Methane-Eating Bacteria Could Combat Global Warming

realwx writes "New Zealand scientists have found a bacterium, named 'Methylokorus infernorum,' that eats a key global warming chemical. Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas. A scientist quoted in the article stated that a cubic meter of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. 'But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane.'"

Comments

Re:Solution #2

[QuantumG]

but would have no effect on methane, which is what the article is about, so STFU.

interesting timing

[Anonymous Coward]

my wife would appreciate some methane reducing lifeforms to combat my post-Thanksgiving gas venting. I've literally been a musical instrument all day long.

Re:interesting timing

[Marcos Eliziario]

Sometimes Americans are really disgusting.

Oblig.

[Ethanol-fueled]

From TFS: "He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane."

No, that's what this is for!

Just burn it?

[BlueParrot]

Wouldn't it be better to just collect the methane and burn it to displace coal/oil? Sure, you still get CO2 , but methane has the highest energy yield per CO2 yield of all the hydrocarbons, and it is orders of magnitude cleaner than Coal.

Re:Just burn it?

[edwardpickman]

Wouldn't it be better to just collect the methane and burn it to displace coal/oil? Sure, you still get CO2 , but methane has the highest energy yield per CO2 yield of all the hydrocarbons, and it is orders of magnitude cleaner than Coal.

How many cows and/or sheep would I have to keep on the roof of my car to get enough methane to drive to the store?

Re:Just burn it?

[BlueParrot]

Cows and sheep isn't the only thing emitting methane. Landfills emit it en-masse. Pretty much anywhere you have organic material decomposing without a ready access of oxygen you get methane.

Re:Just burn it?

[vvaduva]

That would make too much sense :) Actually a lot of waste dumps are already collecting the methane released and using it for those purposes. Let's face it - this is BS propagandistic garbage; most likely coming from the same people saying that farting cows are destroying the world. First it was CO2, then it was freon, now it's methane, next will be rich capitalists who need their money taken away as punishment. Nobody is offering any real solutions, only blame. It's politics more than it's real concern for the problem.

Re:Just burn it?

[DigiShaman]

All of the landfills I've visted in and around the Houston area have methane capture power generation. It's a standard thing to have in place from what I hear.

Re:Just burn it?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is already being done wherever it makes economic sense. These bacterium would come in handy for those situations where a cheap alternative is needed to simply reduce emissions. I'm sure there are plenty of them out there... Of course, you probably knew this already, but in typical slashdot comments fashion this article provided you the perfect opportunity to to bestow your knowledge of methane burning efficiency upon the rest of us. We thank you oh great keeper of methane knowledge. What a wonderful idea!

Re:Just burn it?

[dinther]

Indeed. Just have a look at the decay on the forest floor of all those pristine tropical jungles. I propose we clear those jungles as soon as possible and instead grow corn for Ethanol. As for the rest of the world we need that de-leafing agent "What's the name again?" to clear trees of their leaves in spring so we won't those leaves rotting and emitting greenhouse gasses that kill Polar bears. We all need to do our bit to stop the world from rotating, uh, I mean stop the tide. Oops, I mean stop climate change.

Re:Just burn it?

[LadyLucky]

And precisely how to you anticipate collecting methane from cows (burps, not farts)?

This is highly relevant for New Zealand as 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions are in fact from cow methane.

Re:Just burn it?

[OriginalArlen]

As a matter of fact, there's very little you have to do in order to remove methane from the atmosphere except wait around a few weeks. It has a very short lifetime once it's in circulation, as opposed to CO2 which, once emitted, is there forever (in human terms) or in geological terms, until it gets chemically locked up in rocks and buried below the ocean floor once again.

Re:Just burn it?

[TheRaven64]

Methane has a much greater effect on the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, I'm told. If you burn methane, however, you get carbon dioxide and water, so it seems that the solution to the problem is to collect and burn the methane. For bonus points, you also get energy.

As I see it, the problem is that the cycle is carbon dioxide to long chain hydrocarbons in plants then animals to methane. If you burn the methane, you create a closed cycle, which has no net effect on the atmosphere (you put back the same amount of carbon dioxide you remove). Sequestering methane makes a lot less sense than sequestering carbon dioxide, since you can't easily get energy out of carbon dioxide.

Re:Just burn it?

[thedeadswiss]

Perhaps a small power station strapped to the cow, which burns the gas and charges a battery. The battery could be drained during milking. Also it would be easy to find the cows at night, due to the flames.

Re:Just burn it?

[evilviper]

And precisely how to you anticipate collecting methane from cows (burps, not farts)?

Collecting the droppings rather than letting them naturally decay, and processing the intestines after slaughter, rather than discarding them.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to find any sources that state what percentage of methane that would capture. Most every source just bundles all cattle methane emissions together, and often incorrectly labels it all "burping."

Re:Just burn it?

[hedwards]

They do do that, the limitation presently the size of the landfill. But that is changing the size of the landfill required to make it worthwhile has been shrinking, allowing for the methane to be used to power electric plants and heat homes.

http://www.epa.gov/lmop/ is probably a good place to start looking.

I was pretty much thinking that TFA was pretty dumb since most of the sources of methane which can't be captured for fuel, aren't going to deal well with this sort of technology. The ones that are, can and often are used to produce useful energy.

Re:Just burn it?

[weicco]

It's politics more than it's real concern for the problem.

And there you are right, it is politics. There's a huge multi billion industry built upon this "environmentalism" bs that Margaret Thatcher started when she didn't like coal (because of coal mine worker's strike) and wanted all nuclear. Who in his/her right mind would give up on such a business? No matter how many studies are thrown at theirs faces showing that this is all bs they will hold on to their cash cows. And that is why I have to pay more taxes because I'm so evil that I go to work every day and need a car for that (there's no functional public transportation where I live).

Re:Just burn it?

[bibel]

I have been enlightened. It's not the pimped out SUV's that go 2 miles to the gallon that are ruining our planet. It's those damn cows that are farting all day long instead of doing something useful like recycling.

here's a shocker

[Anonymous Coward]

Plant more fucking trees. Encourage rooftop gardens. Increase Earth's surface albedo with reflective roofs. The problem's already been solved and these scientists are just ignoring reliable solutions because they want delicious patent money.

Re:here's a shocker

[Heliogabalus]

It's not the scientist's job to simply encourage gardens. It's also not the scientist's fault that citizens are not willing to cut back on carbon-emissions. So what does a scientist do? He (or she) tries to find an alternative solution to a problem that has an answer nobody is willing to comply with.

Re:here's a shocker

[camperdave]

Here's a better idea. Stop cutting them down in the first place.

