The natural gas industry is in its worst 12-month-period ever, but its leaders are acting like the captain of the Titanic.

The price of natural gas is at rock-bottom levels, hurting producers while helping consumers. Yet low prices remarkably are compounded by collapsing public support, as documented by a national Gallup poll released last week.

Low prices are making the gas industry even more insular, defensive and tone deaf as it sails toward disaster. The industry and its sycophants fight a drilling tax, blast reasonable proposals to cut methane leaks and strengthen drilling safety, shortchange some royalty owners and often stonewall mistakes instead of owning them. These practices are playing badly with both red and blue America.

At this time last year Americans were split on fracking — fracturing rock deep underground to release natural gas — with 40 percent supporting it and 40 percent opposing it. Now, Gallup reports that just 36 percent support fracking and 51 percent oppose it.

The biggest erosion came among Republicans, as GOP support plunged from 66 percent to 55 percent. Meanwhile, Democrats and independents overwhelmingly oppose fracking, with approval at only 25 percent of Democrats and 34 percent of independents. No wonder so many Democrats support a ban on fracking altogether.

For the gas industry to lose so much support so quickly, even as its huge production delivers energy bargains to heating and electricity consumers, is astonishing, but the gas industry keeps damaging itself every day, ignoring louder and louder alarm bells.

We should remember that the decline in natural gas prices is saving homes an average of about $1,000 per year compared with costs in 2008 before shale production surged. For poor and lower-income families, these savings make the difference between keeping the heat and lights on or having a bit of money for clothing or a trip to the grandparents.

Low gas prices also are causing a massive switch from coal to natural gas for generating electricity. For the first time ever, natural gas in 2016 will generate more electricity than any other energy source. The result is a lot less mercury, soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon pollution coming from power plants.

Other benefits of drilling include jobs and royalty checks. Yet here again the industry hurts itself by inflating by three times the real number of jobs it’s creating directly and indirectly and by shortchanging some of its royalty owners.

Despite the significant benefits of natural gas, gas drilling is an industrial practice that brings spills, traffic, local air pollution and other burdens, such as earthquakes. Yes, irresponsible underground disposal of drilling wastewater, especially in Oklahoma and Texas, is causing numerous earthquakes, some of them strong enough to damage property and risk lives. Deep underground disposal of wastewater should be stopped within three years.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel but much cleaner than coal or oil. And those of us who have homes in the Three Mile Island nuclear evacuation area, in particular, understand that no energy option is perfect.

The gas industry, however, minimizes and stonewalls its mistakes and downsides. If the gas industry does not change fundamentally its practices, its problems will grow worse. Changing its disastrous messaging alone won’t fix its problems.

To stop the erosion of public support, the natural gas industry must accept reasonable drilling taxes and stop shortchanging royalty owners. It must end underground disposal of drilling wastewater and embrace strong rules to reduce methane leaks and drilling mishaps. It must own its mistakes, such as the water contamination in Dimock, Pa., instead of denying or minimizing them.

Change is always resisted and often rejected. The gas industry, however, rejects fundamental change at its peril.

Perhaps the executives making decisions think nothing could be worse than the past 12 months. But if they think their industry is overtaxed, overregulated and overly criticized now, all they have to do is see what happens if public support erodes further.

Today, the gas industry is its own worst enemy, and it is on a collision course with an iceberg.