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Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

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Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#151

Post by PeterisP »

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…

Any reasonable effective top-down action on climate change would require significant short-term restrictions on how common people live their lives - either as direct prohibitions or through taxation e.g. pricing in environmental externalities.

A political leader who'd force their nation "go full green" would be ousted at the next election, if not quicker - immediate riots on the streets would be likely.

One of the triggers for gilets jaunes in France was a comparably tiny fuel eco-tax - can you imagine the effect of a taxation that's intented to meaningfully decrease consumption; an eco-tax so large not that people pay more and whine at increased prices but that many of them would actually be forced to stop eating beef and driving cars because they can't afford it? Most of the population currently doesn't want such restrictions and the political leaders won't force them to.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#152

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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…

The article makes it clear that methane emissions from farming can be reduced without reducing the production [1].

At the same time, the majority of methane is produced by fossil fuel production that drives industry, transportation and energy production, that are also the largest sources of C02 emissions.

It seems to me that by addressing the emissions of industry, transporation and energy production, we'd be killing two birds with one stone- whereas by going vegan or vegetarian we would only achieve a small reduction in both kinds of emission.

The best thing to do to reduce emissions seems to stop driving, stop flying, prefer public transport, stop buying a new phone every year and stop burning as much excess electricity as we now do. Going vegan or vegetarian seems like a personal option, and a distant third or fourth priority for the general population.

There are many more, much more effective things to do than stop eating meat.

_______________

[1] Thus, there is wide agreement among experts that, regardless of the drivers behind the surge, reducing emissions from fossil-fuel production and distribution, primarily through ending leaks and venting, is one of the few options available to control global methane levels and that this option is the most practical one. In addition, scientists report that there are narrow opportunities to address agricultural emissions, e.g. changes in the diet of livestock can reduce the production of methane without affecting production.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#153

Post by ab8 »

imtringued wrote: post #106
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…

It would help if you read the article which explicitly states that more than 40% of the emissions come from fuel production. Agricultural emissions can be managed by changing the diet of the animals.

> changing the diet of animals

Changing our own diet is on the table too... considering we don't need to eat cattle to survive. This problem is one of overconsumption, and isn't going away by keeping our lifestyle the same.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#154

Post by ab8 »

oliveshell wrote: post #24
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…

It’s a nice thought, but even if we accept that the global population doing this would stem the tide of climate change (which I am doubtful it would), one quickly realizes that there is no way that the entire global population is going to stop eating animals, and we are back to feeling hopeless. I’m increasingly convinced that carbon sequestration on industrial scales is the only serious way to solve this problem.

> there is no way that the entire global population is going to stop eating animals

Hard problems always feel this way.

1. No way to stop eating animals 2. No way to stop driving/flying 3. Don't ask me to change. YOU change.

=> no change in status quo

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#155

Post by Doubl »

keymone wrote: post #133
jeremyjh wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t most cattle fed grain?

Yes it is, which is the main issue because apart from impact on land, corn-fed cows do excrete(?) more methane than grass-fed.

I thought it was the other way around, unfortunately, because I'd rather see cattle on pastures rather than in yards

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#156

Post by lurker458 »

bubblewrap wrote: post #68
jniedrauer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 h…

A Saharah like climate won't feed 7.5 billion people. If the population crashes to a few million stragglers living mostly at the poles then we'll regress back to the stone age.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#157

Post by assblaster »

halfjoking wrote: post #149

Not sure how this is "unexpected." For 20 years there have been articles/studies saying that the "calthrate gun" containing all the methane stored in Siberia and the arctic is the best reason we need to keep CO2 levels below 400 ppm. Now CO2 is at 415 ppm and we're starting to see the accelerated release of methane and it's "unexpected." Why not interview one of the people who said this is exactly what was going to h…

How does CO2 level above 400 cause release of methane from Siberia? There is no established direct link between CO2 atmospheric levels and release of methane.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#158

Post by davedx »

assblaster wrote: post #157
halfjoking wrote: post #149

Not sure how this is "unexpected." For 20 years there have been articles/studies saying that the "calthrate gun" containing all the methane stored in Siberia and the arctic is the best reason we need to keep CO2 levels below 400 ppm. Now CO2 is at 415 ppm and we're starting to see the accelerated release of methane and it's "unexpected." Why not interview one of the people who said this is exactly what was going to h…

How does CO2 level above 400 cause release of methane from Siberia? There is no established direct link between CO2 atmospheric levels and release of methane.

More CO2 = more warming. The polar regions are so far seeing the most extreme temperature increases: see e.g. https://static.skepticalscience.com/pics/ArcticTC1880-2010NC...

Higher arctic temperatures = permafrost melts, releasing trapped methane. e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01313-4

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#159

Post by nmca »

keymone wrote: post #147
jaxr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The efficiency of converting plant based protein into animal protein to feed that to humans is very low [1]. A huge portion of the crops are actually used to feed cattle. If humans stopped eating meat tomorrow, we would have plenty of food (we'd better start eating a lot more soy, though) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1...

Cattle doesn’t convert plant based protein into animal protein. Also cattle eats crop that humans can’t eat and which grows in significantly more tough conditions than those required for crops used as feed. Eating lots of soy is not healthy. It’s a very weird and unconvincing argument on your part, to suggest humans should just start eating crops fed to cattle and that would somehow work in terms of sufficiently heal…

Baffled to read this, as I thought it was widely established as grossly inaccurate.

Suggest you read

Steinfeld, Henning; Gerber, Pierre; Wassenaar, Tom; Castel, Vincent; Rosales, Mauricio; de Haan, Cees (2006), Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options

Or alternatively anything about food culture and supply in India.

I don't believe your current position is substantiated by any evidence; but I'm happy to look through any relevant numbers if you can find them.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#160

Post by bitexploder »

jaxr wrote: post #144
keymone wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice may not be as great. Amount of land and water needed to grow crops that sufficiently replace nutrition provided by meat may be worse for climate change than just eating meat. Obviously that only applies to grass-fed cattle. I don’t have a source right now, but the choice is not as obvious as many think.

The efficiency of converting plant based protein into animal protein to feed that to humans is very low [1]. A huge portion of the crops are actually used to feed cattle. If humans stopped eating meat tomorrow, we would have plenty of food (we'd better start eating a lot more soy, though) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1...

I’ll pass on the phytoestrogens, though. This doesn’t really address the fact that there are ways to still eat meat but minimize the greenhouse effects. For example, chicken and pork is dramatically less directly impactful than beef. There is still the feed efficiency problem, but America’s love of red meat is a better place to start than no meat at all.

https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m...

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