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The amount of warming depends on the amount of gas (CO2, CH4 or other) in the atmosphere. Stopping all emissions today would not change the huge amounts all re

The amount of warming depends on the amount of gas (CO2, CH4 or other) in the atmosphere. Stopping all emissions today would not change the huge amounts all ready up there. So we are locked in for a certain amount of warming. The rate of emissions just controls how much more warming and how much sooner the existing warming will occur. This is one of the core problems with Human responses to the problem: people think they can wait until it gets 'bad enough' then stop their emissions and things will improve. But they will keep getting worse because of the lag between emissions and effects. As for CO2 vs Methane, Methane is responsible for about 20% of all man made warming (1). So eliminating it completely would still leave 80% of warming... This is because we emit a lot, lot more CO2 than Methane. The division is really a false one IMHO, because a lot of methane comes from coal mining and oil/gas extraction. So unless you stop using fossil fuels (the number 1 CO2 source) you cannot stop methane emissions... 1: https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane

cogman10 4y ago
> As for CO2 vs Methane, Methane is responsible for about 20% of all man made warming (1). So eliminating it completely would still leave 80% of warming... This is because we emit a lot, lot more CO2 than Methane. > The division is really a false one IMHO, because a lot of methane comes from coal mining and oil/gas extraction. So unless you stop using fossil fuels (the number 1 CO2 source) you cannot stop methane emissions... But if you can eliminate that 20% with minimal effort or expenditure, why wouldn't you? Most of that is coming from emissions related to fossil fuel extraction. Which is a perfect opportunity for capture. CO2 emissions, on the other hand, is coming from a million different sources and doesn't have a single clean solution. There's not a one step process for eliminating 20% of CO2 emissions.
pera 4y ago
I think you need to consider that methane has a half-life of about 10 years in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide on the other hand is one order of magnitude higher than that. I understand now that what you are trying to say is that CO2 will still be a problem, that's a fact that nobody is denying here, but the way you stated your original post makes it sound like reducing CH4 emissions would be meaningless in regards to global warming.
OrvalWintermute 4y ago
This is not correct. You have to account for reversing all of the profligate methane producing swampland, turning it back into swampland, to fully account for this as part of the calculation. We've done planetscale engineering already by how much methane we've reduced by converting swamp to farm/urban land.

cogman10 4y ago

> As for CO2 vs Methane, Methane is responsible for about 20% of all man made warming (1). So eliminating it completely would still leave 80% of warming... This is because we emit a lot, lot more CO2 than Methane. > The division is really a false one IMHO, because a lot of methane comes from coal mining and oil/gas extraction. So unless you stop using fossil fuels (the number 1 CO2 source) you cannot stop methane emissions... But if you can eliminate that 20% with minimal effort or expenditure, why wouldn't you? Most of that is coming from emissions related to fossil fuel extraction. Which is a perfect opportunity for capture. CO2 emissions, on the other hand, is coming from a million different sources and doesn't have a single clean solution. There's not a one step process for eliminating 20% of CO2 emissions.

pera 4y ago

I think you need to consider that methane has a half-life of about 10 years in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide on the other hand is one order of magnitude higher than that. I understand now that what you are trying to say is that CO2 will still be a problem, that's a fact that nobody is denying here, but the way you stated your original post makes it sound like reducing CH4 emissions would be meaningless in regards to global warming.

OrvalWintermute 4y ago

This is not correct. You have to account for reversing all of the profligate methane producing swampland, turning it back into swampland, to fully account for this as part of the calculation. We've done planetscale engineering already by how much methane we've reduced by converting swamp to farm/urban land.