Bison in Montana. USFWS Flickr
By Jo Nova
Someone just realized that humans emit methane (like cows, camels, mammals, and ancient herds of bison).
The new study shows that humans are generating methane, just like the awful Planet Wrecking Cows. But the truth is that all mammals have probably always produced some methane, and that includes the massive herds of herbivores that used to roam the Earth, when the climate was “perfect”.
The new paper in PLOS One assessed 104 people and found 31% were methane producers like the cows. They calculated the 67 million homo sapiens in the United Kingdom increase the national methane and N2O emissions by as much as… golly, 0.05 – 0.1%. (Despite this trivial and predictable outcome, somehow, they had no trouble getting grants or getting published for studying methane-angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin).
The main thing we learn from this paper is how easy it is to get money to study climate inanities compared to how hard it is to get grants to audit the IPCC or investigate the sun’s role in climate change.
If belches of methane can cause a climate crisis, how, we marvel, did the planet not boil away when 30 million bison roamed the plains of North America? Why was the climate ideal (apparently) when the vast herds of Wildebeest roamed Africa, and Aurochs stretched across Europe?
Turns out nearly all mammals produce methane
In 2020 Clauss et al reviewed the research on and found that it’s not just cows and camels that produce methane, but carnivorous reptiles, ostriches, kangaroos, sea cows and rodents, pretty much everything they looked at. Indeed, they conclude it’s… prudent to assume that all mammals harbour some methanogens, and produce some CH4, until consistently proven otherwise.”
Methane may provide an evolutionary advantage…
Clauss et al also point out there may be an evolutionary advantage to harboring methanogens (the bacteria that produce methane). If that is true, it would explain why methanogens are everywhere across the zoological world. Bizarrely, inside our intestines, methanogens effectively slow peristalsis, so food takes longer to travel through, and is possibly more efficiently absorbed. So methanogens may help animals absorb more carbohydrate calories and get fattened up. In humans, the presence of methanogens is associated with a higher BMI*. Likewise, efforts to feed cows seaweed or foods that reduce methanogens may come at a cost. And in the last seaweed feed trial, the cows gained weight slower than they usually would. We might reduce methane by an amount too small to measure, and reduce the speed of storms by the square root of nothing, but make meat more expensive and stunt the growth of disadvantaged children. But that’s OK apparently.
h/t John Connor II and on Bison: TdeF, Don, Lance, Another Ian, b.nice, Saighdear, David Maddison, Frederick Pegler, GlenM.
*Excess methanogens are also associated with constipation, bloating, malabsorption and quite a few undesirable outcomes. Search for SIBO.
REFERENCES
Dawson B, Drewer J, Roberts T, Levy P, Heal M, Cowan N (2023) Measurements of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath and the development of UK scale emissions. PLoS ONE 18(12): e0295157. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157
Clauss et al: (2020) Review: Comparative methane production in mammalian herbivores, Animal, Vol 14, Supp 1, Pages s113-s123. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731119003161
![USFWS Flickr](http://<a href="http://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/bison-herd-montana..jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-94906" src="http://joannenova.com.au/wp-content/bison-herd-montana..jpg" alt="Herd of Bison (making lots of methane)" width="800" height="406" /></a> Bison in Montana. USFWS Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/5264639596</dd></dl></div>){kind=link}
Shorter “climate” “scientists”: kill all the humans
200
/earth is 97% full. Please delete anyone you can.
00
IF methane is a GHG and it warms the atmosphere (which it seems it does), then the more methane stored in the atmosphere the greater its warming influence. IF farmed ruminants produce methane and that adds to the global store (which they do while herd size is increasing), then methane from ruminants is a contributor to the warming atmosphere. I don’t know why this seems such a difficult concept, but gee some people do some contortions trying to show this is not happening. You can criticise claims about how much warming GHGs cause, but it seems pretty obvious animal farming contributes to the accumulation of human caused methane emissions.
481
Where’s the evidence that CH4 does contribute to global warming…?
650
Methane makes up 2ppmv of the atmosphere – one molecule in every 500,000 molecules spread evenly throughout the atmosphere.
The idea that it’s dangerously heating up the atmosphere is risible, but that hasn’t stopped the AGW gravy train.
190
Ramanathan, V. (1980). “Climatic Effects of Anthropogenic Trace Gases.” In Interactions of Energy and Climate, edited by W. Bach, et al., pp. 269-80. Dordrecht: Reidel.
07
Easily solved. Each kg of lamb or kid produce half the CH4 emissions of beef, so just switch to sheep or goats 🙂
I’m not sure what the plan is for rice growing, which produces about the same amount of CH4 worldwide as livestock.
330
Ah, Graeme,
“Seems” is NOT scientific evidence.
And, pray tell, what percentage does Methane have in the atmosphere?
More clutching at straws.
Are you one of those that travels in private jets to all of the “climate talk-fests”
around the world? Then, If you are, then maybe if you all stopped breathing OUT
the world temperature problems could be solved.
QED
450
Wow.
Neither methane nor carbon dioxide can grab and hold “extra” energy over and above their intrinsic design capabilities.
When they are in the atmosphere they are always in close contact with all other gaseous components of their environment and don’t and can’t carry any extras.
When I was young we had stories like the three blind mice and the wicked witch to listen to; now we have nonsense stories about green house gases and rampant photons overheating the planet.
Whether approached by analysis of basic physics, atmospheric physics or thermodynamics, the concept of atmospheric heating by so called greenhouse gases is absolutely impossible.
