Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels • Hacker News Board

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#61

Post by jefflombardjr » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:07 AM UTC

rjf72 wrote: post #56

jefflombardjr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Live stock farming is ~27% of methane production, where fossil fuels are ~33% [1]. Eating an eco friendly diet is great on the individual level, but we should not underscore the drastic need for decisive action on an institutional level. [1] https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-emissio...

And to emphasize here, those figures are likely both inflated if this article's hypothesis is correct. That being that primarily natural factors are driving the surge. It's because of this, and practical reality, that I don't understand why scrubbing is not considered a bigger part of the discussion on these topics. For instance one new technological solution [1] proposes an atmospheric removal of CO2 that could cost…

More important than carbon scrubbing, we need energy innovation and to make environmental damage illegal and stop allowing companies to profit off of it.

See my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013495

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#62

Post by goatinaboat » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:10 AM UTC

dev_dull wrote: post #14

newnewpdro wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great and all but there's over a billion people in India alone and a huge fraction of them are still living in poverty, effectively contributing very little currently to factors like co2 emissions. It won't stay that way for much longer. Quality of life tends to increase, and correspondingly impact increases. We already have far too many people if you consider the quality of life is destined to normalize at th…

> Quality of life tends to increase, and correspondingly impact increases I’m not sure I agree that this is true because it ignores all of the efficiency gains (especially in electronics but in other things as well) we’ve seen the last 50+ years. Not to mention things like renewable solar which is not readily and cheaply available.

Not to mention things like renewable solar which is not readily and cheaply available

The energy input of solar (sourcing and extracting the rare earths, the manufacturing process, installing and maintaining them in situ) is non-zero, and solar panels have a finite lifespan. These variables are often not well understood, nor factored into discussions of solar as "renewable". I don't believe there exists an end-to-end solar operation, i.e. the entire supply chain solar powered by its own products. So solar is only cheap because its inputs are cheap, and they are cheap because they are powered by cheap oil.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#63

Post by sametmax » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:12 AM UTC

jefflombardjr wrote: post #43

spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

Live stock farming is ~27% of methane production, where fossil fuels are ~33% [1]. Eating an eco friendly diet is great on the individual level, but we should not underscore the drastic need for decisive action on an institutional level. [1] https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-emissio...

A good part of fossil fuel is used to farm those stock, farm the food for those stock and move around / process / package both.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#64

Post by crispinb » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

zubspace wrote: post #58

One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this? Think about a nation going full green and the effect it could have on neighbouring countries? Or a president understanding, that this problem was of highest importance could be a leader of a global change! Think about the fame! But what do we have instead? Ignorance, unwillingness, a dangerous continuation of the status quo on the state level…

> One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this

1. Political leaders in many countries (eg. Australia) have been deeply corrupted by the fossil fuel industry. And they're mostly legally immune because they essentially allow that industry to write the laws (including those permitting them to take up fossil fuel company sinecures when they quit politics).

2. Even when you have less-corruptible or more courageous political leaders, they have to try to convince populations which have been subject to relentless corporate propaganda (eg. from Exxon-funded sources as you suggest) for 4 decades. Propaganda has its limits, but it does work.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#65

Post by scythe » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:16 AM UTC

jefflombardjr wrote: post #43

spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

Live stock farming is ~27% of methane production, where fossil fuels are ~33% [1]. Eating an eco friendly diet is great on the individual level, but we should not underscore the drastic need for decisive action on an institutional level. [1] https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-emissio...

Whatever the current numbers are, they must be wrong. The subject article, after all, says that methane is way higher than estimated.

But, if I’m looking for errors, it seems more likely to me that we’d mis-estimate methane leaking out of the ground during fracking or from landfills than methane coming out of cows or manure storage facilities. I mean, you can measure a cow. You can put it in a room and measure the methane. But how do you measure the ground? It seems like the kind of thing you can mess up.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#66

Post by baxtr » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:17 AM UTC

spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

Absolutely. Even worse: It’s not only the direct production of methane but also deforestation for soy production / farmlands that drives climate change.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#67

Post by bni » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:27 AM UTC

zubspace wrote: post #58

One thing I don't understand is why political leaders aren't all over this? Think about a nation going full green and the effect it could have on neighbouring countries? Or a president understanding, that this problem was of highest importance could be a leader of a global change! Think about the fame! But what do we have instead? Ignorance, unwillingness, a dangerous continuation of the status quo on the state level…

Doing something, I mean really doing something, requires changing our culture.