One fifth of the world's tropical rainforest was destroyed between 1960 and 1990. Estimates of deforestation of tropical forest for the 1990s range from about 55,630 to 120,000 square kilometres each year. At this rate, all tropical forests may be gone by the year 2090.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation

Re:here's a shocker

[4D6963]

Here's another shocker. Planting trees isn't always a good solution, and it can sometimes contribute to the problem. Not all forests release more O2 than they store CO2, plus they decrease the Earth's surface albedo. Fortunately most tropical forests do release more O2, except new forests (young trees release more CO2 it seems).

Re:here's a shocker

[i kan reed]

Plants releasing CO2? That defies basic biology. The albedo argument is legitimate, but there's just no reasonable way for the carbon one to be so.
Where are these trees getting the carbon they're binding and releasing? Soil has an incredibly low carbon concentration.

Re:here's a shocker

[SirSlud]

I've been to New Zealand, and it is a beautiful country filled with awesome people.

That having been said, the website you quote in your sig is so full of poor spelling that by the time I got to "You don't need to be a climate scientist to understand what is happening," I started to feel sorry for whoever was maintaining the site. Its a site that refutes the overwhelming conclusions of the entire branch of climatology and it says, "Hey, you don't have to be an expert on this stuff to realize its a total sham."

I suppose you don't have to be an expert on the conspiracy of global warming to understand what is happening with respect to that as well, right? Forget the blog, forget the inability to spell by its maintainer(s) .. you should try and avoid being an expert in anything! More taxes are evil, less taxes are awesome. Thats all you have to believe in if you choose to be a complete tool.

Jesus Christ, what kind of person would choose to link to a site about a topic unrelated to taxes that references taxes in its masthead?

Re:here's a shocker

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Plants releasing CO2? That defies basic biology.

It doesn't defy basic chemistry. If you set them on fire, that is.

Re:here's a shocker

[i kan reed]

Yes it freaking does. No known living creature performs fission or fusion. Therefore any carbon released has to COME FROM somewhere. even burnt down, you've only obtained carbon neutrality against barren land.

Re:here's a shocker

[mrdaveb]

Trees only absorb CO2 to build more tree - they don't destroy it or use it as fuel or some other nonsense that people seem to believe.

Grow a tree and you have removed carbon from the atmosphere. Burn it down and you have put it back again

Re:here's a shocker

[TheRaven64]

Plants releasing CO2? That defies basic biology. No it doesn't. All plants respire. They convert sugars (and starch) and oxygen to carbon dioxide and water. During the day, they also convert carbon dioxide and water to sugar (then starch) and oxygen. Photosynthesis is just a way of storing the chemicals they need for respiration. If they are not getting enough sunlight, then they will emit more carbon dioxide than they consume.

The real problem is when they decompose and turn carbon dioxide (which they sequestered) into methane.

Re:here's a shocker

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I don't know about you, but when I say I'm making water I don't mean I'm actually creating the component atoms.

Re:here's a shocker

[Marcos Eliziario]

Err.... You know, plants are living things... They have a methabolism, they consume energy......

Re:here's a shocker

[Zibblsnrt]

Jesus Christ, what kind of person would choose to link to a site about a topic unrelated to taxes that references taxes in its masthead?

People who believe that eliminating taxation and reverting to 19th-century ideas free markets are a panacea for all the world's problems, pretty much.

That and, well, opinions can't ever be wrong these days, apparently. That means that if someone wants to discard information learned by people who have likely forgotten more about how the climate works than the deniers are ever going to learn, it's alright. Who needs experts? They just use words with more than three syllables and can potentially make us uncomfortable, so they've obviously got nothing to contribute.

(Of course, someone's likely to respond to this with the usual list of "scientific experts who oppose global warming" that's composed of social scientists, economists, people who got their faux-doctorates by mail order, etc.)

Re:here's a shocker

[sgt_doom]

Given the warming of the oceans' currents, etc., and given the relatively strong possibility that such an increase in water temperature will increasingly continue to release trapped methane on the ocean floor, the amount of bacteria required to alter this probable scenario would take, at the least, several centuries to produce. We are screwed......(as such amounts of methane released into the atmosphere will turn it unsuitable for human life)

Re:here's a shocker

[tjstork]

People who believe that eliminating taxation and reverting to 19th-century ideas free markets are a panacea for all the world's problems, pretty much.

Seems to me that the backwards 19th century was a lot less bloody than its more progressive 20th. Strictly in terms of saving lives and defending mother earth, racist imperialist male dominated societies seem to be a lot better for the planet. Really, if you want to save the earth, take away the women's right to vote. :-)

Re:here's a shocker

[i kan reed]

You're still missing the fundamental concept. All the carbon that comprises a forest has only 1 major source: conception of atmospheric CO2 via photosynthesis. There's no other way for the carbon that would be released by burning it to be present. Called the "conservation of matter" in chemistry. It's only breakable if one steps beyond the bound of conventional chemistry

Re:here's a shocker

[dinther]

I see this every time. Counter arguments are put up against GW and GW believers come up and try to shoot the messenger without ever posting a single counter argument. "the overwhelming conclusions of the entire branch of climatology" is that all you can come up with? You actually believe that? This makes you an even bigger idiot than I claimed you are. But by all means instead go and complain about spelling because at least that is something you can comprehend. I am all for reducing the impact of pollution to our nature but the scary thing is that all money and effort these days is put into reducing CO2 which has ZERO impact on nature while those billions of dollars would make a huge difference in other area's. Now funds are re-directed to CO2 reduction and the real effect is that that money is not spend elsewhere meaning that this whole GW scam negatively impacts nature. Don't confuse pollution and nature conservation with the GW bullshit. They are two different things. The North Pole is melting, but did you know that the south pole is growing at an equal rate? Did you know New Zealand is 1 degree colder than it was in 1864? (Nz is relatively close to Antarctica). Most people don't even know the half of it because they believe the so called "Overwhelming majority" which in fact is a political forum called IPCC.

Re:here's a shocker

[cnettel]

If they don't get enough light, they will emit more carbon dioxide, but they will also be strictly unable to gain any mass. It's not like it's a very simple scenario. Compared to a completely barren land, a forest in the same place will always absorb more CO2, by its very existence.

Re:here's a shocker

[Bastard of Subhumani]

What you're missing is that C02 != Carbon - one can make the former without making the latter and that's one of the things burning organic matter does. The fact that the carbon originally came from the atmosphere way back when is irrelevant. It's chemistry not history.

Perhaps you should spend more time on reading the context of threads rather than being a patronising tit?

But what would we do without our trophies?

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd be nobodies. Women won't want to fuck us. Rivals won't shrink away in terror and awe.

No, we need all the trophies we can get.

Won't somebody think of the children we'll have in the future after impressing hot women with our obvious prowess? Why won't you think of those children?

The hidden danger.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this substance found its way into the food supply, it could be the end of ancient tradition of fart-lighting. The cultural loss would be incalculable.

Re:Solution #2

[urcreepyneighbor]

Ah! You mean the "Let's Stagnate!" solution? No thanks. :)

Sounds promising...