But then John Kerry might disagree, he has so much to gain.
460
CH4 breaks down into CO2 and H20 rather rapidly and has a trace IR absorption range and in the much lower energy part of the IR spectrum too and hardly absorb any of the outgoing terrestrial IR at all which is why it is an irrelevant gas at the current level which is in a couple parts per BILLION and the postulated warm forcing doubling rate is trivial thus IRRELEVENT!
370
There no such thing as a GHG- because the worlds atmosphere doesn’t work anything like a greenhouse. It cant, because it’s open to space at the top and endlessly affected by convection. It’s a 200 years old , outdated analogy that should have been put to bed years ago. They’re not GHG’s, they’re just plain old simple atmospheric gases.
490
Straight to the point; and it really is the only point.
80
Graeme M
You clearly know nothing about the natural carbon cycle that sustains life on earth.
271
As expected a few comments disagreeing. However, I am not saying anything at all about what should be done, just pointing out that it’s dumb to pretend that accumulating global atmospheric methane is not a contributor to a warming atmosphere. We know that GHGs do act to warm the atmosphere (because, let’s face it, they ARE part of the atmosphere) and that methane accumulates whenever sources overwhelm natural rates of cycling. That’s where we find ourselves right now. I don’t see the point of saying otherwise; facts are facts.
059
Facts are facts ? 😀
Not always, at least not in several scientific domains.
290
Not “disagreeing” Graeme as you may wish to see it; I’d say “dismantling.”
220
Why don’t YOU tell us the warm forcing power of CH4 and how more it can add with a doubling of the 1.9 parts per BILLION, but you better hurry up since each CH4 molecule decomposes into CO2 and H20 rather quickly.
The main CH4 absorption band is in the very low part of the IR window far from the main terrestrial IR outflow of which CO2 main band is at the far edge of it.
Go look at the IR charts to see how weakly CH4 absorbs IR.
220
look at that CH4 band at 3.3 microns; also the CO2 band at 4.xx microns where it is safely ignored as it doesn’t absorb IR worth mentioning and the last band is the 7.7 micron that doesn’t do much either because it is still well outside of the main OLWR band which is around the 12 micron area.
Here is a comment that should help you understand WHY you are badly mistaken:
LINK
“Dr. Tom, a most interesting post. I never considered that.
Of course, being a man who checks everyone, I went to MODTRAN to check your assertions. I found the following increases in longwave absorption if we double the methane concentration. Here’s how absorption increases when you double the methane.
Clear Sky Tropics +0.75 W/m2 from doubling of methane
Clear Sky US Standard Atmosphere +0.69 W/m2
Clear Sky Subarctic Winter +0.34 W/m2
Note that these are reduced somewhat if there are clouds. On a global average, then, it seems that a doubling of methane would lead to an increase in absorption of somewhere around half a W/m2 … color me totally unimpressed.
So your claim is upheld by MODTRAN, my congratulations … always more for me to learn, thanks for schooling me on methane.”
90
I honestly didn’t think you could do it
but you have, so congratulations
Your second comment was worser than your Firster!
Huge.
110
Sunsettommy, Willis finds an increase in IR absorption for a doubling of concentration. Currently, I believe that methane concentration has more than doubled since pre-industrial times and the science tells us that the forcing from CH4 is about .650 Wm2. The concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere has increased over the past 100 years, in large part due to agriculture (and largely animal ag). So, it is hard to claim that rising methane emissions do not contribute to increasing forcing (and hence warming). How much and what to do about it is not what I am talking about, I am merely observing that animal ag contributes to increasing global atmospheric stores of methane and that contributes to the warming of the atmosphere.
125
This is getting bizarre with strange religious overtones; the new and insistent SFCCC coming to a farm near you.
100
Science Free Church of Climate Change.
Just believe.
80
As a matter of interest, where did you get the pre-1990 methane concentrations?
I’ve been looking for those, but they play hide and seek, along with their friend nitrous oxide concentrations.
and flood irrigation.
80
Just FWIW from our Aberdonian NHS “.. friend nitrous oxide concentrations” – they are ripping out the pipelined Gas supply and going to continue using the gas – from Bottles – to save the planet, but so that the children may still get knocked out for procedures. – so what’s the difference? Just more expense and no shortening of waiting times.
30
HA HA HA HA HA!!!
You write,
It was tiny just .50 W/m2 as pointed out by using Modtran,
You bring up this number which is also tiny.
.65 W/m2 is tiny!
It is clear you have no idea how bad you look here as you are apparently unaware of how small these numbers are against the total downwelling radiation of around 507 W/m2
You keep ignoring the well-known fact that CH4 has a weak IR absorption effect because it is in the VERY low energy part of the IR spectrum which I have pointed out several times now which you ignore.
That is why CH4 doubling is irrelevant!
90
You are arguing about a completely unrelated mattter. Go back and read my original comment. What I said was, it is dumb denying that increasing methane emissions from animal agriculture increase methane’s warming potential. While global herd size increases and CAFO farming becomes more commonplace, methane emissions from animal ag will increase. Under all GWP methodologies, that means that these emissions add to the warming of the atmosphere. Trying to wave it away on the basis of some “carbon cycle” is wishful and erroneous thinking.
Here is the money quote from my original comment:
“You can criticise claims about how much warming GHGs cause, but it seems pretty obvious animal farming contributes to the accumulation of human caused methane emissions.”