Future generations, if there are ones, will look back at this time and see that we have an oil burning culture. Everything we eat, where we live, fossil fuels have been used to produce and maintain it. If it only was cars that was the problem we would easily solve it.

To make a real change a Total War economy would have to be implemented, with the sole function of combating climate change. No-one wants to even start suggesting that because there would be so much inconvenience and angry people.

Since the effects are only a minor inconvenience yet, for people in the developed world, its much easier to do nothing. Some deny there is a problem, others acknowledge it, but put it on the back of their minds mostly (I'm in this category). The effect is the same. Politicians follow the path of least resistance, that is how they are elected.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#68

Post by bubblewrap » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:39 AM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #53

bubblewrap wrote: post #48

My favorite doomsday scenario at the moment is that it may be earthworms who finally kill us: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/earthworms-soil-c... They appear to be venturing into new areas and releasing carbon there, furthering global warming. There are just too many scenarios of that kind. Either we really are doomed, and climate will switch into a new kind of equilibrium hostile to humans. Or, there are…

> Will so many climate based doomsday scenarios, how did earth survive for so long? See the other 5 mass extinction events.

I think they were more driven by biological evolution than by climate change, though. At least some of them (Cambrian, maybe also Dinosaurs).

Humans are actually very adaptable to all sorts of climates. They've lived in the arctic and in the Saharah.

Also, mass extinction events OK, but we are talking about a runaway effect of heating up the atmosphere, turning it into a Venus like planet. That doesn't seem to have happened before.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#69

Post by bubblewrap » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:40 AM UTC

swang wrote: post #57

bubblewrap wrote: post #48

My favorite doomsday scenario at the moment is that it may be earthworms who finally kill us: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/science/earthworms-soil-c... They appear to be venturing into new areas and releasing carbon there, furthering global warming. There are just too many scenarios of that kind. Either we really are doomed, and climate will switch into a new kind of equilibrium hostile to humans. Or, there are…

earth will survive just fine. its habitability for humans and other current life on the other hand...

Humans seem to be very adaptable, though. They live in all sorts of climates.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#70

Post by rjf72 » Sun, May 26, 2019, 7:41 AM UTC

jefflombardjr wrote: post #61

rjf72 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And to emphasize here, those figures are likely both inflated if this article's hypothesis is correct. That being that primarily natural factors are driving the surge. It's because of this, and practical reality, that I don't understand why scrubbing is not considered a bigger part of the discussion on these topics. For instance one new technological solution [1] proposes an atmospheric removal of CO2 that could cost…

More important than carbon scrubbing, we need energy innovation and to make environmental damage illegal and stop allowing companies to profit off of it. See my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013495

I think the argument that you posed in your other post to be challenged in one particular way. You claim that there is no time to deploy carbon scrubbing. I immediately see two major issues with this argument. The first is that greenhouse effects are not irreversible. As you remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, you change the heat equilibrium. Even feedback effects can be mitigated both by temperature change which reduces the feedback as well as by simply managing with their (causative) consequences - which tend to be an increase the gas emissions, by removing those emissions. In other words human social change does have a limited timeline of viability, but scrubbing does not.

The second is that everything is relative to other options. The first major paper (to my knowledge) regarding imminent danger from climate change was published some 40 years ago. The first 'alarming' governmental report and subsequent media involvement was 30 years ago. Since then there's been effectively 0 change by reliance on social systems, treaties, agreements, and so on. Nearly all of the progress we have made is because natural gas became cheaper than coal, which would have happened with or without these agreements. I don't see this inability to effect social change in any way changing in the future. So by claiming there's not enough time to enact scrubbing (which by the earlier point is not necessarily a reasonable argument to begin with) you're suggesting that other viable alternatives can be enacted more rapidly - and I also see no reason to believe this to be accurate.