Methane: quick fix for global warming

lol

So all we really have to do is remove the scrubbers on the coal power plants that we put on to reduce acid rain and the environment is saved:cheer2:

Or maybe some people were smart and acid rain and deforestation are more important to stop for the environment.

 

Yes how dare those fat cat politicians pass laws under nixon then bush 41 to stop known problems with polution. Damn republicans are responsible for agw we all know that.
Effects of Acid Rain | Acid Rain | US EPA

They should have waited for untested hypothesis that all damage is caused by agw, and increasing things like sufur dioxide will provide agw protection way beyond the killing of ecosystems, damage to property, and increases to heart and lung diseases that we knew at the time it was doing.

We should not only remove all the scrubbers and catylitic converters, we should bioengineer some bacteria that will kill off those producing methane. Please understand the sarcasm.

 

Cyclo, I'll need to take a peek at the article, but this sentence
"Would we accept rice genetically engineered not to produce methane?"
troubles me a bit. The rice does not produce methane. Bacteria living in the water-logged (anaerobic) soils do.

Varieties of rice have been produced that do well in non-flooded soils, and this would greatly reduce methane production. I'd say they are already 'accepted', but not grown everywhere.

In fact rice is one of those plants with a fancy root system (arenchyma) that send oxygen down to the plant roots. All plant roots need O2 but it can be limiting in flooded soils. Thus one could imagine that the author is talking about up-selecting for arenchyma, but that would almost certainly come at the expense of grain yield.

Unfortunately the simplist assumption is that the author does not have a firm grasp of the subject. But I'd have to read the article before pulling the trigger.

 

Um, OK, I read it and conclude that Levitt needs to repeat some earlier coursework

Sulfur addition could certainly tip the balance against methanogens, but gosh, what an odd (untargeted) way to do it. Just increase the sulfur (or sulfate) in the rices' fertilzer. Don't burn coal somewhere else, with a small fraction of the emitted S falling on the rice fields.

After all that, much of the article could help us retain focus on the elephants in the room, namely high-latitude soils and (marine) methane hydrates. But with all the other fluffer nutter flying around, it is up to the reader to do the focusing.

In the year since the 'trees as methane chimneys' work was published, most of the studies in response (that I have seen) have not provided support.

But again, for methane, there are elephants in the room.

 

care to take your foot out of your mouth. Are you actually saying that you want acid rain because enron didn't? that is crazy. i'm not saying you are crazy, but you have some ideas that a 2nd grader knows make no sense. Then you keep somehow getting somehow confused that I am trying to say there isn't agw. Again the facts support agw. I just am against phony science that says we should produce acid rain to cure global warming. There are two problems first there is not data supporting the hypothesis only the hypothesis, and second the cure is worse than the disease. please at least get up to the 8th grade level of earth science before you get into your silly politics.
At least read the article. Do you think Clinton/Gore/Enron/Carb did the right thing? Do you want to redefine polutant so that the EPA can't regulate SO2 and NOx but does regulate carbon dioxide, an element necessary for life. I get it now, you think enron was wrong when it agreed with reducing Sulfur dioxide but right when it pushed AGW and started labeling people deniers. Well I think the facts support AGW, but not your warped point of view of science or scientific method.

Who do you think I am. I rarely watch fox, but somehow you have this theory that if its on fox its wrong, and since I am wrong I must be watching fox. You need to go back to the drawing board. If fox reported that the bail outs of financial firms and car companies were wrong, are you saying they were right? That takes quite a bit of mental gymnastics.

That was my first impression, thank you for a thought of sanity tochatihu.

That would make sense and would be much easier to test than putting more SO2 in the air. Did the rice paddies in China produce less methane as SO2 from coal went up? I don't remember hearing about that. I was shocked by all the smog in Beijing the first time I was there. I hear they have started to clean up some of the SO2.

First thing was we should prevent leaks, and collect methane from biomass. Good suggestions and we are doing it. Then the crazy about acid rain, and not understanding that the elephants are going to produce based on temperature.

The data I have seen show the trees as methane chimneys do not contribute substantially. We live in a wacky world though and even though the data supports the null hypothesis the press will say but they may. The elephants are main things that will tip the balance though..

