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Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by jniedrauer on Monday August 17, 2020 @04:26PM (#24191618)
Since methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas and has a much shorter half-life in the atmosphere compared to CO2, I wonder if it might actually save us. We could render the planet inhospitable early enough to be forced to address the problem without shackling future generations with the fallout like we are doing with CO2.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by dredmorbius on Monday August 17, 2020 @04:54PM (#24191955)
That's ... not great ... but only viable if methane itself doesn't move the climate past a tipping point to runaway greenhouse effects.

See "clathrate gun hypothesis", for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis

Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by Nasrudith on Monday August 17, 2020 @10:42PM (#24194741)
Doesn't it essentially decay to CO2 eventually anyway? In the long term barring it is equivalent to CO2 per carbon molecule. Granted there are Nth order effects of short term heating.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by imtringued on Tuesday August 18, 2020 @07:03AM (#24197277)
That CO2 probably came from a cow eating grass so in theory it's not a long term problem either. In practice we are destroying ecosystems faster than they can recover.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by neckardt on Monday August 17, 2020 @05:29PM (#24192403)
Do you know what the half life of methane in the atmosphere is? I did a search for it but couldn't find it.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by wahern on Monday August 17, 2020 @05:45PM (#24192555)
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by nvader on Monday August 17, 2020 @06:16PM (#24192876)
That's funny.

https://www.foodsource.org.uk/building-blocks/agricultural-m... claims

> it is a relatively short-lived GHG, with emissions breaking down after an average of around 10 years.

Looks like someone didn't understand what half-life means, or is being misleading.

Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by projektfu on Monday August 17, 2020 @06:28PM (#24192993)
On average, a molecule of methane breaks down in less than 10 years. That is a true interpretation.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by 07t15 on Monday August 17, 2020 @08:24PM (#24193943)
Half life implies that one half of the mehane molecules decay in that period (or that a single one has a 50% of decaying).
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by scaredginger on Monday August 17, 2020 @09:43PM (#24194459)
Depends on what 'average' you mean I guess. It is true for the median of course. However, if the time for an individual molecule to decay is exponentially distributed, you can solve for lambda to find its expected lifetime is 13.1 years. That being said, I'd say this is a less useful interpretation.
Re:We should discuss soil as much as coal (2019) by AQuantized on Monday August 17, 2020 @06:35PM (#24193047)
When methane is oxidized it produces carbon dioxide