Re:Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart d...
by zurn on Monday February 13, 2017 @05:12AM
(#13634255)
20 years is a very relevant timescale since we need to prevent the tipping point of melting artcitc methane deposits and loss of reflection from permafrost areas.
Re:Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart d...
by thatcat on Monday February 13, 2017 @06:47AM
(#13634598)
Yea, I agree. Cows also live about 20 years, so even not breeding cows wouldn't solve this problem. The morality of eating butter is kind of a moot point when all the production mechanisms are already in place and they aren't flexible.
A possible solution would be methane fixing bacteria (methanotrophs) in the guts of cows or in the ocean where > 75% of the current concentration atmospheric methane originates. The ocean also contains a significant amount in solid form that gets released as temps rise. [0]
[0]http://www.washington.edu/news/2014/12/09/warmer-pacific-oce...
Re:Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart d...
by philipcristiano on Monday February 13, 2017 @08:16AM
(#13634957)
Cows can live that long but after production drops (about 4 years) they will be sold off for beef. Not breeding cows would definitely help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_cattle lists a few sources for the 4 years figure.
CH4 + 2O2 -photons---> C02 + 2H20
I'm not sure what time scale of heat per mass equivalencies are based on in your example; there is approximately 28 : 1 heat/mass eq. ratio at the 100 year scale, during which time the heating effect decreases exponentially with the decrease in methane concentration[0]. After 100 years the ratio is approximately 1:1 since almost all methane has decomposed.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane