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Methane is 50x more potent at warming compared to CO2. Methane emissions reduction should be considered the top priority despite representing only 20% of the t

by rq1 3y ago

Methane is 50x more potent at warming compared to CO2. Methane emissions reduction should be considered the top priority despite representing only 20% of the total anthropogenic GHG.

DoreenMichele 3y ago
Thank you. This is why I don't know how to approach the math. I have a hand-wavy: This is potentially not quite 2 percent of total GHG emissions per year, but I don't know the weighted value of each type of gas and hypothetically something like 50 to 100 projects "like" this one each year for a decade gets us in the ballpark of stopping man made climate change. Can 8 billion people produce 50 to 100 projects (each year) that move the needle this much? This works in part because it was initially a hard sell to get the farmers to agree to participate in the experiment but it went so well that halfway through the year, 10 more farmers chose to drain their rice paddies of water. So you don't even have to talk people into taking a hit of some kind for the greater good. They will convert to this because of the higher crop yield and money in their pockets -- assuming (or as soon as) they can afford the transitional costs and a fund could be created to help with that to speed up adoption.
Xixi 3y ago
Methane is responsible for about 30% of the current global warming, so it clearly is a priority. That said: Methane is transient, while CO2 accumulates. Methane decays quite quickly into CO2, which is why when accounted for over 20 years methane is considered 86x more potent than CO2, and over one century "only" 28x as potent. Any CO2 emitted today we will have to deal with for centuries to come. That's not the case for methane. So while lowering methane will yield the most benefits in the short term, thinking longer term, it's really CO2 emissions that need to be lowered urgently. Said differently, using a very crude reasoning with a hypothetical scenario: cutting methane emissions in 2025 rather than in 2050 would have little to no effect on the climate of 2100. In both cases the methane will have mostly decayed, and thus will stop capturing heat from the sun (maybe 2100 is a bit early, but you get the idea). But cutting CO2 emissions in 2025 rather than 2050 would have a dramatic effect on the climate of 2100, as these 25 years of CO2 emissions would mostly remain right there in the atmosphere. It's obviously over-simplified, as global warming is having irreversible effects right now, and methane decaying will not revive species gone extinct in the meantime. So I'm certainly not arguing that we should not do anything against methane emissions. But that should not be done at the expense of fighting against CO2 emissions, rather on top of it...
- rq1 3y ago
  I do not disagree but there’s one thing that should be considered right now: methane pockets in (melting) glaciers. The phenomenon is “exponential” (or the first part of a sigmoid) precisely because of this chain reaction. CO2 can be recaptured by forests eventually if we don’t destroy everything too quickly, thus why the immediate effect is really important.

by rq1 3y ago

Methane is 50x more potent at warming compared to CO2. Methane emissions reduction should be considered the top priority despite representing only 20% of the total anthropogenic GHG.

DoreenMichele 3y ago

Thank you. This is why I don't know how to approach the math. I have a hand-wavy: This is potentially not quite 2 percent of total GHG emissions per year, but I don't know the weighted value of each type of gas and hypothetically something like 50 to 100 projects "like" this one each year for a decade gets us in the ballpark of stopping man made climate change. Can 8 billion people produce 50 to 100 projects (each year) that move the needle this much? This works in part because it was initially a hard sell to get the farmers to agree to participate in the experiment but it went so well that halfway through the year, 10 more farmers chose to drain their rice paddies of water. So you don't even have to talk people into taking a hit of some kind for the greater good. They will convert to this because of the higher crop yield and money in their pockets -- assuming (or as soon as) they can afford the transitional costs and a fund could be created to help with that to speed up adoption.

Xixi 3y ago

Methane is responsible for about 30% of the current global warming, so it clearly is a priority. That said: Methane is transient, while CO2 accumulates. Methane decays quite quickly into CO2, which is why when accounted for over 20 years methane is considered 86x more potent than CO2, and over one century "only" 28x as potent. Any CO2 emitted today we will have to deal with for centuries to come. That's not the case for methane. So while lowering methane will yield the most benefits in the short term, thinking longer term, it's really CO2 emissions that need to be lowered urgently. Said differently, using a very crude reasoning with a hypothetical scenario: cutting methane emissions in 2025 rather than in 2050 would have little to no effect on the climate of 2100. In both cases the methane will have mostly decayed, and thus will stop capturing heat from the sun (maybe 2100 is a bit early, but you get the idea). But cutting CO2 emissions in 2025 rather than 2050 would have a dramatic effect on the climate of 2100, as these 25 years of CO2 emissions would mostly remain right there in the atmosphere. It's obviously over-simplified, as global warming is having irreversible effects right now, and methane decaying will not revive species gone extinct in the meantime. So I'm certainly not arguing that we should not do anything against methane emissions. But that should not be done at the expense of fighting against CO2 emissions, rather on top of it...

rq1 3y ago
I do not disagree but there’s one thing that should be considered right now: methane pockets in (melting) glaciers. The phenomenon is “exponential” (or the first part of a sigmoid) precisely because of this chain reaction. CO2 can be recaptured by forests eventually if we don’t destroy everything too quickly, thus why the immediate effect is really important.