[explosivejared]

...but it's still going to be producing some sort of waste. The article didn't mention at all what the bacteria produced as a byproduct of it's methane consumption. It doesn't do us a whole of good if it pops out radioactive sludge now does it. I don't think it should be written off as "vaporware" but this is obviously still very much in it's infancy. The article was very sparse on specifics other than putting out the sensational headline about curing global warming. Check back in a few years.

Re:Sounds promising...

[SeekerDarksteel]

I don't think it should be written off as "vaporware" but this is obviously still very much in it's infancy.

I pretty sure that even if this technology is sufficiently developed it should still be classified as vaporware.

Re:Sounds promising...

[Stewie241]

and of course, what other side effects are there? We must be careful before we try and fix our meddling by meddling more. Sure. the bacteria is natural, but in what environment?

Re:Sounds promising...

[budgenator]

The truth is while methane is a very powerfull greenhouse gass, it washes out of the attmosphere pretty quickly so it really doesn't contribute global warming even if greenhouse gasses do.

Re:Sounds promising...

[farmerj]

By chance I was at a climate change talk hosted by the Irish EPA. The talk was given by Dr Martin Manning, Head of Technical Support Unit, IPCC Working Group 1, who by chance is as a native of New Zealand. As Ireland is a large livestock producer, one of the questions which came up was why methane produced by ruminants is produces net global warming.

The way it works is that carbon that's absorbed by the growing plants that the ruminants eat is converted to methane in their rumen. This is then burred by the animal during the day. The problem is that methane is a much more potent green house gas then CO2. Methane has a global warming potential of 25. This means that methane has 25 times the global warming potential of CO2.

Methane has a lifetime in the atmosphere of 9.6 years, so during that time it can cause significantly more warming then the same quantity of CO2.

There has been work done with ruminant diet to reduce methane production here and other work done to reduce total green house gas production from livestock using LCA here. It's no use reducing the methane emissions if by doing so you increase your total global warming potential...

A Cows Stomach

[elzurawka]

"Which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C"

So, im not Biologist, but wouldn't the inside of a cows stomach have lots of acid? And the internal body temperature of a cow is probably similar to a humans. So we have the acid, and we are off by about 20 degrees. I'm sure some geneticist somewhere can figure out how to adapt it to these conditions.

Another idea may be to put these bacteria into the pools where the manurer is left to decompose?

Re:A Cows Stomach

[swebster]

Human body temperature: 37C

Cow body temperature: 38.6C

Re:A Cows Stomach

[francisstp]

I was thinking along those lines too, especially since today's cows have much more acidic stomachs than they naturally have.


"This particularly virulent strain of E. coli comes from the GI tracts of cattle that have been fattened with grain (particularly corn) instead of grass or other silage. Grains and corn are not the natural foods of cattle, and when cattle are fed nothing but in an effort to fatten them, they develop highly acidic GI tracts."

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/2006/09/21/corn-eating-cow-crap-chuckin-up-your-insides-blues/

Re:A Cows Stomach

[Whiteox]

Hey! That's a hot cow~!

Can I do the 'I for one, welcome our Methane-Eating Bacteria overlords'?

Re:A Cows Stomach

[stompertje]

Hmmm, I don't think that would do any good; methane is not produced in the stomach, but later on in the digestive process. Having bacteria in a cow's stomach will not reduce it's methane production.

Re:Informative Video

[Anonymous Coward]

The flaw was that it was softened to reduce the impact of the claims in order to curry the favor of some governments, not that it was exagerrated, and that's why many scientists sought to remove themselves from the final report.

How about going (near) vegetarian?

[throatmonster]

Beef production is horribly wasteful, and produces lots of methane. Cutting way back on beef consumption would be a Good Thing (tm).

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[courseofhumanevents]

You could modify that statement to work with pretty much any major industry.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[MightyYar]

I said similar things above, but I was snarky because it was an AC post.

You aren't going to change human nature. The only thing that you can do to reduce beef consumption in the long term is to make it more expensive for people to purchase.

Given that, technological solutions should be welcomed. I agree that reducing beef consumption would be the superior solution, but if that isn't going to happen, won't reducing the impact of beef production be better than nothing?

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[Umuri]

If god wanted us to cut back on cow consumption, they wouldn't be made of tasty meat. Who are you to argue with god's intelligent design?

-karmaburn

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[timmarhy]

"Beef production is horribly wasteful"

fuck off it is. you clearly have never seen or know fuck all about the slaughter production line.

NOTHING is wasted. the skin is used for leather, the head, hoofs, bones and other products not used for human consumption are turned into pet food. fuck even a cows gal stones are ground up and sold.

in comparision growing vegetables is VERY wasteful because a large portion of the crop is wasted due to pests and spoilage. it also requires MORE LAND then beef.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[dinther]

Yeah and also cut back on sex. The heavy breathing emits way too much CO2. The CO2 from 100 people having sex kills 1.27 Polar bears. Get a life

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[nospam007]

"Beef production is horribly wasteful"

fuck off it is. you clearly have never seen or know fuck all about the slaughter production line.
___
The red meat seems to have clogged your brain arteries.

NOTHING is wasted. the skin is used for leather, the head, hoofs, bones and other products not used for human consumption are turned into pet food. fuck even a cows gal stones are ground up and sold.
___
That's the harvesting you are talking of, not the production.

in comparision growing vegetables is VERY wasteful because a large portion of the crop is wasted due to pests and spoilage. it also requires MORE LAND then beef.
___
Do you really think any beef you eat nowadays ate grass only for a couple of years? Those days are long over.
Beef requires 25 kilocalories fodder input for 1 calorie meat output, _that's_ wasteful. Instead of producing beef fodder, you could feed 25 times more people with vegetables and they would live decades longer on top.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[MightyYar]

If you are talking about the Hindu, then yes - many of them do not eat meat. But you have to understand that they are doing this for religious reasons.

Somehow I'm not sure that it is wise to try to convince the other 5 billion people on the planet that they are eating their dead relatives. But hey, the Spanish had some success in forced conversion - so go ahead, try to put the fear of Vishnu in us all.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[goombah99]

Do you really think any beef you eat nowadays ate grass only for a couple of years? Those days are long over.
Better check your facts. A pure corn will kill a cow in less than a year. The typical cow spends less than a fraction one season on a feedlot. It costs way more to feedlot a cow than to let it eat grass for most of it's life. Only in the final stages of fattening up is it productive. No sane person would grain feed anything over most of it's life. So if you base your conclusions on what you believed was a fact you need to reassess them.