And that is correct.
017
According to the definition, almost any large livestock operation in Canada, northern USA, northern Europe or most of China qualifies as CAFO.
It’s not so much the number of these operations as the total weight of livestock which matters. The large operations may displace a number of smaller farms, or other animals which would otherwise be eating the same feed.
Without having the detailed figures, it’s possible that lot fed cattle actually produce less methane than grass fed due to their faster growth rates and higher feed conversion efficiency.
That would be a shame, because sheep and cattle grazed on native pasture have a far lower environmental impact.
50
You can find a discussion about methane levels at Wikipedia. They report that the pre-industrial level was 722 ppb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
CAFO farming is becoming more common, mainly because the sector experiencing the most growth is poultry. I believe pigs are also being increasingly raised in CAFOs as well, especially in China.
“Without having the detailed figures, it’s possible that lot fed cattle actually produce less methane than grass fed due to their faster growth rates and higher feed conversion efficiency. That would be a shame, because sheep and cattle grazed on native pasture have a far lower environmental impact.”
I’ve read that often, but it’s not clear to me why. First, because over any given period, I’d have thought the number of stock remains relatively stable with births and deaths simply balancing out (even with the faster growth rates). Second, why would feed conversion efficiency reduce emissions? Do you mean that grass-fed cattle eat a greater total mass of feed compared to grain-fed/finished stock over their lifespan? I suppose range-grazed cattle just eat what they want whereas feedlot animals will only eat what is needed for weight gain to finishing and presumably they eat a more calorific/nutritious ration.
Agreed, we want stock on native pasture rather than in feedlots, at least I do.
04
I hate the comment level limit 🙁
Yeah, I saw the 1720 figure for methane, but there doesn’t seem to be any decent annual dataset available along the lines of the Law Dome CO2 history.
Oddly enough, both intensive pork and poultry have quite low CH4/kg figures. Poultry and pigs have been grown intensively for ages because they both do quite well on high grain proportions.
That diverts grain from other potential uses, and there is only so much arable land available. So will factory farming insects.
The stock reach slaughter weight and condition more quickly on the higher feed value diets. Unless the methan emissions rise at the same rate, the shorter lifespan may lead to lower per kg emissions. I don’t know if the figures are readily available to say either way. Most of the figures we see for beef production are for European or US production conditions rather than Argentina or Australia’s extensive grazing.
For better or worse, finishing in feed lots is a fact of life now. I prefer grazing at moderate stocking rates on native pasture, but if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
20
Mr. M: NO, the money quote from your first comment was this- “(which it seems it does)”. Thus announcing that no discussion of science would follow. There’s also the “seems pretty obvious” part. If it is so obvious, you could have responded to multiple requests for proof instead of gaslighting away the morning. Your proof of what seems obvious to you is lacking, so we know what you are.
40
A fine observation of a profoundly dishonest man who continually dodge the requested evidence and have our own factual based statements be credibly addressed which he avoids like holy water.
He isn’t here to debate anything just do the feeble hit and run postings.
00
Graeme M You are tuning out to be a slimy dishonest person who lied about what I posted as you state that I am denying as YOU write,
I haven’t once discussed the source of CH4 emissions from animals, what I have been pointing out all along that CH4 is a negligible contributor of warm forcing which YOU NEVER factually dispute here it is again which you ignore over and over like the dishonest warmist/alarmist you are.
CO2 is postulated to generate a 1.2C (1.8 W/m2) warming per doubling.
CH4 is postulated to generate a .11C (.50 W/m2) warming per doubling.
==========
Now you made a post stating this,
I already told you this 23 hours earlier when I showed that it takes a long time for Methane to double while it contributes negligible warm forcing.
LINK
You are profoundly bad at this game you are trying to play you are lucky this isn’t a forum-based comment thread where I would have been able to show your deliberate lies and dishonest dodging vividly.
30
The methane level is approx 1900 ppb or 1.9 parts per million.
Let’s Imagine that people represent the atmosphere. Each person represents a part of that atmospheric gas.
In Australia we have 26 million people.
So you will have 5,408,000 persons representing oxygen.
You will have 20,280,000 persons representing nitrogen.
Now if you were trying to find a person representing methane. Good luck, as there will be only 49 to be found in the nation.
That Graeme, is your scary level of methane.
So I don’t think you should worry too much….and maybe we should leave our farmers alone.
Unless you live in a swamp, methane is not scary.. It is a just a tiny tiny tiny little trace gas. (just 0.0000019% of the atmosphere)
90
You did not read my comment properly. That said, making dismisssive arguments based on the relative proportions of GHGs is pretty meaningless.
012
Arguments based on proportions are meaningless? Good lord! The proportion is EVERYTHING!
There is absolutely NO WAY a minute amount of trace gas can influence the situation.
It’s difficult to see how you can sustain an argument against the solid facts presented here.
90
Congratulations on reaching your half century.
20
Suppose the animals are not farmed. What then?
Suppose no cow ever sets a foot on a particular acre? What then? The “carbon” still cycles.
It’s not the cows that your mates are after. It’s the small business capitalists that own the cows that they want to get rid of.
The Emissions Trading Scheme that they tried to install ten or twenty years ago refused point blank to allow credits for Agriculture’s sequestrated carbon. They intended to tax Ag’s recycled carbon on the same basis as fossil carbon. Why? This was grossly inequitable.
Now they are having another go. It should bring them unstuck.
