Is methane a green house gas and what is the greatest source of methane on the planet--an environmentalist who eats burritos or naturally decaying vegitation?
2006-07-15 05:51:39 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Environment
yes, there was a recent South Park episode that covered the subject in full and it was hilarious! The Town decided to make it the law to pass gas which created this whole greenhouse effect nightmare. You gotta look for re-runs.
2006-07-15 06:13:56 · answer #1 · answered by Esther M 1 · 2⤊ 3⤋
While methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, significantly more powerful than CO2, it is not actually a very important one. The reason is that it oxidizes into CO2 fairly quickly and so is not persistent in the atmosphere. If all methane emissions were to stop tomorrow, by say banning all environmentalists from eating burritos, the methane levels in the atmosphere would fall to extremely low levels within about 10 years. This decay mechanism keeps methane levels quite low and very closely correlated with current emission rates.
CO2 on the other hand is very slowly removed from the atmosphere. Unlike methane, CO2 is chemically stable. It is sequestered in the form of carbonate rocks, fossil deposits, seafloor sediments and the like. The formation rates of these permanent sequester agents is very slow. As a result CO2 that is released into the atmosphere today can be expected to persist for many tens of thousands of years. It will take well over 100,000 years for CO2 levels to fall back to where they were in industrial times. As a result every molecule of CO2 is responsible for far more thermal gain than is methane.
2006-07-15 13:22:04 · answer #2 · answered by Engineer 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Whats up with passing gas? Cows cant think but humans do!
Instead you should ask what big bosses (who eat garlic and boiled eggs sitting in the office making millions in a year from the automobile industry) could do to reduce emissions of gas?
What the Ruling party could do to educate people/society/students etc those in the 7th grade wearing baseball cap to care about global warming instead asking blunt question in Yahoo Q&A like a dork!?
2006-07-15 13:45:05 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
1/ Yes
Sheep fart from Australia is prolly the greatest single source of methane. But the greatest source of CO2 a greenhouse gas is hot air from talkers not doers...
2006-07-15 17:39:33 · answer #4 · answered by Gerard S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its the environmentalist for sure. We should put them all in a bubble with nothing to eat except those bean burritos. Then we can use the gas to power our cars.
2006-07-15 12:59:32 · answer #5 · answered by sponggie 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes - Cows in Oz contribute a lot to greenhouse gases...also breathing does too, CO2 !
2006-07-15 12:53:55 · answer #6 · answered by aussie_east_ender 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hmmm.. or.. cattle?
wait.. how about a Boston Bull Terrior that someone gave chili?!?!
2006-07-15 13:01:43 · answer #7 · answered by ♥Tom♥ 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