Beef requires 25 kilocalories fodder input for 1 calorie meat output, _that's_ wasteful. Instead of producing beef fodder, you could feed 25 times more people with vegetables and they would live decades longer on top.
I'd like to see your facts. It takes prodigious amounts of water and energy to raise a vegetable and deliver it to you. Moreover, cows eat grass on rangelands where the land can't support growing crops and if it could there's no water. So every calorie you get from that is one you never could get from a vegetable. None of the cow is wasted, while most of the vegetable is. Moreover, where do you think they get the fertilizer to grow the crops? It's not the slightest bit wasteful.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[nospam007]

I'd like to see your facts. It takes prodigious amounts of water and energy to raise a vegetable and deliver it to you.
_____
According to the British group Vegfam, a 10-acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn and only two producing cattle.

More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation's entire fruit and vegetable crop. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil. In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that "you'd save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year." Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year.

Moreover, cows eat grass on rangelands where the land can't support growing crops and if it could there's no water.
____
While it is true that many animals graze on land that would be unsuitable for cultivation, the demand for meat has taken millions of productive acres away from farm inventories. The cost of that is incalculable. As Diet For a Small Planet author Frances Moore Lappé writes, imagine sitting down to an eight-ounce steak. "Then imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls in front of them. For the 'feed cost' of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains."

Harvard nutritionist Jean Mayer estimates that reducing meat production by just 10 percent in the U.S. would free enough grain to feed 60 million people. Authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich note that a pound of wheat can be grown with 60 pounds of water, whereas a pound of meat requires 2,500 to 6,000 pounds.

Energy-intensive U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste in 1996, which, the Environmental Protection Agency reports, pollutes American waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Meat production has also been linked to severe erosion of billions of acres of once-productive farmland and to the destruction of rainforests.

Re:How about going (near) vegetarian?

[goombah99]

More than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used in animal production. Beef production alone uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation's entire fruit and vegetable crop. Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fuel to drive 20 miles and causes the loss of five times its weight in topsoil. In his book The Food Revolution, author John Robbins estimates that "you'd save more water by not eating a pound of California beef than you would by not showering for an entire year." Because of deforestation to create grazing land, each vegetarian saves an acre of trees per year. these are interesting points. I'm curious about why they are so when it's not obvious. Why does beef production use more water? Why does hamburger production cause topsoil loss? I suspect, given the deforestation argument, that this is being applied selectively here to the worst practices of beef production in say amazon countries and not in say the US or other countries. Afterall You can deforest for Agricultrue too and indeed that has happened. In much of the US cattle graze in forested areas without deforestation. So are these effects obligate or as I suspect cherry picked examples of bad practices?

old news

[h2k1]

i though that was common sense in the scientific class that the early earth atmosphere composed essentially by metane and other greenhouse-effect gases was modified by these bugs who fixated the gases from the air. maybe one day when the ocean water become 60C these bugs could come to the surface and to the trick again.

Just imagine

[postbigbang]

How many liters would have to be put into Capitol Hill each year to offset the methane there.... the mind boggles!

Re:Solution #2

[MightyYar]

Great idea - just change human behavior and it'll work great! Hey, it worked for the communists.

Ooooor, you could try to use technology to improve the situation. But don't let me interrupt your Quixotian quest to change people by admonishing them. Get them to stop eating beef while you are at it.

CO2-Eating Organism Could Combat Global Warming

[dondonz]

In other news, scientists also discover a way of combatting another major greenhouse gas - carbon dioxide. This newly discovered group of organisms, tentatively called "plants", not only absorbs the carbon dioxide gas, but also produces oxygen AND SOME can be quite tasty in a stir-fry. Further research is continuing, with the hopes these so-called "plants" becoming commercially viable by 2010.

Re:CO2-Eating Organism Could Combat Global Warming

[kir]

HE HE HE. That was money.

Re:CO2-Eating Organism Could Combat Global Warming

[dinther]

Bullseye! Best comment I read all day!

330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

So, 1 cubic meter will take care of 11 kg. How much to take care of our 330 teragram annual emission? A couple dozen cubic kilometers?

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[TheGreatHegemon]

I would imagine that we not need to cull all of it - this stuff was emitted before mankind existed, too.

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[das_magpie]

So true. 11 Kilograms a year for one meter, 11 kilograms a week would be probably more like it.

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[nick_davison]

1 cubic meter, assuming the same density as water, weighs 1000 kg.

It can, in turn, process 11 kg - barely 1% of its own mass.

In a year.

To use your figure of 330 Tg of methane, that's 30 petagrams of the damn stuff. That's 30 billion tonnes. Volumewise, that's 1/5th of Lake Erie (150 trillion liters - 150 billion tonnes - of water).

And that's assuming you could get all of the gas in to Lake Erie in the first place.

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[Ochu]

Wow, a teragram. What an unusual unit. You'd have thought someone would have invented a way of talking about large metric weights. Some sort of metric equivalent to a ton... say, a tonne. Which would equal about 1000 kilograms, or a 'gigagram'. Why, then we could say that one teragram would be equal to a kilotonne. Which is, y'know, a real unit.

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[cnettel]

1000 kilograms just happen to be a megagram. You're off by 3 orders of magnitude.

Re:330 teragrams emitted annually by people

[Ochu]

Don't I feel stupid... But I like to think my point still stands.

Re:Solution #2

[Telvin_3d]

I don't know. I think building all those country acreages helps combat global warming. After all, it doesn't take many city drivers who are unused to the country running over stray cows to make a measurable difference in methane output.

L'histoire se répète?

[Diddlbiker]

Because other experiments in the past to release some kind of life form to combat something we deem as inconvenient has worked soooooo well: * introducing rabbits in Australia * introducing foxes to eat said rabbits * crossing European and African honey bees to get the best of both worlds... * snakeheads in Eastern USA * american frogs in europe And about another 1000 examples of introducing animals outside their natural habitat have all worked out so well. So, yeah, let's release those bugs!

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[FooAtWFU]

Shut up and take your Beano.

:)

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[c6gunner]

So, the arguent goes something like this:

We're breaking everything and the world is going to end thanks to global warming. We know this for 100% sure, because we're so smart. But we shouldn't try doing anything to fix it, because we're so damn stupid.

Do I have that about right?

It seems to me the only option left is for us to just die. You go first, the rest of us will follow.

Really.

We will.

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[Diddlbiker]

No, you don't have it right. We should do something about global warming.

But fixing the problem with a solution class that in virtually every single instance where it has been tried ('let's introduce species x') not only failed, but even made things worse, is not a good idea in my mind.

Solve the problem at the core: stop burning fossil fuels. I don't have incandescent light bulbs in my house for years. When it gets cold, I put on a sweater, and a vest, instead of turning up the heat. I drive 60MPH to work because it saves 10% gas over 65MPH (public transportation is, where I live, not an option). I'm sure there's a lot more that I can do, but it is a start.

By the way, the world is not going to an end. We're not that smart.
We might plunge the world into an ecological disaster, and as a species exterminate ourselves in doing that, but the world will still be there. Just without us. It might take a million years to recover, but that's only a blip on the life time on the planet anyway.

