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Plants Produce Methane

Posted by samzenpus on from the what's-that-smell dept.

CelticCoder writes "With wide implications in the fight against global warming, Phyorg.com is reporting that plants naturally produce methane. Since methane is twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat, are efforts to fight global warming by planting forests actually harming the environment?"

4 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. It's in the trees man! by narftrek · · Score: 0, Interesting

    First we had trees that make electricity and now on the same day we have another article about trees making methane. There has GOT to be some kind of evil conspiracy here...better put on my tinfoil hat until I figure it out!

    Conspiracy Theorists Unite!

  2. Re:Much ado about very little by CanSpice · · Score: 2, Interesting
    From the article:
    In terms of total amount of production worldwide, the scientists' first guesses are between 60 and 240 million tonnes of methane per year. That means that about 10 to 30 percent of present annual methane production comes from plants.

    10 to 30 percent is a substantial fraction. Even if they're high by a factor of two, that's 5 to 15 percent, which is still substantial.
  3. Oh my god by Wisgary · · Score: 0, Interesting

    I just realized there's bacteria that produce methane... BACTERIA IS EVERYWHERE. Therefore, I declare bacteria the culprit of global warming. That, and farts, and bacteria make farts, so get your lysol ready.

  4. Problems and Solutions by Shihar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Whole globalism is not all rosy and great, one nice side effect of globalism is that the more liberal European laws become defacto American laws and vice versa.

    One company I interviewed at made specialized batteries in the US. For years, their batteries contained lead and some other more nasty chemicals. The EU passed some laws that in effect banned this company from selling their batteries while they had these chemicals. They explained to me that one of the major projects they were working on was redesigning their batteries so that they could be sold in EU again. In fact, they anticipated more such laws in the EU and the US and so were making a big push to go green.

    It might be a small consolation, but it shows that America is not the end all be all when it comes to environmental law.

    Some other hopeful signs is that all Western nations have started pumping substantial amounts of money into nanotechnology and energy research in both the public and private sector. While I would like to see more money diverted to these fields, we have a pretty fair start.

    I am not saying that the future is safe and secure. In fact, if we don't get our shit together quickly I think that the third world is going to suffer horribly for our slow response in finding solutions. A Katrina stings the US, but it absolutely destroys third world nations that are much more susceptible to natural disasters. While neither the tsunami nor the Pakistani earthquake were caused by human actions, they shows the absolute devastation that natural disasters wracked on third world nations. The Pakistan earthquake in particular shows how an event that would be an irritation for a western nation can kill hundreds of thousands of people in less developed nations. To this day Pakistan is still reeling from the effects of the quake as more people die from the ability to provide shelter for the hundreds of thousands of refugees that it created.