Bush Plans Trade in Methane to Curb Climate Change (tiny effect)

[papau]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBFO3OL7XD.html

Bush Plans Trade in Methane to Curb Climate Change
By John Heilprin Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Methane emissions would be harvested by industrial nations (US, Australia, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Britain and Ukraine) and sold to poorer countries for use as a clean-burning fuel under a plan that would also slow global warming, Bush administration officials announced Wednesday.

The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, along with President Bush's senior environmental adviser, said the plan would create a new market in methane, a heat-trapping atmospheric gas that largely goes to waste.

The plan involves spending up to $53 million over the next five years as part of an agreement with seven countries to harvest emissions of methane primarily from landfills, coal mines and oil and gas systems.

The administration, meanwhile, has opposed restricting emissions of carbon dioxide, the industrial gas most cited by scientists for warming the atmosphere like a greenhouse. President Bush had supported regulating that gas in his 2000 campaign. <snip>

[macllyr]

1. Rice paddies, herbivores and termits are the main producers of methane

"The primary sources for the additional methane added to the atmosphere (in order of importance) are: rice cultivation; domestic grazing animals; termites; landfills; coal mining; and, oil and gas extraction."


1)- RICE CULTIVATION (China, India)
2)- domestic animals
3)- TERMITS (whose population is expanding fast due to deforestation)

coal, oil & gas are far behind...

Macllyr

[papau]

2. Thanks for the info - I bet US media let's GOP sell this as a green idea!

INDEED THE GOP MEDIAWHORE - AP WIRE -writes up the story with no analysis just as it was handed to them by Bush/GOP - "under a plan that would also slow global warming"

[hatrack]

3. Yes, this will cut methane emissions by TONS . . . .

Whee. Color me unimpressed, but doubtless Fux Noose will raptly present this as proof of Chimpy's environmental bonafides.

[NNadir]

4. Exactly how can the Bush administration know how to curb global

warming when they don't even believe it exists?

This is rather tantamount to me announcing that I know how to prevent Santa Claus from delivering lumps of coal on Christmas.

[Donkeyboy75]

5. That's exactly what I thought when I heard this early this morning.

They don't believe global warming exists, yet they're trying to cut out methane because it's a greenhouse gas? Ridiculous.

What is really stupid is that they gave a prescient Kerry aide some rope to hang him with. CO2 is much worse than methane as a greenhouse gas...so cutting that level in the atmosphere would be better than cutting methane. If * really cares about the environment, he'll do that instead.

But I'm not holding my breath.

[Vulture]

7. BTW, technical nitpick

Methane is an order of magnitude or two worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. You stated the opposite, which is incorrect. CO2 tries to make it up in volume, but that doesn't compensate for the differences in relative impact of the two gases.

Unfortunately, it is a lot harder to control methane production than CO2 production, never mind sequestering the gases, so most everyone focuses on CO2. The sad fact is that there is negligible short-term impact from CO2, particularly if atmospheric methane isn't dealt with. The problem with methane, is that it is related to agriculture, both plant and animal, so it is hard to reduce, particularly in the third world where much of it comes from, if you still want to feed people.

[Donkeyboy75]

8. That's not really true, though, when factoring in atmospheric lifetimes.

It's true that methane traps heat about 20 times better than CO2, but the atmospheric lifetime of CO2 has been estimated to be about 20 times that of methane (or more, it's hard to estimate).

But you're right, and I should be more careful. I stated that CO2 was worse, because we do have more control over its emission. Thanks for the post. :hi:

[Vulture]

6. Ermmm... It isn't about whether global warming exists

But whether it is anthropogenic. The warming part isn't terribly contested, even by many conservatives as far as I can tell. Whether or not the engine behind the warming is humans IS hotly contested, but for good reason. A good argument can be made from what inadequate data and analysis we have that humans are a minor modulating factor on top of a major natural temperature shift. There have been routine global temperature shifts, both rapid warming and cooling, in the last 50,000 years that have been FAR more severe than anything encountered in modern human history including today.

It makes a somewhat amusing picture when you see modern humans lamenting the receding of the ice caps, while the very same recession is uncovering rich archaelogical evidence of civilizations that were buried under the ice. I'm sure our ancient ancestors were lamenting the encroaching ice fields just as we lament their recession.