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[DirePickle]

But they're so small! What could possibly go wrong? It's not like bacteria can hurt an ecosystem.

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[lachlan76]

Not to nitpick (well, actually, yes, I do mean to nitpick), but rabbits were actually released for hunting. You would be correct had you mentioned cane toads, though. Not to say that the rabbits are a good thing---we've introduced viruses to try to control them on two occasions, to a certain degree of success.

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[nebosuke]

You're deliberately selecting for failures. The entirety of all agriculture is basically the introduction or synthesis and then introduction of new organisms to a given environment to convert solar and chemical energy into useful resources for people. The total cost/benefit ratio to humans of deliberate foreign species introduction is staggeringly in favor of continuing to do so.

Re:L'histoire se répète?

[c6gunner]

Solve the problem at the core: stop burning fossil fuels.

If you think that's an option, you are seriously deluded.

I don't have incandescent light bulbs in my house for years.

Me neither, but so what? Eve if every single person were to get rid of incandescent bulbs, the difference in energy use would be infinitesimal, and would be swallowed up by next year's growth in energy demand. Such measures are a good way to save money, but do nothing for the environment.

When it gets cold, I put on a sweater, and a vest, instead of turning up the heat.

Ditto. Once again - good way to save money. Plus I find it to be more comfortable. But as far as saving the environment goes? I don't have any illusions.

I drive 60MPH to work because it saves 10% gas over 65MPH

Well, don't worry, I drive 80 in order to make up the difference for you and 5 other drivers. You're welcome!

I just hope you realize that all of your efforts add up to exactly squat in the long run. They may make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but even if every person in North America were to take the steps you've talked about here, the growth in emissions by China and India over the next year would easily make up for it. Nothing we do at this point to reduce emissions is going to make any long term difference. Nothing is going to roll back the clock. Assuming that excess carbon dioxide and methane really ARE going to cause problems in the future, the only way to fight that is through new technologies. Conservation, while not a bad thing, is certainly not an answer.

Human meddling...

[LoadWB]

Anyone ever get the feeling that we are going to really muck things up by trying to "fix" things? We introduce new species of animal or bacteria to an environment to control naturally occurring beings, then these predators completely take over and become a problem in and of themselves. So and on so forth.

I have to believe sometimes that we as humans are simply not smart enough, or perhaps do not see enough of the big picture, to understand the intricacies of the world or the universe to implement such grand scale processes.

Re:Human meddling...

[Heliogabalus]

Newton's third law applies to more than just physics.

Re:Human meddling...

[QuantumG]

no.

Re:Human meddling...

[mattkime]

I agree wholeheartedly! In fact, the idea extends to smaller situations as well.

I will get out of bed as soon as I fully understand the implications...

Re:Informative Video

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah we should ban Dihydrogen Monoxide too. I agree. There have been too many wars over the centuries because of that stupid substance. People will do any act just to get more of it (especially if it is pure). Heck, we even have space missions to the Moon and Mars looking for it due to our insatiable greed. Even the nuclear industry uses it to make their vile radioactive energy. The Earth would be a better place if Dihydrogen Monoxide never existed. There would be no more nuclear power plants. There would be no more polar bears drowning due to the melting ice caps. There would be no more wars or murder. The Earth would once again be peaceful.

Solutions are tough when egos are involved

[Wingit]

Methylokorus infernorum. What consumes it when it gets out of control. I am being corny and soy-ey. (sorry)

Still, the globe on which we currently reside is going through changes. I am sure we play a part, but let us not get an ego. This planet has known this for some time longer than us.

Reducing our negative impacts and increasing our positive cannot be wrong by definition in my book. We can only do positive together.

Heroes

[Prius]

So what are we going to do? Throw a bunch of acid everywhere and hope it saves the world?

Re:Solution #2

[MightyYar]

Probably. I like Sisyphean, too.

Re:Solution #2

[Somegeek]

Should not critique others' vocabulary, those who use 'LOL'.

Re:Solution #2

[martinX]

Really? A friend had that once. Penicillin did the trick.

Yeah, yeah...

[Deadstick]

...and it pisses gasoline, right?

rj

Re:Yeah, yeah...

[Killjoy_NL]

No that's what I do and it hurts like a mofo.

Re:Solution #2

[Wingit]

Great point - MightyYar

Oh, and they don't let us eat beef here either. *grin*

Hubris, Enviro

[pipingguy]

It is pointless to try to "change the climate". The earth will do what it's always done, and that is to adapt.

Humans are also pretty good at adapting, unless the planet undergoes dramatic climate change like it did in that scary movie.

ya let's stop the animals from farting

[icepick72]

could ever be added to sheep or cows' food to stop the animals releasing methane

It's the ironic world we live in where we have to stop global warming at all costs even by disrupting the natural order of things.

Re:ya let's stop the animals from farting

[slick_shoes]

But of course, global warming IS the natural order of things.

mod parent Insightful

[goombah99]

excellent satire.

Re:Solution #2

[MightyYar]

Really? A friend had that once. Penicillin did the trick. He probably got it from Merope.

Re:This will do little or nothing to stop Global

[QuantumG]

Yes, solutions that start with "force everyone to" are not very helpful.

Methane + Archaea = gasoline

[flyingfsck]

Archaea are extremophiles that can turn methane into oil to power our SUVs directly. Incorporate archaea into genetically altered cows to increase their body temperature to a balmy 70 degrees Celsius or so, and cows could be made to pee gasoline, instead of farting methane.

Nevermind the tiger, put a genetically enhanced cow in your tank.

Re:Vegetarians are bad for the planet

[goombah99]

"Cattle can graze on unirrigated badlands where crop lands are impractical."

The problem with your argument is that in reality the vast, vast majority of cows are raised on flat land and are fed corn instead of grass.

No the problem with your counter argument is that it is factually false and way off. Most cattle spend less than a season of their lifespan on grain lots. The rest of the time they graze. Not all cattle are free-range. For example managed intensive grazing restricts cattle's roaming range so that they don't overgraze or damage lands. But those are not feedlots and the grass grows naturally.

Your argument would hold more water IF cows were free to range on land that's not suitable for farming instead of being force feed corn. I'm glad to hear you must now agree with me.

As a rule of thumb, for each step you go up in the food pyramid, only 10% of energy is retained. Putting cows between a person and the vegetable (corn in this case) simply adds inefficiency in the energy transfer. So instead of feeding 10 vegetarians, you're now feeding 1 meat eater. Again your fact are wrong. Consider the cow. It propels it self between bites of grass then delivers it self to a way point. No fuel is used trucking nutrients to the cow, plowing the cows field. No water is pumped to irrigate the fields. Your cow does use energy to transport itself to the food and too the water but that's more efficient that delivering the food and water to the cow. Your vegetables require lots of energy to tend and feed them and it's trucked in and out. And unless you live on raw carrots, Even cooking vegetables takes more water and energy. Most vegetarians need to eat nuts and cheeses and other sources of protein and the sustainable vegetarian diet is likely to be less efficiently trucked than a burger.

