Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Fear of the evil gas is reaching new peaks in the offices of The Guardian, and in climate conferences leading up to COP26.
Reduce methane or face climate catastrophe, scientists warn
Exclusive: IPCC says gas, produced by farming, shale gas and oil extraction, playing ever-greater role in overheating planet
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
Fri 6 Aug 2021 16.00 AESTCutting carbon dioxide is not enough to solve the climate crisis – the world must act swiftly on another powerful greenhouse gas, methane, to halt the rise in global temperatures, experts have warned.
Leading climate scientists will give their starkest warning yet – that we are rushing to the brink of climate catastrophe – in a landmark report on Monday. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will publish its sixth assessment report, a comprehensive review of the world’s knowledge of the climate crisis and how human actions are altering the planet. It will show in detail how close the world is to irreversible change.
…
Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development and a lead reviewer for the IPCC, said methane reductions were probably the only way of staving off temperature rises of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, beyond which extreme weather will increase and “tipping points” could be reached. “Cutting methane is the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040,” he said. “We need to face this emergency.”
Zaelke said policymakers must heed the IPCC findings on methane before the UN climate talks, Cop26, in Glasgow in November. “We need to see at Cop26 a recognition of this problem, that we need to do something on this.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/06/reduce-methane-or-face-climate-catastrophe-scientists-warn
Why do climate activists have such a problem with Methane? The answer might be that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, if you accept in my opinion dubious estimates of methane’s impact on global warming.
But there is another problem with methane.
Methane is the main reason the USA is a global climate leader. For all Europe’s noisy pretensions of climate commitment, European efforts to switch to renewables have been a pathetic failure. The USA by contrast has done much better, thanks to fracking, and a widespread largely market driven switch from coal to gas.
So how do greens keep their government subsidised renewable energy fantasy alive, in the face of such an embarrassment?
One possible solution is finding a way to belittle US climate achievements, by promoting the methane leak scare.
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Seems that since not enough people are afraid of CO2, now it’s methane. Don’t heat your house, because we have no idea what we’re doing, but, you know — prevention. All this brings to mind the sage observation: “it’s very difficult to get someone to understand a problem when their salary depends on not understanding it.”
Did the IPCC et al not get the memo? Gavin Schmidt, head of GISS and J. Hansen, Father of Inundation by Boiling Seas Climate, advise climate models are running a way too hot and there is a good possibility we are 6yrs into a 30yr cooling stretch!
They didn’t go into whether this cooling period will join up with the “Ice Age Cometh” 35yrs of cooling, largely already massively adjusted (-0.5°C) out of existence by the Climate Wroughters).
The cooling doesnt need to drop far to erase the piddling 1980-1998 warming period that has caused all the multi-$trillion savaging of the West’s economy. Then all the warming since the LIA will have occurred by the late 1930s before CO2 had a chance to cause anything, except for the earliest beginnings of the Majestic Global Greening.
When this nightmare is over, is there someway to cut marxist Europe off from membership in the “West”? Is there someway to admit India to the club? I believe they should be identified as leaders of the British Commonwealth, being the strongest member.
Oops +0.5°C adjustment out of the depths of the cold end.
Er ,Um, whatabout all that methane coming out of the undersea vents. Is that man-made too?
And if methane is convered to CO2 and H2O, will we see a reduced climate-change effect? ect?
Shh. Undersea vents and seeps simply do not exist for these people. If a spot of tar-like residue is seen on a beach, then it can only be from a spill or pipeline leak. Methane is produced by humanity’s industrial activity or meat animals, no other source you see. I’m hardly even exaggerating, I’m afraid – it’s truly bizarre.
Fracking has declined for two basic reasons.
The biggest reason is because there has been a huge drop in gas prices. It makes no sense to hunt for more gas when you are in a surplus situation.
The second is because the eco-lunnies have been banning it in many places.
I always find it fascinating how the peak-oilers automatically assume that every drop in production is proof that we have finally reached peak oil, even if there are perfectly logical explanations for said drop.
BTW, that chart has got to be one of the stupidest extrapolations I have ever seen.
There are those who seem to thrive on Apocalypses and can’t get enough of them to satiate their appetites. As for me, I have Apocalypse fatigue.
We were all supposed to die by 2000, first from the coming Ice Age, then from CAGW. Before that, I, and others, lived through the Nuclear Holocaust threat from the USSR and and the threat from polio, which were real and now many more, some of which were threatening to human health, like lead in water and air and more that were simply fantasies. We have solved most every serious issue (and some not so serious–DDT) and have moved on to creating problems from the “solutions” to non-problems such as creating COVID in a lab for a virus that had little chance of ever infecting humans, or replacing reliable energy with expensive, intermittent, unreliable wind and solar which are destructive to Earth, humans, bats, birds, insects and animals.
