be on the scene, holding a press conference, to show that he’s doing something.”

The governor’s reputation in Porter Ranch was not helped by the revelation that his younger sister, Kathleen Brown, is a paid board member of SoCalGas’s parent company, Sempra Energy. “I’m sure there’s a conflict of interest,” Rick Goode said. “My feeling is it’s an ‘I scratch your back, and you scratch mine.’ It concerns me.” In 2013 and 2014, Kathleen Brown received $456,245 in compensation, including stock awards. A partner at the firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, she also has, according to the Public Accountability Initiative, a $949,653 stake in the Forestar Group, a real estate and natural-resources company, where she is a director and major shareholder. Forestar is developing Hidden Creeks Estates, a gated community of 188 luxury homes, right next to Porter Ranch, on property abutting Sempra’s.

Kathleen Brown’s office at Manatt referred me to Doug Kline, the director of corporate communications for Sempra Energy. He would not give a specific comment on Brown’s role, but he did say, “Our board of directors has been actively engaged and regularly briefed on the Aliso Canyon incident.” Deborah Hoffman, Jerry Brown’s deputy press secretary, wrote in a statement that any implication that the state did not exercise “its full regulatory and oversight authority” was “scurrilous and irresponsible.”

SoCalGas announced on Feb. 18 that the well had been sealed. Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for SoCalGas, wrote in an email, “Throughout the incident, air samples for benzene and other compounds were found to be at or near levels seen in the rest of the county and below levels of concern.” He continued, “The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has consistently reported that no long-term health effects are expected due to the leaking well.” In late February, many residents, including Rick Goode and Igor Volochkov, said they still smelled gas or still suffered symptoms. “Maybe SS-25 is capped,” said Kyoko Hibino, Matt Pakucko’s girlfriend. “But I think there is still something seeping up from underground. I think other wells are continuing to leak. The smell is still pretty strong. It is out there still.”

It is uncertain whether the residents of Porter Ranch will experience health effects in the long term. It is certain that the atmosphere will experience long-term effects. But the effects will be as indecipherable as a plume of colorless gas leaked into a windswept canyon. How do we make sense of the addition to the atmosphere of thousands of tons of invisible gases that will have semi-­invisible effects on us and only slightly more visible effects on generations we won’t live to see?

“If you compare the Aliso Canyon leak to other leaks,” said Stephen Conley, the aviator-­scientist, “it’s top dog. It’s a monster. It throws off L.A.’s emissions for the year. It’s a significant percentage of California’s annual carbon budget. But it’s about 0.002 percent of the global methane budget. It’s not like next year will be warmer because of Aliso Canyon.”

This is true. It’s not like next year will be warmer because of the car trips that Porter Ranch residents make to their temporary rental homes, or the gas they use to cook dinner, or the energy required to heat their swimming pools. Next year won’t be warmer because of the 200,000 airplanes passing through Van Nuys Airport. Next year won’t even be warmer, necessarily, because of the roughly 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas that oil companies flare into the atmosphere. But next year will be warmer.