But even setting the efficiency argument entirely aside the bigger problem with your argument simply ignores the fact that you can't grow crops most places you can raise a cow. SO the cow is harvesting all the photosynthesis for you that was previously not available.

Where's Darl?

[rice_burners_suck]

In other news, $C0 today decided to sue itself, because it discovered that $C0 has been using $C0 source code. "It's a recursive lawsuit," said a spokesperson for the company. "We saw those Coke billboards that said they should sue themselves, and decided we should do the same."

Re:Solution #2

[Rukie]

Didn't we just have an article up here from NASA about global warming not being real?

Re:This will do little or nothing to stop Global

[Whiteox]

We can't all afford to be vegan. After all, we need all those crops for biodiesel.

Re:Solution #2

[4D6963]

Quixotian? LOL

There's nothing wrong with this neologism, as it conveys perfectly accurately the message that the author intended to emit, by making a reference to something that everyone knows about...

Re:Solution #2

[4D6963]

I agree, only a hippie could be silly enough to believe that the solution is in convincing people into going out of their natural way to "save the world", that's completely ignorant of the human nature and more particularly our ordering of priorities to think it can work.

All I have to say is...

[ZiZ]

Neil Stephenson's Zodiac.

Feeding to cattle

[bjbest]

More efficent and easier to mix monensin into cattle feed, as has been done since the early '60s. An antibiotic sold under the tradename "rumensin", it is available as a component of supplemental vitamin/mineral feed mix; available by the bag or by the truckload at your local farm supply outlet. In a cow's stomach, it blocks the digestive microbes from breaking down corn sugar molecules into molecules of acetic acid, cardon dioxide and methane, instead keeping it all as one bigger acid molecule so the body can use all the carbon to bulk up. Otherwise, the gaseous CO2 and CH4 released would just be farted away and wasted. Young cattle can gain more weight with less forage, less greenhouse gases emitted, and as a bonus the antibiotic protects the animal against a few diseases.

Re:Feeding to cattle

[WetCat]

Dark side of use of that antibiotic is that it'll go through milk and meat to humans, thus aggravating a growing problem - antibiotic resistance.
(There will be less antibiotic cures for people after antibiotic feeds to cows.)
Global warming is overestimated, antibiotic resistance is underestimated. First one, AFAIK, is a fictional one.

What did he see?

[Dlugar]

... in the parallel dimension? He saw beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, lots of beans, ...

Dlugar

Re:What did he see?

[fredklein]

Everyone loves Magical Trevor.

Re:What did he see?

[neokushan]

The tricks that he does are ever so clever.

Re:What did he see?

[mattyrobinson69]

look at him now, disappearing the cow

where is the cow, hidden right now

Re:What did he see?

[fredklein]

Taking his bow, it's Magical Trevor.

Re:Solution #2

[Spookticus]

how can one fight something that does not exist?

Re:Global warming is bullshit

[timmarhy]

even if the last 10 years were the hottest, which they have not been (1930's were hotter), you still don't present any solid case for it being man made. your area's hotter then usual weather is also no indication of weather on a global scale.

Re:Cool, no more farts!

[g0dsp33d]

You can't just change the bacteria to suit the cows, you insensitive clod. The only solution is to modify the cows to live in 60C acidic water!

Re:Cold hard facts

[timmarhy]

"There are no signs of it slowing down in the foreseeable future."

wrong. populations in many western countries have actually dropped. if it wasn't for migration many would be in decline.

the earths population is commonly estimated to peak at 20 billion with current trends.

Re:This will do little or nothing to stop Global

[ookabooka]

Yes, I agree. Laws and regulations are always not helpful, there must be some other way to get others to work together nicely and avoid the tragedy of commons.

M[eth]an[e]-eating Bacteria

[kiehlster]

For a moment I thought that said man-eating bacteria combats global warming. Told you that the root cause of global warming is mankind. You eliminate that and we're all set.

Re:M[eth]an[e]-eating Bacteria

[onefriedrice]

> Told you that the root cause of global warming is mankind. I know you're trying to be funny, but for the record let it be made clear that mankind is not the root cause of "global warming." Nature is, and we play our small (and it is small) part inasmuch as we are a part of nature on this planet. The bottom line is that the climate changes, and there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. These "solutions" are strange considered alone, but they're even more ridiculous given that they are being designed to solve a problem that doesn't even exist.

Re:Vegetarians are bad for the planet

[RoboRay]

So, we just feed the 10 vegetarians to the meat eater, and have a win-win situation. Let's do it!

Eats or oxidizes

[Jeff1946]

My guess would be the bugs are oxidizing methane to CO2 and water as an energy source. Thus they would be producing CO2. Of course what type of info would you expect in the Daily Telegraph.

Re:Solution #2

[Bastard of Subhumani]

The difference, as you no doubt know, is that people such as farmers also work in the country. Fat hummer-driving lawyers and failed politicians generally don't.

Mod The Bacteria...

[maz2331]

To eat these annoying vegans!

Why not skip a step? Flash roast beef!

[cheros]

Given that quite a large percentage of these animals are reared for eating, maybe we should just come up with a way to retain and spread the methane in their body. You'd end up with flash-roast steaks - just hold a match to them and blamm - ready.

You would have to breed rare, medium and well done varieties, of course, but I'm sure a bit of selective breeding would sort that out.

The only problem is that you'd have to ban smoking near the herd :-).

Re:Vegetarians are bad for the planet

[slugstone]

I thought you were informative and not flame bait. Just shows you what I know.

Metabolism may still be interesting for science...

[Reblet]

It's unlikely that these bacteria will be used for reducing greenhouse gas. Even if they could be adapted to live under more 'friendly' conditions they'll metabolise methane into... carbon dioxide. That doesn't really solve the problem. On the other hand, methane is notoriously difficult to oxidise partially, so it might be interesting to see if and how this bacteria accomplishes this.

Re:Solution #2

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the GP's point was that there's already a perfectly good word - "quixotic". Saying "quixotian" is just about as silly as using buzzwords like "incentivise" instead of "encourage".

Re:Cold hard facts

[bheekling]

But energy and food demands are increasing every year, everywhere. Plus, most of our energy is non-renewable.
We are facing a resource crunch whether or not the population increases.

Re:Bigger Targets?

[phoenixwade]

According to wikipedia, methane takes up 0.0001745% of the Earth's atmosphere. It certainly seems like there are more productive lines of research to pursue. particularly when we could just feed the cows and pigs "Bean-O".... No point in inventing a new solution when the old one works.....

Re:Solution #2

[MightyYar]

I didn't say it was only hippies :)

It's fundamental to human nature. At the opposite end of the scale from hippies, you have the religious conservatives who think that they can teach kids to abstain from sex - no need for condoms! Everyone is a little bit fascist...