190
Ted1, carbon might still “cycle” through the system, but the rate at which methane is produced increases when ruminants are eating the vegetation. Methane breaks down over a decade or so, but while it remains as methane it is a much more powerful IR absorber than CO2. Global Warming Potential assessments attempt to capture that by providing a CO2 equivalent forcing potential for methane over certain time frames. Many people talk about the GWP* method, but that still illustrates the same issue – that if emissions increase over time, then so too does the forcing. It is only when the source remains stable or declines that there is no net addition to forcing. Globally, emissions from animal ag are growing.
024
Show us your data.
80
You write this blatant falsehood:
Here are the spectral lines showing you are promoting baloney:
CH4: LINK
CO2: LINK
CO2 absorbs way more IR than Methane does by hard data.
Ken Gregory, who is a scientist, answered someone in another science blog:
Steve Case says:
“The climate sensitivity of CO2 is about 1.2C° per doubling in the atmosphere.
The climate sensitivity of CH4 is about (___)C° per doubling in the atmosphere.
Can anyone fill in the blank?”
The climate sensitivity of CH4 is about (_0.11)C° per doubling in the atmosphere.
The climate sensitivity of CO2 you gave of 1.2 C per doubling is the no-feedback response. The IPCC models give an average feedback multiplier of +2.75. The CERES data suggests the feedback multiplier is 0.4.
The IPCC WII TS page 52 says CH4 increased from 722 ppb in 1750 to 1803 ppb in 2011. The report claims this results in a direct forcing of 0.48 W/m2. Therefore, a doubling of CH4 would cause a forcing of 0.36 W/m2, calculated by 0.48 x ln(2)/ln(1803/722). The Planck response is 3.2 C/W/m2.
Therefore, the no-feedback climate sensitivity of CH4 is 0.11 C, (0.363 W/m2 /3.2W/m2/C). This assumes you wait a thousand years of oceans to reach equilibrium. The transient climate response based on AR5 Table 9.5 would be 56% of that, or just 0.062 C. However, at the current CH4 growth rate of 0.2% per year, you would have to wait 347 years to double methane.
LINK
=========
Just .11C per doubling, and to wait 347 years for the doubling to occur barely out of statistical noise after a few centuries based on the IPCC values of .36 W/m2
Conclusion:
CO2 is postulated to generate a 1.2C (1.8 W/m2) warming per doubling.
CH4 is postulated to generate a .11C (.50 W/m2) warming per doubling.
HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW.
You really need to slow down as you are waaaay off on this stuff.
90
Ted1, assuming you are asking for data to illustrate the use of the GWP* methodology, Lynch et al 2020 is an excellent example.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6d7e
Sunsettommy, by your own admission, CH4 is a nett additive to anthropogenic forcing. End of story. You are arguing about something quite unrelated to my original comment.
012
Blogg
Clogger
At
Work.
50
A vegetarian.
20
LOL,
In all of your replies to me you have continuously avoided the evidence I presented which means you have nothing to offer here.
You make clear on your lack of understanding over these tiny numbers I have posted that shows they have a trace effect on the total heat budget change.
You are not here to debate just fog up the thread with dead on arrival replies that doesn’t address the details posted.
You have ignored the following,
These are tiny numbers that adds little to the future heat budget which changes barely from the postulated additions.
You ignore it because you can’t address it as this is based on the IPCC own reports and the addition of postulated warm forcing into the future is negligible.
Who is paying you to be this stupid?
30
You dishonestly write,
This is the beginning of your first post,
The net CH4 addition warm forcing is minimal which I have pointed out several times now which you ignore that is why everyone else here wonder why you keep being dishonest in your empty replies and that you NEVER addressed it in replies since.
Here again based on the IPCC report:
CH4 is postulated to generate a .11C (.50 W/m2) warming per doubling.
The doubling time frame is based on the 2% yearly increase that would take around 345 YEARS to get a tiny warming increase of just he he , haha ha .11C
That is what you overlook over and over at how negligible the postulated warm forcing really is that it takes several centuries to build.
You are looking really foolish here ignoring how negligible the future warm forcing CH4 is which is why you post empty drivel in replies instead because you think like a warmist/alarmists who are always being liars and dishonest in their replies.
30
Methane is almost non-existent in the atmosphere. The NOAA records methane as 1900 parts per BILLION. Rounding it up to 2000 means that in 1 part in 500,000 is methane!
It just shows how climate ‘believers’ have the trusting gullibility of a five year old to think that, even if it did have a greenhouse effect, methane has any noticeable effect.
Because the ‘science’ is made up you can claim anything. Originally methane was 23 times more potent than CO2, then 30 times, now 90 times.
‘Organic’ methane is produced by termites, ruminants, compost heaps, and anything that decays, so most of the Earth is producing methane. Also fossil methane leaks from underground.
So why is there so little methane? Because it is flammable! There are 7 million bolts of lightning per day, but even static electricity will ignite methane.
The idea of spending ANY money in ‘combatting’ methane shows how brain-washed most people are. And it is certainly not worth giving up meat for.
[Note that it is thermodynamically impossible to ‘trap’ heat. Every atom in the universe is constantly radiating heat trying to get down to -273C. The only thing preventing this is that they are receiving heat from their surroundings.]
160
Liked that anticlimactic last paragraph.
Right on.
70
And that little old atmosphere is under pressure from nature to share energy equally among its occupants.
10
It is my recreational observation that no money is being spent to stop ‘climate change’.
