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Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

reuters.com

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Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#31

Post by WhompingWindows »

rohan1024 wrote: post #10

There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just North America but also Britain, France and also that it could be due to declining insect population. We rarely get this kind of data from developing countries, which means these studies are rarely or not at all performed simply because they don't have resources t…

"We" may not be waiting at all, the readers of HN and other tech-centric websites. Many people here may be improving their personal behaviors, but that is never going to be enough.

What WE need to do is VOTE, first off, and second, realize that politicians and corporate entities are those with the power to truly shift our behavior as an economy. Until politicians and corporations make huge moves, we'll be stuck waiting and making minor tweaks to our relatively inconsequential individual carbon footprints.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#32

Post by WhompingWindows »

mrfusion wrote: post #12
ijpoijpoihpiuoh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would mean that a lower fraction of the heating effect we're observing is from CO2. However, if we've correctly estimated the impact of CO2, then that just means that there will be more absolute heating than we had otherwise predicted.

We’re both on the same side and I don’t want to seem like arguing within the team. But those two sentences seem to be contradictory?

They aren't contradictory sentences. Methane is increasing faster than we expected it to. So, going forward, a higher % of warming will be due to methane than we expected before our recent methane measurements. This likely means more warming, as methane (CH4) is a much more potent warmer than CO2.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#33

Post by aldoushuxley001 »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #18
aldoushuxley001 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should act on the insect apocalypse and do things like ban neonicinoids, etc. But connecting this to climate change is an extreme stretch considering species decline has been happening for a long time before the industrial revolution. It’s simply not attributable to CO2 and greenhouse gasses

The connection is the disrespectful, undignified, instrumental way that humans treat everything else, animate and not, and with little concern about how their own fortunes are unalterably stitched into the life web they are busily tearing apart.

Yes, you’re right that is the connection.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#34

Post by semi-extrinsic »

drharby wrote: post #28
rohan1024 wrote: post #10

There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just North America but also Britain, France and also that it could be due to declining insect population. We rarely get this kind of data from developing countries, which means these studies are rarely or not at all performed simply because they don't have resources t…

Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike un…

The "something" to be done is very simple:

1) End fossil fuel subsidies

2) Apply or increase taxes on emissions

3) Invest the money from 1 and 2 heavily in nuclear, renewables and CO2 capture and storage for industries that can't just switch to clean electricity, negative emissions and "mild geoengineering" solutions.

Unfortunately, this is bad news for lots of existing multinational companies, and for lots of rich people, who lobby politicians hard to avoid this.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#35

Post by api »

MiroF wrote: post #30
api wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a darker possibility. Maybe we are acting. Maybe governments and oligarchs in richer more powerful nations have concluded in secret that the situation is hopeless and that it's too late to prevent major climate change, so they are deploying totalitarianism. When I see Trump's push to build the wall, I think maybe the wall is not for today's migrant workers and trickle of refugees. Maybe it's to wall off America…

Russia has a substantially higher population than you are implying. Also, you give those in power far too much credit. If they had actually concluded the situation was hopeless, we would be seeing large geoengineering investments right now

Re: Russia's population: it's aging, and relative to China? China could field an army larger than the entire population of Russia if they were sufficiently motivated.

Are there any geoengineering projects that would really work? What if we are on the precipice of a methane-driven feedback loop and military/intelligence secretly knows this?

In any case perhaps that's not how they think. The powerful nations of the world are still largely dominated by their militaries and military-type thinking, which leads people to think in terms of defense and strategic conflict not neutral engineering or cooperative approaches.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#36

Post by anonuser123456 »

gameswithgo wrote: post #27
anonuser123456 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you propose people do?

start using nuclear, solar, and wind power asap and quit burning fossil fuels asap and start having only 1 or 0 children for a while.

So you propose specific solutions that should apply to everyone. BZZZZT. Wrong.

The correct answer was a carbon tax.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#37

Post by watertom »

The only way forward, the only chance we have is to invent technology to trap and sequester green houses gases from the upper atmosphere.

Reducing human greenhouse gas output won’t happen fast enough to fix things, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to capture and trap existing green house gases, but it’s the only chance we have, because it’s the only way to stop the positive feedback loops that are currently running, warming oceans, melting glaciers, and thawing permafrost. We need to reverse warming, not slow it down.

The current approach of “adding less” is absurd. If you need 2,500 calories to maintain your weight, and you are eating 25,000 calories you will get fat fast. Reducing calorie intake to 15,000 won’t let you lose weight, you’ll just get fatter slower.

Our current approach to climate change is to get fatter slower, we need to lose weight.

We need the capacity to capture and sequester per year, 10% more green house gases than we produce per year. Because we need to reduce the total amount of green house gases in the upper atmosphere.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#38

Post by ThemalSpan »

drharby wrote: post #28
rohan1024 wrote: post #10

There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just North America but also Britain, France and also that it could be due to declining insect population. We rarely get this kind of data from developing countries, which means these studies are rarely or not at all performed simply because they don't have resources t…

Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike un…

Make big changes now, or be forced to make them later. Stop supporting the meat industry. Take public transit or bicycle if possible. Avoid flying, driving by yourself. Avoid excessive consumption of disposable products.

There is no sustainable future where we get to keep our current lifestyles.

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#39

Post by smakk »

watertom wrote: post #37

The only way forward, the only chance we have is to invent technology to trap and sequester green houses gases from the upper atmosphere. Reducing human greenhouse gas output won’t happen fast enough to fix things, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to capture and trap existing green house gases, but it’s the only chance we have, because it’s the only way to stop the positive feedback loops that are currently runnin…

Do you know if there are any current technologies to trap and sequester green house gases ?

Re: Researchers are racing to find out why methane levels are increasing so fast

#40

Post by MiroF »

api wrote: post #35
MiroF wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a substantially higher population than you are implying. Also, you give those in power far too much credit. If they had actually concluded the situation was hopeless, we would be seeing large geoengineering investments right now

Re: Russia's population: it's aging, and relative to China? China could field an army larger than the entire population of Russia if they were sufficiently motivated. Are there any geoengineering projects that would really work? What if we are on the precipice of a methane-driven feedback loop and military/intelligence secretly knows this? In any case perhaps that's not how they think. The powerful nations of the wor…

China's population is also aging.

Evidence suggests that solar geoengineering with SO2 would work.

Occam's razor I'm more likely to believe in just incompetence than a cabal of elites who know that geoengineering won't work without having conducted any real experiments

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