No, the sun will do that shortly

[slashbart]

In a very interesting lecture by a University of Amsterdam professor (Dr. Bas van Geel), he showed very clearly, and to my (being a physicist) eyes conclusively, that the current warm period is directly related to high levels of solar activity.
He showed conclusively that such periods have existed in the past (the medieval optimum, and for instance an 80 year period just b.c.)
The record is based on Be-10 isotopes in treerings (which accurately record solar activity), and all kinds of climate records such as tree growths, ice rafted debris, lake depths, harvest results, desert migrations and more. CO2 plays very little role in the climate, and its rise of atmospheric concentration occurs historically because centuries after the climate has gotten hotter (because of the sun), the oceans heat up, and release more CO2, the equilibrium ocean/athmosphere shifts.

From statistical extrapolation of solar activity, it is likely that the sun will lower its output in the next 5 years (his words), so the end of the warm 20th century is near. I'm curious to see if he's right.

Bart

In the News Today...

[flyneye]

In the news today,Greenpeace took up arms.It was discovered that there was a bacteria being considered to add to bovine feed to reduce the unGodly farting that they claim will eventually ruin the ozone and killl us all if the farting itself won't.
Their weapons were tranquilizer guns filled with Bean-o as the bacteria prefer an environment that isn't a cows ass.World wide activists are converging on pastures everywhere to dose bessy and calm her destructive colon.There is some angry resistance however as animal rights groups are retaliating with bricks and bats shouting "you spotty bottom greenies are farty as the cows,go F**K yourselves!"
Film @ 11,goodnight.

When Petroleum Runs Out...

[realwx]

If we do find an alternative energy source that also emits methane (or same matter as petroleum), at least this will be useful to stop it from being released into the atmosphere.

Forget cows

[belg4mit]

What about permafrost and seafloor methane hydrates? That's the real problem,
and in both cases you ought to be able to at least meet the 60 degree criterion
easily enough.

Wasted energy

[nurb432]

Instead of letting the methane be consumed by a bug, why not burn the stuff and use the heat for energy?

Re:Solution #2

[hesiod]

I must have missed that one, and couldn't find anything with the Slashdot search. Could someone please enlighten me?

Thanks, and sorry for the semi-offtopic post.

Actually

[ari wins]

The whole cow theory is dated. Now it's permafrost in Siberia that is a concern, since it's going to continue to gain momentum.

http://www.google.com/search?q=permafrost+siberia+methane

Re:Solution #2

[4D6963]

Did my comment turn you on to the point you had to perform that sort of intellectual masturbation that was strictly irrelevant to the topic at hand anyways?

Re:Solution #2

[4D6963]

Everyone is a little bit fascist...

Make that hippie. The religious conservatives you referred to are, in a sense, hippies, albeit a special kind of hippies, in that they spend all their energy trying to make people care about whatever they think is oh so important, be it "saving the planet" or "not committing a sin of flesh".

the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Basically Global Warming is a fact. Pure and simple. I don't care who or what you want to blame, but it's happening, so deal.

The problem isn't the cows - although they do fart an enormous amount of methane into the air.

The problem are the clathrates - methane hydrates - that are locked up in the tundra and under the sea. In a nutshell: the tundra has been acting like a giant methane sink for the past several jillion years. If it melts down, and goes quickly, it will release its methane and basically slowly destroy the biosphere. We're talking Permian level extinction event fuck up. The other problem is: the clathrates can't be effectively mined for their methane as a fuel - we're talking millions of km^2 - huge swathes of Siberia and Canada and Alaska, and the methane isn't dense enough to collect. Furthermore, the stuff at the bottom of the ocean is nearly impossible to get at. So, if it goes into the air, the pooch is screwed. From wikipedia:

Methane clathrates are restricted to the shallow lithosphere (i.e.

Now, if this organism can be genetically altered to get happy with low temps and low acidity, then it might be able to spread through the clathrates - but given the depth of the deposits, the low temps, etc. It's Not A Good Thing.

So we need to keep that genie in its bottle....

RS

Re:the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[ErikZ]

The climate changes. Period. So deal.

Re:the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[Teancum]

I happen to believe that life is much more resilient than what you are suggesting here, and that not only will "life" continue... meaning 50%+ of all current large animal & plant species living for another 1000 years or more, but that changes to the climate are even anticipated within the DNA of nearly all of these creatures. By large I mean something that can fit into your hand or larger.

As for the methane being trapped in tundra, yeah, I can see that happening. But temperatures have been warmer than today even in historic times (going back 10,000 years). Greenland has a triving and growing community before 1000 A.D., but died off because of Global cooling. It seems as though this is merely a return to that climate which existed during the time of Leif Erikson. Please explain to me what is different today than in 800 A.D. in terms of overall temperatures and ground conditions... and why a methane-induced runaway global warming didn't occur then? Were we (or our ancestors from 1000 years ago) simply lucky?

BTW, I have to agree with you that there is global warming, but I strongly disagree that there is much, if anything, that we as ordinary humans can do to either encourage or stop it from happening. I certainly don't think a massive crash restructuring of the economy and government is necessary to "prevent global warming".

Re:the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

As for the methane being trapped in tundra, yeah, I can see that happening. But temperatures have been warmer than today even in historic times (going back 10,000 years). Greenland has a triving and growing community before 1000 A.D., but died off because of Global cooling. It seems as though this is merely a return to that climate which existed during the time of Leif Erikson. Please explain to me what is different today than in 800 A.D. in terms of overall temperatures and ground conditions... and why a methane-induced runaway global warming didn't occur then? Were we (or our ancestors from 1000 years ago) simply lucky?

Well... sort of...

The warming during the medieval period was not as hot as it is today. This is a chart that comports with what I have seen elsewhere from reputable sources.

And if you look at THIS you will see that right now we are very close to the highest inter-glacial temperatures. Basically, beyond our present temperature is something that is pre-Holocene. Unfortunately, the tundra and ocean floor, due to the consistently lower temps for the past few million years (punctuated by short periods of warmth) have been storing up the methane like crazy. If present temperature increases continue, and there is presently no reason for them not too, and a lot of research showing that it will, and will increase at a faster rate than ever, it puts the entire biosphere at risk.

One can argue that humans are not responsible for the warming - it doesn't matter - the point is we ARE contributing to it, and that must stop ASAP. It's the right and reasonable thing to do.

RS

Re:the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[Teancum]

You are doing double talk here. First you say it doesn't matter what is responsible for global warming, and then you go of and say that we are responsible for it. So which is it? Does it matter? I guess you are saying it does matter. If so, why do you say it doesn't matter?

BTW, if you can show me the satellite telemetry from the 9th Century that you are comparing to similar data collected in the 20th Century, I might be a little bit more convinced. Oh, but wait, that doesn't exist... does it?