The huge budget makes no sense except for political power.
UNIPCC is about making the UN just THEM* … and neutralizing nations and the structure of legal protections they aspired to provide.
(It was cool while it lasted.)
“Humans are fueling global warming just by breathing.”
Getting us to stand around arguing about ‘who are these crazy people that say this ridiculous stuff’, is the most crafty diversion ever.
It is already a magnificent success.
New Dark Age inbound.
Yay me, I will likely make it to the big Walmart checkout in the sky just before the last lights go out.
*(‘Global Democracy’ is the the biggest oxymoron since ‘Believe in Science’, and on the stupid list with ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’.)
40
Birds like Malley Fowl and the Brush Turkey in Sydney use the heat from decomposing leaf litter to keep their eggs warm. I hope someone will tell them to stop being so selfish as they generate CO2 and CH4 with gay abandon.
As for North American animal life, the Passenger Pigeon was not as “fortunate” as the Bison, the last one dying in 1914. Originally the most common bird in North America with a population estimated between 3 and 5 billion. I’d imagine they put out quite a bit of CO2 and CH4 in their time, along with significant nitrate runoff. Imagine the climate woes we’d have if they were not extinct…
311
Currently, they are trying to de-extinct the passenger pigeon by using genetic material from museum specimens etc.. But back in the day, contemporary accounts describe passenger pigeon flocks as being able to black out the sky for hours as they flew past. There was a staggering amount of airborne biomass.
240
Those Sycamore balls was a food source to them which is why losing those birds was a big loss.
80
Damn those megapods!
00
John Lennon imagined a perfect world. I could imagine a more perfect world if we simply stopped research grants. Imagine if real scientists had to get their grants from corporations and individuals based on their expertise and successes rather than a group of socialists handing out taxpayer funds. I suggest it would result in far fewer PhDs and far less social scientists. It may see a resurgence of data based science. What a wonderful world that would be.
521
Science is physics, biology and chemistry. Anything else like social science, environmental science is just pseudo-science.
10
Gerry, Economics is another pseudo science for your list.
10
You can see where this is heading.
Many, if not most of the modern Left, already believe that there are too many humans and would be quite happy to see most of them eliminated by one memes or another such as with a bio-weapon or by genocide in the manner of previous Leftists like the National Socialists or Communists.
Those that believe in allowing any humans at all have cited figures of 500 million humans as the ideal world population, presumably mostly serfs/slaves with a small number of Elites. Others would be quite happy to see the extinction of H. sapiens altogether.
Bit by bit, we are seeing these subtle or not-so-subtle memetic ideas injected into our culture that have the ultimate objective of the destruction of not only the West, the initial primary target, but ultimately all of humanity.
Yesterday, I suffered excessive heat at the Sydney Airport Terminal building because NSW is running out of electricity due to lack of wind and sun and the premier has asked people not to be selfish and use less electricity, e.g. to set thermostats to 24C (75F) and not to use dishwashers or clothes dryers etc..
And children are no longer sent to schools but indoctrination centres. Propaganda works. E.g. they are having children eat insects in 1000 Aussie schools. If that is not an end-of-the-world message, apart from the usual lies they are taught, then what is? https://www.spectator.com.au/2022/09/1000-australian-schools-are-fed-insects/
Incidentally, why do you think the owner of one of the biggest platforms contributing to the destruction of our world, is building a doomsday shelter in Hawaii?
SEE LINK FOR REST
250
The obvious answer is to say that Vegans should be in the “first to go” line. That should eliminate some of the Climate Doomsayers. Or as W.S. Gilbert put it “I have a little list, of people who wouldn’t be missed”.
Methane has been ramped up as a danger to warming from being 4.5 times as absorption (Tyndall 1861) to 12 times (IPCC first report) to about 85 times in recent years. Along with a reported increase of 1.4 p.p.m. in the atmosphere (since 1981) you should ask what effect that has? With about 120 p.p.m. equivalent it must mean that CO2 hasn’t been that efficient after all.
130
David,
The WEFies have already got bunkers built . They will use the military ones as they control the MIC and government , but I suspect the survivors will regret survival as they will have to eat each other after they run out of cockroaches . They are a waste of carbon…
50
Cockroaches can survive nuclear fallout but die when clobbered with a rolled up newspaper.
Shows how dangerous mainstream news is. 😆
80
We need an experiment with a control group. All climate change believers, stop breathing now. And don’t start again until the rest of us tell you.
300
And just like that…”Climate Crisis™” over!
100
I’m already ahead on this, I only breathe every second breath……
220
I can only imagine, in horror, the kinds of sensor devices the test volunteers had to wear in order to test their methane emissions. Ouch.
100
Doesn’t bear thinking about.
70
For animals, they are put in sealed, climate-controlled chambers and all gaseous, liquid and solid inputs and outputs are monitored.
80
I’ll pass on that one
60
If only they monitored all the attendees at COP28. Lots more hot air, CO2, methane being produced in there than that of the average human being.
110
It’s weird, this whole “ methane/ cow burps” argument came up in the 1990’s. I know, because like now, agriculture is the main target for all these inane anti- methane policies. Then, some prominent biologists mentioned that the worlds termites produce probably just as much CH4 ( via breakdown in their mounds) as the worlds ruminants. Then, the whole subject sort of died. Now it’s back again , but all the basics are still the same. So, what changed? Obviously, it’s become a hobby horse of someone within the IPCC ranks and a whole bunch of witless politicians/ bureaucrats showed up at some gabfest and signed some agreement. Which I assume was also attended by some Australian reps. So, now it’s back on the agenda.
