Archangel1313 t1_ittfv78 wrote on October 26, 2022 at 4:25 AM

Reply to comment by marklein in Methane ‘Super-Emitters’ Mapped by NASA’s New Earth Space Mission by CurtisLeow

No...you tackle the biggest problems first, then mop up the small ones once you've stabilized the situation. That's triage.

marklein t1_ittkdvt wrote on October 26, 2022 at 5:14 AM

Triage exists to prioritize action when faced with less labor than is needed for a crisis. Triage is not needed to address global warming because we have the people necessary to address all causes. Yes, definitely address the biggest items ASAP, but those have no bearing on addressing all the other causes.

Archangel1313 t1_ittldgk wrote on October 26, 2022 at 5:26 AM

Wut? Are you seriously saying we have time to fuck around with this? We aren't even coming close to addressing the largest contributor to global warming...we're too busy banning plastic straws, and complaining about cow farts.

Methane from cows totals about 2% of our total global emissions. Burning fossil fuels for energy equals about 70%. These campaigns to shift the priorities to the smaller contributors is exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants. It's a joke that people keep falling for the same trick over and over again.

but-imnotadoctor t1_ittzsgx wrote on October 26, 2022 at 8:45 AM

Source on your percentages?

sithelephant t1_ituas5p wrote on October 26, 2022 at 11:13 AM

He's forgetting to multiply the methane emissions by their impact.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane

'Methane's lifetime in the atmosphere is much shorter than carbon dioxide (CO2), but CH4 is more efficient at trapping radiation than CO2. Pound for pound, the comparative impact of CH4 is 25 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year period.1

sithelephant t1_ituao17 wrote on October 26, 2022 at 11:12 AM

You have to multiply that 2% by the effectiveness at causing global warming, to get more like an seventh than a fiftieth.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane

kaba40k t1_itthdwp wrote on October 26, 2022 at 4:41 AM

To be fair, nothing in the article suggested that these emissions contribute more than the cows.

The second thought is that these emissions are not purely "problems to address", they are negative side effects of some positive effect (just like the farm cows emissions are). So the process imo would less resemble medical triage, and more resemble a budget balancing exercise, where you need to take a little bit from here and a little bit from there, as it won't be possible to just eliminate all factories or all cows.