I can also give you some real horror stories where I strongly question some of the data collected after 1970 that is being used as "proof" that recent human activities are responsible for most of the global warming.

As I said, I agree that there is global warming. I just don't believe there is anthroprogenic factors as a primary cause of the effect, nor do I accept the philosophy that we must immediately and irrevokably modify our political and economic systems to account for this wild religious belief in global warming. And this is a religious belief under any sort of definition other than the fact that it isn't something most hard-core greens would admit to on a survey of theological belief. I'm just not a part of this religion...and that makes hard-core adherants pissed at me, thinking I'm spouting some sort of blaspheme. So what has really changed in the last 1000 years, other than the religion here?

For the record, I strongly believe (here is the word again) that the influence of solar radiation activity is strongly under-represented, and there have been other non-human environmental factors that are not even being looked at with the temperature and weather models that are being used to describe global warming. I've seen the models and talked with the "researchers", and the more I see, the more I'm convinced this is a religious/political concept and not something established by any real science. I understand the scientific methods, and what proports to be climatology is often developed under practices that would make most social scientists cringe with horror in terms of statistical controls over the data. And I don't think too highly of social scientists either and their scientific methodologies.

One of the most telling examples to me is a suggestion that modern American cities are far more polluted now than they were in the past, specifically citing air pollution. Los Angeles of the 1970's and 1960's was far worse than Los Angeles of the 1st decade of the 21st Century, and Pittsburgh, PA is many orders of magnitude better than it was in the 1890's. Yes, the late 19th Century is what I'm talking about here.... where you couldn't even see to the end of the block in most parts of that city. London has also significantly improved in terms of particulate matter as well as simple CO2 from nearly a century ago as well. Yet such successes at improving vehicle and industrial efficiency for all of these cities is openly dismissed completely as if no effort is being done at all. Or fictional things like a super-secret carborator allowing gasoline vehicles to travel at 200 mpg or better effeciency is being hidden by "Big Oil" and/or major automakers.

In short, I don't think "we" are contributing to global warming as bad as many (or you) are suggesting, and it doesn't have to be dealt with "immediately". Do I think we need to make some changes as to how we are providing energy sources for vehicles and industries? Yes. Do I think we need to be responsible stewards in regards to how we can treat the environment in which we live? Yes. I just don't think stupid scams more worthy of a Nigerian 419 advance fee scam (like Carbon tax credits) are necessarily the way to go, and that there are some suggestions on how to improve the envronment that are simply wacked out and are not going through political and scientific review because it makes people "feel good" that they are helping the environment.

Re:the problem are clathrates, not cows.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

i know where you're coming from, and I don't necessarily disagree.

The only PRESCRIPTIVE thing I wrote was this:

One can argue that humans are not responsible for the warming - it doesn't matter - the point is we ARE contributing to it, and that must stop ASAP. It's the right and reasonable thing to do.

The facts are essentially simple and utterly irrefutable. CO2 is a Green House Gas (GHG). So is methane. Insofar as people contribute to the production of these gasses, they are contributing to global warming. Simple, period, end of story.

Now: there is mounting (but not conclusive) evidence that industrialism is a significant (note: not sole) cause of the recent warm up of the 20th and now 21st century. This then proceeds under risk assessment and forecasting. To that end, the world has developed The Precautionary Principle, embodied in a variety of international laws. An example would be the UN Earth Summit of 1992, wherein Principle 15 stipulates:

"In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their abilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent global environmental degradation."

(emphasis mine)

This really is a crucial and important principle. The reason is fairly straight forward: a reduction in profits or convenience is of little consequence when the repercussions for being wrong are so cataclysmic.

The sad part is, even IF we stopped burning all fossil fuel tomorrow, there is no guarantee that global warming will subside or reverse. This comes under the "Serenity Prayer": God grant me the strength to change the things I can, the serenity to accept the things I can't, and the wisdom to tell the difference. We *can* change our production of GHGs, and given the rapid increases in temperature, it is fairly clear that we're not helping matters. So, GHG production is something we CAN change, and should (given the precautionary principle). If it is ineffective, then we will need a great deal of serenity (and innovation to somehow absorb the clathrates - even just burning them off into CO2 and H2O would be better than raw methane) to deal with the mess to follow.

The Wisdom to know the difference? Comes from a careful judgment of the facts and a distinct set of principles that are weighted to safety.

The record of solar radiation is, I agree, under represented, but that doesn't absolve dumping billions of tons of GHG into the atmosphere, and getting "up in the face" of clathrates. Because, just as you and I would agree that The Sun Is Bigger Than Us, Clathrates are also WAY bigger than us, and they will kill us off.

Look at the Permian DieOff. One of the present leading theories is that the Permian ice ages (which lasted MUCH longer than the Holocene ones we presently live in) locked up a massive amount of clathrates, and it was their melt down that basically killed off 90% of everything.

Again, the precautionary principle is vastly more important than pizza in 30 minutes or less. IT has nothing to do with whether or not global warming is anthrogenic. IT has EVERYTHING to do with not being an idiot.

RS

That's nothing, If they could find a bug...

[okmijnuhb]

If they could find a bug that eats petroleum, they'd really be onto something.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

[jskline]

But;
If I remember correctly, and getting back to basic science and physics, you can't have a bacteria that can consume methane without producing some other by-product or consequence of the consumption. Everything produces some *conversion* of what ever it binds with. So it begs the question; what is it genuinely producing as a convert of the methane? I am not sure about a complete conversion to oxygen so there has to be something else coming out of this.

sorry to play this out

[molecularaz]

All your farts are belong to us!!

Re:This will do little or nothing to stop Global

[weicco]

I have even better solution. Tell our sun to stop heating our planet so much. That is the only short and long term solution to combat global warming.

Why combat somtheing thats not there ?

[sternkrone]

I recommend to view these videos to a get a more objective opinion. http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.com/2007/11/die-klimaerwrmung-ist-co2-wirklich.html The site is in German, but the videos are in english.

Re:Solution #2

[Brian Gordon]

Don't mod interesting! No, I don't mean that you might as well use "quixotic"- the GGGP was referring to Don Quixote's fanciful quests, not to anything remotely resembling the word quixotic. And I thought "quixotian" sounded ridiculous because of the bizarre pronunciation of "Quixote".. kee hoe tay in

Pardon my ignorance but

[CodeShark]

This is a good thing why? Don't we really want to find better ways to harvestexisting methane sources for fuel? Because natural gas AKA methane is really useful for conversion into all sorts of things like say, hydrogen, conversion to LNG as a vehicle fuel, etc. with --if my understanding is correct, essentially no net increase in greenhouse emissions because instead of the release into the atmosphere it's being converted into something more environmentally friendly AKA carbon dioxide, which, although still a greenhouse gas, is useful for growing things like trees?

I also wonder about a much more profound and simple to ask question that may have no answer: is global warming more related to ozone destruction or carbon pollution?