210
I do believe, last night, I was suffering from a little excess methanogens, however, this morning I’m fine, ’twas just a passing phase.
SC!ENCE™
151
Sorry abt the red one there Greg …….my fat fingers ….
20
From NotricksZone
130
Assuming it was true, how is it racist?
All populations, whether they be human or otherwise, have genetic variability and particular populations have a predisposition to certain characteristics amenable to survival.
E.g. tall and skinny for heat management in hot Savannah areas (Dinka), short and rotund in polar regions to maintain heat (Eskimo), different oxygen management at high altitudes (Tibetans), better resistance to dehydration (Bushmen), better runners as part of their hunting strategy (Kenyan) and for some groups in settled agricultural societies the survival advantage is conferred by ability to plan in advance, propagate knowledge with writing systems and predict seasonal changes (not so necessary for hunter gatherers).
All human populations have some things they are good at and others not so good at, both physical and mental. It defies biological reality and basic common sense and observation to say all humans are exactly the same.
200
Note, not my words, it’s a quote, only to be sure 😀
But in our actual times all is possible to name racist or sesxist, that’s why there is written “could be interpreted”.
80
Get with the times! It’s racist because any racial differences must only be noted if they are positive for “minorities” (the 85% of Earth that is not Caucasian) and, of course, negative for whites. Africans burping and farting does not pass (if you’ll excuse that term) the racist purity test.
120
“methane-angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin”
And doesn’t that quote fits this idiocy perfectly!
140
There are extensive efforts in the more dumbed-down, woke, countries like Australia and New Zimbabwe to develop agricultural animals with less methane output.
Just imagine if these wasted efforts were actually put into breeding animals with superior food conversion efficiency, faster growth or tastier meat (e.g. more marbling).
Incidentally, there is a claim that certain “food” species of insects produce low levels of methane. A lot of this promotion of insect/poverty food nonsense comes from a UN/FAO report from 2013 where insect consumption is promoted for non-Elites.
Did you notice how insects were not on the Elites’ banquet menu at COP28, by the way?
FAO report at: https://www.fao.org/3/i3253e/i3253e.pdf
180
The European Rhinoceros beetle produces methane.
And isn’t the only one. Grubs are producing methane over several years in the underground.
Cockroaches produce up to 35g/year, 43 times their bodyweight, the most effectie methane produce so far in that relation.
150
It’s interesting that when you fully read the results of that UNE red seaweed trial how badly the supplements performed. But you have to read all the way through to see the biggest flaw in the trial and the proposed supplements- they reduced weight gain significantly in the subject cattle. Which you have accurately pointed out in this article – well done. Plus, all the other flaws in that study. Too small, only one breed, feedlot only etc etc. Definitely junk science performed to gain research funds and promoted heavily by one company who think they’re going to make money from seaweed.
180
Interestingly, meat chickens (and they are still chickens) have a slightly better feed conversion rate than crickets.
80
Correct, but often the propaganda says the opposite.
60
“Did you notice how insects were not on the Elites’ banquet menu at COP28, by the way?”
I would not be surprised if insects were included on the menu for COP29. A few photos could be taken showing leading politicians and celebrities with insects on their plates. Then, after the photo-ops, those plates would be removed and the real food served.
40
Graeme et.al. have only a rudimentary grip on this issue. Sure mammals breathe out some methane. Along with lots of other biological processes. All that has been going on a while now, maybe 1b years or so. So why has all the CO2 not finished up converted to methane and locked into a global boiling atmosphere? Well it is because al those untold tons of methane were broken down in the atmosphere and the dreaded carbon returned as CO2 to feed the plants again. Worked well really. The point is that biological processes can go along with no big long term increase in methane. Never did. So lets stop wasting time and money to fiddle with the food chain in an effort to change the weather. Futile, pointless nonsense.
But go ahead and eat crickets if you need to feel better about it. Meantime leave farmers alone, whether they grow rice, cattle or any thing else to feed our population well.
20
Thank God the dinosaurs were eliminated by a huge chunk of outer space rock a few hundred million years ago or the methane “tipping” and “boiling point” would certainly have been reached.
How lucky can you get!
70
To paraphrase THAT movie:
“I’ll have what they’re having”.
On second thoughts, maybe not. That stuff is the political equivalent of pure “Crack” cocaine.
Methane, CH4, is a lighter molecule than CO2, thus it might tend to “rise” in the atmosphere, to an altitude where it will achieve “neutral buoyancy”.
Methane is also a very flammable gas. Not much use as a serious fuel compared to its cousins Propane, Butane, etc; which have more “interesting molecular bonds that releease a lot more heat energy when rearranged in the presence of oxygen. What chance Methane is immune from oxidation, especially at higher altitudes and in the presence of Ozone, the toxic, unstable, “extra-reactive “cousin” of Oxygen?
As for CO2: Consider the global phenomenon of the “Tree Line”, an altitude above which serious trees cannot grow. Per Prof Julius Sumner-Miller. “Why is it so?>
Plants , especially trees, need lots of CO2 to make the cellulose that forms their basic structure. Insufficient CO2, not much growth.
Any hints, boys and girls?
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“As for CO2: Consider the global phenomenon of the “Tree Line”, an altitude above which serious trees cannot grow. Per Prof Julius Sumner-Miller. “Why is it so?”