 

Interesting you quoted that Enron stuff.
Thats what got me started thinking AGW was all a scam.
Because Ken Lay was the political instigator in the US .
Enron went bust and now the 2nd and 3rd biggest crooks in the world back AGW industrial complex(Actually thats probably AGW Financial Complex) .Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

You are mistaken about Ken Lay and Cheney.
Im an avid Clinton supporter,I always thought Bush and Kenny boy were buds.But it turns out Ken Lay and Al Gore were buds.
Google it.
And you missed an important point.Enron already ran the Sulfur Cap and trade program in Ca .Thats what enticed Enron to push for a worldwide CO2 C&T program .

 

I don't think anyone is going to be able to throw much light on a scientific question by looking at which rich politicians and corporation heads are friends with each other.

 

Ken Lay was the single biggest thief in recent world history.His entire corporation was a fraud.
He initiated the governments funding of climate science and pushed for the Kyoto agreement just so he could make money off of cap and trade.
Now Ken Lay is dead ,but after 20 years, $70 billion has been spent on science to prove global warming.
$0 has been spent to disprove AGW.
How does that affect the scientific outcome?
Michael Mann gets $5 million grants.
But opposing views get no funding.
Enron is gone ,but Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley continue to lobby.

 

Of course not.
But that made me suspicious enough to actually examine the science.
The science doesnt hold up.

 

Mojo,

I take exception to your statement that " billions have been spent to prove AGW and $0 have been spent to disprove it"

This is just a denialist way of misunderstanding science. Science doesn't set out to "prove" AGW per se, but rather the results of the studies taken as a whole tend to "prove" AGW.

One might study the law of gravity in an attempt to disprove it's existence, but in lieu of a plausible alternative theory it would be pointless.

So, the plethora of interrelated and independent climate studies come together to confirm the hypothesis that AGW is real. Posit an alternative hypothesis, and back it up with peer reviewed reproducible studies an perhaps you will have a leg to stand on.

It is not unlike the moronic notion that Creation "science" should be taught along side evolution, and be given the same weight. It is simply, an idiotic notion.

Icarus

 

umm, you sure are slipery. You were arguing that we should increase SO2, now you say the acts I sited that limit its use are bad because they let polluters put too much out? That is bassakward. Pick a side. If this is your position you have no standing. Cap and Trade undoubtedly did a good job to drop emissions of these pollutants, and did not absolve the responsibility of local point sources. If you look at what really happened, these sources of heavy polution are the grandfathered plants, and the bill in 1990 should have removed grandfathering of the 1975 clean air act. The 40s era plant you live by was grandfathered out of epa regulation and cap and trade, so something is fishy about them buying credits from enron. You either didn't understand what happened or were lied to. The bill was written to favor some companies and that is a weakness, but you can not look at the results and costs and make your arguments.

Then to the next point, which I don't understand. What did god have to do with the supreme court decision? And which decision, they didn't rule on your local polluting plant, are you talking about ruling that epa can regulate co2 under the clean air act? You can thank Nixon for writing a really broadly written law.

I'm not sure what this has to do with me or your case. I think there was a connection between cheney and enron, but that is not material to your case. The bush involved in my post was bush 41 not bush 43. Bush 43 and cheney were against enron's moves for cap and trade of co2. Enron was in favor of killing dissent for agw and for regulations of CO2, which I think is still your pov, so you not cheney support enron's stance on CO2 and agw. I actually also support this stance other than politicizing science, and will not be dissuaded because a bankrupt company supported it. Now do you see the huge hole in your argument.

OK wait you want acid rain, but don't want CO2. carbon dioxide concentrations make bodies of water more acidic but does not cause acid rain. Acid rain dropped greatly as SO2 polution decreased. I do have a masters degree, and one of my cousins runs a climate model. I also am consistently against polution, while you seem to be in favor of certain pollutants. current CO2 levels and likely levels in the future are not a major contributor to acid rain. That is bad science.

I am also not against the idea of putting sulfur in fertilizer and testing if it reduces methane production, but I am opposed to putting more of it in the air. Are you starting to understand.

Again what does this have to do with the issue. I don't watch fox. I don't believe you either, but you are likely taking some of the same pov as fox and enron. You support regulation of CO2 because of your belief in AGW, this is enron's position. If are against terroism you support fox's pov. So do you think AGW is a hoax and give money to terrorists. Congratulations that is what you seem to be saying. Now stop this foolishness.

 

Well that was what I was arguing against. I don't know why you started arguing against the regulations that helped reduce sulfur dioxide polution. As long as you agree that keeping SO2 polution down is a good idea, I don't have a problem.