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posted by martyb on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-fart! dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Global emissions of methane have reached the highest levels on record. Increases are being driven primarily by growth of emissions from coal mining, oil and natural gas production, cattle and sheep ranching, and landfills.

Between 2000 and 2017, levels of the potent greenhouse gas barreled up toward pathways that climate models suggest will lead to 3-4 degrees Celsius of warming before the end of this century. This is a dangerous temperature threshold at which scientists warn that natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts and floods, and social disruptions such as famines and mass migrations become almost commonplace. The findings are outlined in two papers published July 14 in Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters by researchers with the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson.

In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth's atmosphere absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50 million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the atmosphere were relatively stable.

In terms of warming potential, adding this much extra methane to the atmosphere since 2000 is akin to putting 350 million more cars on the world's roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France. "We still haven't turned the corner on methane," said Jackson, a professor of Earth system science in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth).

[...] According to Jackson and colleagues, curbing methane emissions will require reducing fossil fuel use and controlling fugitive emissions such as leaks from pipelines and wells, as well as changes to the way we feed cattle, grow rice and eat. "We'll need to eat less meat and reduce emissions associated with cattle and rice farming," Jackson said, "and replace oil and natural gas in our cars and homes."

Journal Reference:
Increasing anthropogenic methane emissions arise equally from agricultural and fossil fuel sources, Environmental Research Letters (DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab9ed2)

Previously:
(2020-06-01) Researchers Control Cattle Microbiomes to Reduce Methane and Greenhouse Gases
(2020-04-14) Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms Release More Methane Than Previously Estimated
(2020-04-08) Deep-Sea Worms and Bacteria Team up to Harvest Methane
(2020-03-06) Methane Emitted by Humans Vastly Underestimated
(2019-10-09) Sea 'Boiling' with Methane Discovered In Siberia
(2019-08-30) Fracking In U.S. And Canada Linked To Worldwide Atmospheric Methane Spike
(2019-06-19) Seaweed Feed Additive Cuts Livestock Methane but Poses Questions
(2019-05-21) Researchers Suggest Converting Methane Into Carbon Dioxide to Fight Global Warming
(2019-05-16) U.S. Methane Emissions Flat Since 2006 Despite Increased Oil and Gas Activity


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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 17 2020, @11:17AM (2 children)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 17 2020, @11:17AM (#1022842) Journal

    If we stop keeping cattle, deer, elk, antelope, and bison will eat that forage instead and produce the methane. I personally don't mind eating those, but it doesn't make a difference to the production of methane.

    Cattle, or any other domesticated animal, are carbon-neutral except as it pertains to transporting them to market. That is, however, equally true of vegetables. Are we really supposed to believe that the beef that came from upstate New York to Zabar's on the Upper West Side has a greater carbon footprint than the apples that were shipped from Chile in January? Does it incur more carbon to take a ton of beef from Kansas to Chicago than it does to take a ton of bananas from Hainan to Chicago?

    Methane and carbon dioxide from fossil fuels we can control, and should control. Entrenched fossil fuel interests in government are making that transition difficult, but we can all individually help by voting with our wallets. We can buy electric cars instead of ICEs. We can put solar panels on our homes. We can grow our own vegetables to reduce our reliance on commercially produced foods. We can repair what we own instead of mindlessly rushing out to buy replacements. If we live in apartments in cities, we can walk or bike to our destinations instead of taking cabs or public transportation.

    If we don't change how we live in ways like these, then we have no right to complain how nothing's changed.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @12:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @12:01PM (#1022859)

    Cattle, or any other domesticated animal, are carbon-neutral except as it pertains to transporting them to market.

    Their argument is that you should be a vegetarian. Uneaten rotting vegetation would produce CO2, their argument is that cattle produce CH4. CH4 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

    I am not entirely convinced however. Even they acknowledge that CH4 only has a life of a few years, and I suspect that lifetime is greatly overestimated.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday July 17 2020, @05:45PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Friday July 17 2020, @05:45PM (#1022983)

    If we stop keeping cattle, deer, elk, antelope, and bison will eat that forage instead and produce the methane.

    Cattle aren't having massive methane problems due to eating forage: Their digestive tracts handle grass just fine. The problem is that the US system of raising cattle depends on feeding them feed corn, which causes all sorts of problems because it's not what cattle evolved to eat.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.