I think the ‘tree line’ is temperature related, not CO2.
50
It seems to be some of both, however, you cab find evergreen forests thriving at low temperatures. Additionally, in colder climates, the lower temperatures will cause the CO2 to “sink”. There is a distinct tree-line on the very tropical Mt. Kilimanjaro. The classic giant Acacias that litter the surrounding plans rapidly give way to a bunch of weird cactus-like plants as you ascend, then; nothing. The permanent snow-cap is a nice touch.
There is a lot of the usual “concern” for the melting of this ice cap.
As usual, there is a catch.
At high altitudes, the air is, as one should expect, thinner. Therefore, the range of vapour pressure changes. The snow which is, unless compacted, at least 50% air, does NOT “melt”; it goes straight from solid phase to gas, a process known in the trade as “sublimation”.
10
I don’t know the lifetime of a methane molecule in the atmosphere but have seen that it degrades within 6 years. Certainly it will be degraded because methanes from termites hasn’t affected the earth since they started, and the giant sauropods managed to live during the last half of the Jurassic until the end of the Cretaceous (about 180 million years) without causing global warming (in fact the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous were not much warmer than today).
In the meantime we could play with “the minds” of the Warmists by pointing out that swamps, lake bottoms etc. emit methane so receding Arctic ice could be the cause of global warming IF their theories are correct.
20
In the animal world, there are herbivores, omnivores and carnivores, with herbivores being blamed as the largest producers of methane, and carnivores hardly get a mention. So we are being told to stop eating meat to reduce methane. Humans seem to be either omnivore or herbivore equivalent. Perhaps there should be a study about which group produces more methane.
20
Not all herbivores are methane produce in large scale, ruminants are.
10
An unmentioned fact, when discussing methane and its global warming capabilities, is that methane is also a flammable gas.
50
Not playing with matches or lightes when farting 😀
90
“31% were methane producers like the cows”
I am certainly not one of these! I have good manners.
70
“I am certainly not one of these! I have good manners.”
Good manners just means you sneak one out silently, not that you don’t fart.
20
Perhaps, while milking, cows can be provided with a flatus tube and the transfer of methane can be expiated and harnessed for a commercial purpose.
10
I’d prefer cows wearing some sort of simple ignition device, and just flare off the gas.
Though maybe the fire-breathing cows could be a bit dangerous for the farmers.. not to mention singed cow lips.
20
We are beng needlessly scared.
https://www.methanelevels.org/
The amount of methane in the atmosphere is approx 1900 ppb.
Which is 1.9 parts ber million.
It is a tiny tiny trace gas. The Govs and Boffins are trying to scare you. They don’t report 1.9 ppm. They usually report in Mt as that is a visually larger figure.
They report it as 80 times more potent than CO2 as a GHG. Yet they don’t report that Methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide (CO2).
Imagine trying to scare the public by stating that a 50% increase in current methane levels will increase the atmospheric methane levels by 1 part per million.”
Well they won’t, that tiny tiny figure is just not scary enough.
130
While we are all being “needlessly scared” about every aspect of climate change the Geneva Academy currently lists about 114 ongoing military conflicts world wide.
It appears that august body the United Nations, who’s charter was to ensure “world peace” has a/ Failed its primary goal and b/ suffered from “responsibility creep” to the point where its original objective, while still on the books, is apparently of only minor consequence..
Like the caterpillar morphing into a moth the UN has morphed into something that is only interested in perpetuating itself by whatever means as long as it can retain its own relevance
60
The same ‘UN’ in front of ‘IPCC’?
Odd such a negative word was chosen.
10
They are Unable, UNreliable, Untrustworthy, UNcapable, UNacceptable.
30
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence, clamoring to be lead to safety) with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken
10
Why don’t the climate botherers take the lead and demonstrate by holding their collective breath, we would be appreciative of the guidance.
50
From the NDTV article:
Yeah, that’s basic school science, but what these bogus scientists won’t say that is also basic science, is that breathing is caused by CO₂ dissolved in the blood in the first place. No CO₂ and the blood chemistry goes berserk and death is imminent because the breathing reflex is not triggered. These scientists are guilty of lying by omission, aka, disinformation.
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Generally speaking when it comes to politicised science, the “alarmist” supporters generally don’t tell direct lies. But, what they do is leave out all the relevant alternate science which challenges their theories. As you point out, lying by omission. Doesn’t matter whether it’s COVID or Climate or any other “we’re all going to die”, malthusian nonsense. As Jules Verne stated, “Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make , because they lead little by little to the truth”.
50
Quite so.
The body doesn’t sense oxygen levels as most think, but CO2 levels.
If you trick the body (through methods not for here) into thinking CO2 is normal you’ll be unconscious in seconds, and dead in around 15 minutes.
No CO2 = death. Ironic.
60
Hyperventilating before a free dive has lead to divers’ deaths as the breathing reflex is suppressed, and the divers drown.
10
At high altitude, say flying or mountain climbing, you need extra oxygen.
Under higher pressure, diving underwater, you need added co2 .
And yes, the CNS only monitors bloodstreams levels of CO2.
00
We need to start looking seriously at catastrophically enormous methane producers such as Dolly Parton and others with large breaths.
80
That made me smile.
80
Plus humans also emit co2 to the tune of about 40,000 parts per million per exhale. Oh my…..
Do I need a sarc tag?
