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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, @06:16PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 17 2020, @06:16PM (#1022994) Journal

    Thexalon, have you been to Death Valley? There actually is water [nps.gov] there [nps.gov]. There's water in the Canyonlands [nps.gov], too. The Sahara, apparently, also has water [oxfordpresents.com]. I know you were being clever by picking extreme examples, but at least two of those three contradict your assertion.

    The parent I responded to expressed a Chicken Little sentiment about how our civilization has run out of fresh water. Our civilization has not run out of fresh water, and will not run out of fresh water as long as rain falls. Of course that water is not evenly distributed, but if you choose to live in the middle of an extreme desert environment that does not have enough fresh water to support the million people you want to put there, then you really have only yourself to blame.

    Perhaps the parent lives in Southern California, and has been chafing under water use restrictions implemented during the drought that ended a year ago. OK, fine, but it is predominantly chaparral, which is arid to begin with, and much of the water they'd like to drink and spray their sidewalks off with in LA is siphoned away for agriculture in the Central Valley. If they really wanted to do something meaningful about that, they'd build enormous cisterns to capture the rains from El Nino. All that is, however, still a local phenomenon and transitory at that. The rest of the US still does not lack for water at all.

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