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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

#61

Post by carapace »

Geopolitics in a Hotter World – UBC Talk Transcribed (Sept. 2010) https://spaswell.wordpress.com/2016/11/18/dr-gwynne-dyer-geo...

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc_4Z1oiXhY

Long, good, hard to summarize but I'll try: Things are worse than publicly talked about; there are a few options (geo-engineering). "People always raid before they starve."

- - - -

We have the solutions already.

Cut-n-paste from a comment yesterday, apologies if you've seen it already, I think it's worth it:

For practical advice on what to do I recommend Toby Hemenway's videos in re: Permaculture

http://tobyhemenway.com/videos/

Especially "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture".

Permaculture is a school of applied ecology (the word itself is a portmanteau of PERMAnent agriCULTURE) that has adherents and practitioners world-wide. It's not the only form of regenerative agriculture either.

See also https://www.greenwave.org/our-work Oceanic 3D farms! And now they are building reefs?

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

#62

Post by fzeroracer »

alkibiades wrote: post #46

what if i don’t care? many of these worries are alarmist. from the IPCC report it seems like some coral will die and the temperature will raise a few degrees. which is bad, sure, but not apocalyptic. i doubt my children’s life will change unless i buy ocean front property and refuse to move for 100 years

What if you live in an area with no AC because for hundreds of years the weather has been consistent enough to not need it?

Or what if you start experiencing massive wildfires because the seasons get dryer and dryer?

How about if you care about eating Salmon or any number of seafood dying off as a result of a warming ocean and massive overfishing?

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

#63

Post by NeedMoreTea »

orbifold wrote: post #45
smakk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

One technology is called “TREES”, actually scratch that a more advanced version is called “RAINFOREST” (that one sequesters far more CO2 per square meter than TREES alone). Unfortunately people have cut down a significant portion of both TREES and RAINFOREST because they are economically incentivized to do so.

Along with all the other carbon sinks we've drained, developed or heated to start emitting - peat bogs, wetlands, mangroves, permafrost etc.

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

#65

Post by Mikeb85 »

mywittyname wrote: post #60
MiroF wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.

> Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime Oh, they are feeling the personal costs of climate change. It's just the political machines are trying their best to hide this fact. Example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-northcarolina/north-c... I think a generation of people are so brainwashed that they can never be convinced of the harms that climate ch…

Well, I'm in Alberta, Canada, and I guarantee 95% of voters here would choose increasing oil production vs. any sort of climate action.

We just had a pretty bad recession, our unemployment is still above typical levels, and we just had an unseasonably cold summer after a pretty cold winter.

It's not an issue of being brainwashed, people really do prefer having jobs and homes over climate targets to fix a problem that isn't readily apparent.

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

#66

Post by mdorazio »

smakk wrote: post #39
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 ?

Besides planting trees as others have mentioned, there's Project Vesta [1], iron fertilization [2], and a few smaller-scale projects aiming to convert greenhouse gases back into liquids that could be stored, although most of the pitches promote them for being reused as fuel, ex. [3].

[1] https://projectvesta.org/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization

[3] https://carbonengineering.com/

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

#67

Post by alkibiades »

fzeroracer wrote: post #62
alkibiades wrote: post #46

what if i don’t care? many of these worries are alarmist. from the IPCC report it seems like some coral will die and the temperature will raise a few degrees. which is bad, sure, but not apocalyptic. i doubt my children’s life will change unless i buy ocean front property and refuse to move for 100 years

What if you live in an area with no AC because for hundreds of years the weather has been consistent enough to not need it? Or what if you start experiencing massive wildfires because the seasons get dryer and dryer? How about if you care about eating Salmon or any number of seafood dying off as a result of a warming ocean and massive overfishing?

it’s not like this happens overnight. you can buy an AC sometimes in the next 100 years hopefully

and sure salmon thing is bad but doesn’t mean the world is ending in 12 years. which is what the activists pretend. i just want a real conversation about solutions but neither side is reasonable

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

#68

Post by arbitrary_name »

api wrote: post #24
caconym_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantlin…

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…

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2100228/c...

>>A side effect of Beijing’s investment – an influx of Chinese migrants – is often perceived by locals as an expression of China’s de facto territorial expansion.

The article goes on to say that the scale of the migration is not actually that large, but it's an interesting tidbit.

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

#69

Post by tom_wilde »

alkibiades wrote: post #53
tom_wilde wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about their children and their children's children and ... (you get the idea) It s a bit myopic no?

1. you really don’t think in 100 years we’ll have better technology? look where we were 100 years ago. 2. once again it seems like they’ll just adapt as humans always have. my point is this apocalyptic behavior by activists is counter productive and offputting. it means we can’t have a reasonable discussion about solutions and trade offs because “the world is ending in 12 years”. this led to me just giving up because…

Well.. for both your points here there are no guarantees. Progress isn't linear and just because we can adapt doesn't mean we will.

What is known is that our entire eco-system is failing to adapt fast enough to keep up with the rate of change - what makes you think we can beat it?

Its disappointingly reductive to throw the towel in and, really, that point of view is no better than 'the world is ending in 12 years'

To deal with a problem you must first acknowledge that it exists - any action is clearly going to beat sticking ones head in the sand.

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

#70

Post by peteradio »

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…

> that's not how they think

I think this is the answer. I don't think the situation is as out of control as everyone is led to believe. It's just not being handled as everyone would believe. Imagine if it was possible to geoengineer our way out of climate change? Think about the powerful implications that would create in terms of ability to affect others climate situation around the world and what that means to those currently in power.

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