Based on Earth’s past history, there are three ways we know Nature could destroy most of Mankind and/or Earth’s life. These are another Carrington Event which would destroy civilization, a strike by a meteor of the size that took out the dinosaurs, or another Ice Age. We are doing nothing to plan for, adapt, and/or prevent these from occurring.
Man can, also, do serious harm to Earth and all creatures with a nuclear war and we do nothing to ameliorate, or even recognize that threat which today is coming from China. Instead, we invent Apocalypses via harmless and essential gases for life which are trace elements in Earth’s atmosphere and are all overwhelmed by the power of water vapor and other climate realities many of which we are still unaware and remain unknown to us.
To the real Apocalyptic threats, we can add the insane desire by certain elites to create a NWO in which they will be Masters of the Earth and humanity will be their slaves and will live without reliable energy or any modern technology. This, too, is ignored, despite these elites not being at all shy about stating their goals and visions for our future.
President of the UN Foundation
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” –Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
“The Earth has cancer and the cancer is Man.”
– Club of Rome,
premier environmental think-tank,
consultants to the United Nations
As for Methane and whatever they come up with next, I’m done chasing hobgoblins that exist only in the minds of those who are paid, or benefit from finding new specters under our collective beds with which to frighten us.
KcTaz,
You left out the fourth way that Nature will destroy Mankind and life on Earth!
Far more pernicious, and inevitable without intelligent intervention, is the depletion of CO2 from our atmosphere due to the mineralization of carbonaceous compounds into armor and habitat for small marine organisms like foraminifera, coccolithophores and corals! Due to these creatures, and the deposition of calcium carbonate directly in certain environments; CO2 has been decreasing for almost 150 million years! When CO2 dropped to ~180ppm during the last period of glaciation 20,000 years ago, plants were literally starving for one of their vital nutrients and would have died off at higher elevations due to the lower partial pressure! The treeline would have been forced thousands of feet lower by this!
The inadvertent restoration of CO2 back into the atmosphere from where it came is one of the most beneficial activities Mankind can perform for the survivial of life on Earth; without it nearly ALL life will die out in the near geologic future as the concentration drops below 150ppm; the death threshold for most plantlife! Calling CO2 a pollutant and trying keep it at historically low levels shows about as much intelligence as trying to ban water because people can drown in it! Only someone that is ignorant, rabid or insane would call for that!!
“how do greens keep their government subsidised renewable energy fantasy alive, in the face of such an embarrassment?” la la la a la la la la la la la la la la la la la la a la la la la la la la la la la la la la la a la la la la la la la la la la la la la la a la la la la la la la la la la la
Perhaps Will Happer’s assertion that the CO2 greenhouse band is now saturated is beginning to get traction and unless the alarmist can conjure up another bogeyman then the game may be up. Methane has a half life of only eight years, so that arguement is hollow too.
In the meantime once again temps in the 3.4 region turn downward as a new active region rounds the corner in the northern hemisphere of the sun. It’s the greatest coincidence in history, and it happens every time over and over again.
SDO…. https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Note that once again I correctly forecast this on the 5th. … https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/31/frigid-polar-air-brings-very-rare-snowfall-icy-rains-to-southern-brazil/#comment-3309097
google : on warmer earth most of arctic may remove methane
I thought the real story was that as our CO2 warms the world, we thaw the permafrost releasing “a lot” of methane therefor exceeding another tipping point
And yes, then we all die.
But the permafrost thawed in the past with no tipping point
So we need another story please
You can’t apply a model to something that was affected by politics and OPEC’s desperation to maintain market share.
The Obama attack on energy in order to create a photo op of dragging frozen grandmas out of the ghetto by shutting down Yuca mountain and ending electrical generation by coal was thwarted by shale gas. Too late the EPA developed rules for the oilfield on methane escape that would have shutdown all drilling. Since the drilling mud always contain some natural gas that is vented from the circulating pits, the rules would have prohibited this minor venting with massive fines. The Biden crime spree is currently attempting to implement these regulations, that Trump nixed. I am sure they will use the IPCC fraud as the excuse.
Methane is 0.0002% of the atmosphere and readily interacts with oxygen.
It has little or no impact on the climate even though it 30 times more massive than co2 which in its self has little or no impact.
But … but …but I was sure that I’d read in the Guardian that climate catastrophe was happening HERE AND NOW. That we’re already experiencing a climate crisis, climate breakdown, a mass extinction.
You mean we’re only “on the brink” ? Phew that was close.