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Plants Produce Methane
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?"
The summary neglects to mention that the plant studied had beans for dinner that night.
The biggest problem with plants is that they don't do much to get rid of CO2. They just store it for a few years and to a limited extent return it to the ground. While planting more plants is unlikely to hurt things (even if they release trace amounts of methan), they do not solve the core problem. The core problem is that we are taking massive quantities of old organic matter and burning it. When we burn organic matter that has not been in the ecosystem for millions of years, we add substantial amounts of CO2 (among other things) into the atmosphere. There are other things that add green house gases that we have absolutely no control over, like volcanoes. Throw in potential effects that the sun might be having, and plants really become only a tiny slice of the pie for good or for ill.
Honestly, I think the solution in the long term is technological in nature. 5 billion people are on their way to consuming as much as the 1 billion biggest consumers. In a utopia, we might be able to convince the big consumers to stop consuming that those who currently consume little to carry on not consuming. We don't live in that ideal world.
The solution is for the technologically advanced and rich nations of the world to work like hell to make the industrial revolution that the other 5 billion or so people are about to go through is cleaner then the one the Western world already had. There is no policy that can stop what is going to happen. The only hope that we have is to apply technology to mitigate and reverse the damage that has and will continue to be done.
I am not suggesting we blast pollution into the air because it is a lost cause. I am suggesting that in addition to taking restraint steps where we can, we work our hardest to find real solutions that are compatible with first world style living and environmental concerns. The sooner we recognize that as a species we WILL consume more as time goes on and recognize that the solution is two parts technology and one part restraint, the sooner we will find solution to these very real problems.
I think this is yet another nail in the coffin of the we-are-causing-global-warming-so-stop-driving-now crowd.
We understand so little about weather and the atmosphere and global warming and our sun that to think that we even have an idea of how to reverse the process if it is happening to a significant degree, or to think that we even understand what is really causing it, is absurd.
This is the old blind men and the elephant story. One person thinks it is a spear. Another, a snake. Another, a tree. Another, a whip. Except this elephant is so large and so complicated that even with all of our eyes open and all of our technology looking into it, we still can't figure it out. One group says the earth is cooling. Another, warming. Another, it was too cold now it is coming back to normal. One group says we should stop burning fossil fuels. Another says we should stop burning fossil fuels uncleanly. Still others say that it doesn't matter how much or little CO2 we put out in the atmosphere, the earth tends to absorb it. Others say that the US is the cleanest country in the world because we allow market forces to handle the management of the environment, so we shouldn't regulate it at all but let people choose what they want to do or not do to protect it.
The weather is something beyond our understanding, so it's best that for right now, we attribute it to an Act of God. When we can understand enough about it that we can get an accurate picture and draw conclusive---and correct---results, then we can start taking responsibility for it.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.