50
It is steadily aiming towards ” You are the carbon they want to reduce”, ain’t it ?
60
We need to round up every scientist, politician and bureaucrat that supports this theory – then force them to stop breathing (permanently).
Once that is done, we can check if it affected the weather.
80
Part of their “solution” have always been genocide (“population reduction” to be more euphemistic), and they are becoming extremely brazen about of late. The poor, developing countries and their population be damned in the playbook of the Climate Zealot Brigade. That’s why they can comfortably propagandise for electricity from “renewables” only, despite it becoming more and more evident that it is not scalable, and restrictively expensive because they DON’T CARE whether those people get lifted out of poverty, it’s why they can brazenly promote destroying the core family as they DON’T CARE about people around them, especially not about children. They are the dregs of humanity, and they are many…
70
I am ruffled by the continual visual and textual references to Bison when someone wants to bring flatulence and belching to a discussion. This is simple disparagement of North America. Stop it! I offer y’all an alternative.
Serengeti [via Wikipedia]
Each year around the same time, the circular great wildebeest migration begins in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area of the southern Serengeti in Tanzania and loops clockwise through the Serengeti National Park and north towards the Masai Mara reserve in Kenya. This migration is naturally caused, by the availability of grazing. The initial phase lasts from about January to March, when the calving season begins – a time when there is plenty of rain-ripened grass available for the 260,000 zebras that precede 1.7 million wildebeest and the following hundreds of thousands of other plains game, including around 470,000 gazelles.
80
All breathing should be totally forbidden.
30
A green on Twitter used to claim the natural cycle balance of these things. It was always any addition by human industry that is the bad stuff, puts the system out of balance. Have they changed their tune now?
I would write more but I have to get back to contemplating my navel.
30
Breathing causes global warming,………another extraordinary extrapolation of a minuscule piece of data into a catastrophic prediction.
These people have no self awareness of the stupidity that they are pushing.
Remember Al Gore and the Inconvenient Truth, that failed to arrive.
Remember Tim Flannery and the rains that were not going to come, and those that came would not reach the rivers.
Remember….
60
This may end up with antimethanogen antibiotic mandates. Similar to vaccine mandates. If you don’t take an antimethanogen antibiotic you’ll loose your human rights.
41
Runaway Greenhouse Effect Fully Simulated on Earth For The First Time, And It’s “Hell”
Researchers have for the first time simulated all stages of a runaway greenhouse effect, finding that it could turn our green planet into uninhabitable “hell” in coming centuries, they said on Monday.
The Earth would only have to heat up by a few dozen degrees to spur runaway warming, making it as inhospitable as Venus, a planet whose average surface temperature is around 464 degrees Celsius (867 degrees Fahrenheit), according to NASA.
A team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), with support from France’s CNRS laboratories in Paris and Bordeaux, announced they were the first to simulate all stages of a runaway greenhouse effect.
“There is a critical threshold for this amount of water vapour, beyond which the planet cannot cool down any more,” said Guillaume Chaverot, a former UNIGE postdoctoral scholar and lead author of the study.
“From there, everything gets carried away until the oceans end up getting fully evaporated and the temperature reaches several hundred degrees.”
https://www.unige.ch/medias/en/2023/climat-des-exoplanetes-dhabitable-infernale-un-rien-suffit
20
You sure that’s not the plot of a new movie, ‘Simply Red’, with special fx and fiery colours cranked up to eleven gazillion on the hot chilli scale 🌶 dreamed up after drinking one bottle too many of bon Bordeaux.
20
not CO2, amazing 😀
10
How many dozen 2,3 ,5? How do these idiots sleep at night? JUst keep cranking up the scare. keep comparing Earth to Venus, such a scare! Surface pressure of Venus is 92bar…and why would that be? Compared to 1 bar on Earth
00
If there were any reductions in CO2 and methane in the atmosphere as a result of getting energy from to so called renewable sources, these reductions have probably been wiped out by a volcano in Iceland.
https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/volcano-erupts-in-southwest-iceland/news-story/3042164fa040d238cd8dee1f696a30cf
30
And all of the unseen volcanoes
Although most of the active volcanoes we see on land occur where plates collide, the greatest number of the Earth’s volcanoes are hidden from view, occurring on the ocean floor along spreading ridges.
40
No matter how you look at it it’s humans that are the problem, their next step is to work out which ones .
20
I think Klaus and his helpers already have that list.
They were able to compile it with pre-existing technology developed by Claus.
They will not be checking it twice … Gaia will know her own.
20
Graeme M – did you read the article, it has a concise answer to your question: “We might reduce methane by an amount too small to measure, and reduce the speed of storms by the square root of nothing, but make meat more expensive and stunt the growth of disadvantaged children.”
In other words, no-one is in any way suggesting that methane is not a greenhouse gas, but they have worked out the impact of human methane emissions.
20
Your effort is in vain, these Greenies are usually not able to understand what they read, it’s a general problem of such people.
10
Obviously our breathing and ventilating is being subsidised by not taxing it enough.
00
Well…DAHHHHH! Been saying this for over ten years. China and India by just living produce more CO2 than the entire Australian output. It shows how farcical the entire process is, if the idiots were serious they would have been telling China and India to depopulate immediately to save the planet.
Prosecute the argument. CO2 and Methane and Water are NOT GUILTY. If this evil three are not guilty then the entire edifice collapses as a wealth shifting scam.
30
Good one; wealth shifting scam.
10