If methane is a much bigger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide why are the global warming supporters...?

Question

trying to reduce co2?
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2005/02/01/global_warming_methane_could_be_far_worse_than_carbon_dioxide.htm

Answer 1

Because people make CO2 when we breathe, and if liberals can find a way to control our every breath, and whether we have a right to breathe when our next breath might theoretically be the one that will burn the earth, they can control all people and every thing each of us does, which is their real goal.
I noticed that no one here mentioned the fact that it is impossible to substantially reduce the earth's methane production because swamps are responsible for it and the Wetlands Protection Act prevents us from draining swamps. Ever heard the term "swamp gas" ? And I also noticed that no one pointed out that getting rid of the methane that is here makes CO2. Here's what happens when methane burns:
CH4 + 2(O2) = CO2 + 2(H2O).
It comes down to all life on earth being carbon based. That's how God designed it, and the heathen liberal culture of death is attacking life itself. It's interconnected, and there is a balance in nature far more powerful than anything man can conceive. It is laughably arrogant for liberals to say people can control the temperature of the planet. As far as I know, God didn't show AlGore the thermostat, and if He did the ACLU wouldn't let him touch it because of the separation of church and state thing...

Answer 2

The Earth is an object in space heated by the Sun. There are two ways to warm the surface of the Earth. First, the Earth can receive more energy directly from the Sun. The second way is for the Earth to more slowly loose the heat it receives from the Sun. The Earth carries an atmosphere containing greenhouses gases which perform the latter task. The strength of the greenhouse effect, or more precisely the rate at which heat energy is lost to space, is dependent on the concentration of the greenhouse gases that give rise to the effect. Increase the amount of any greenhouse gas and the total greenhouse effect will be enhanced. Carbon dioxide is the second most important greenhouse gas in it's contribution to the greenhouse effect, and by increasing it's concentration the first most important greenhouse gas (water vapor) is consequently increased as a positive feedback to the warming given by increasing CO2.

Answer 3

Did you bother to read your own article? Here is your explanation, quoted directly from it:

"Methane gas, abundantly trapped as a half frozen slush in the northern hemisphere's tundra permafrost regions and at the bottom of the sea may well be a ticking time bomb...

You may ask "what can I do about this?"...Perhaps we should do everything possible to reverse the current trend towards global warming by burning less fossil fuels. The first target would be to go "carbon neutral", after which we should be figuring out ways to trap some of the excess carbon in the atmosphere and use it or store it in a non-gaseous form."

Right now methane isn't a big contributor, and the methane in question is trapped until the planet heats up to a certain level. What's going to cause the planet to heat up to that level is carbon dioxide.

Answer 4

Most of the world's energy (electricity) is produced through the combustion of carbon. Now that anthracite reserves are nearly gone, that means burning coal, petroleum, natural gas, and "biomass" (wood, corn stalks, whatever) to produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and water. The water is rarely a concern. Coal, petroleum, and natural gas all contain (in that order) impurities, notably sulfur, which burns to produce sulfur oxides, which reduce the greenhouse effect a little, but are horrendous producers of acid rain. For years now, we have been reducing sulfur emissions for that reason. Air is eighty percent nitrogen. When we use air to provide oxygen to burn fuels, we also produce nitrogen oxides, which also contribute to acid rain. They are not difficult to remove at power plants, but they are very difficult to avoid in internal combustion engines. Auto makers are working on that.

Which brings us to carbon dioxide. CO2 is transparent and not very dangerous. The air is full of it, and all green plants need it to survive. It is, in fact, a good thing. The problem is that when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas, we are returning to the atmosphere CO2 that hasn't been there since dinosaurs were walking around. The ocean dissolves an immense amount of it, but there is still an increase in the atmosphere, and there is a scientific consensus, sometimes challenged, that the increased CO2 has the effect of slightly raising the average temperature of the earth. The consequences of this are also a matter of intense debate.

The problem, from the economic point of view, is that getting rid of the oxides of sulfur and nitrogen -- which we do rather well -- was one thing. These were, after all, impurities in the combustion process. It is quite another thing to eliminate the CO2. It amounts to reversing the combustion process. You produce energy by producing the CO2, and then you use up energy removing it again. We are a far way from being good at that, and doing so is EXPENSIVE (sorry to shout).

We really don't know how to live without producing electricity (and CO2), and we really don't know how to produce the one without the other, except in nuclear reactors, another can of worms for another occasion.

Lastly, your question. We are tickled pink to get rid of methane and do so whenever we can. It is a fuel, the major component of natural gas, in fact. But nobody knows an economical way to get rid of CO2.

Answer 5

Althought methane is more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, the sheer amount of carbon dioxide emitted makes it the number 1 cause of global warming.

Additionally, methane from cows is much harder to regulate, and landfill owners have already installed methane trapping pipes to prevent methane from escaping and to generate energy.

Answer 6

As a total contribution to anthropogenic global warming methane is responsible for just under 8% of the total warming, carbon dioxide is responsible for 72%.

Methane is 23 times as effective as CO2 at contributing to global warming (specifically: it has a 100 year global warming potential of 23) but it is produced in far smaller quantities.

The processes which produce methane are also harder to control than some of those which produce CO2.

In short, CO2 plays a much greater role in global warming than CH4 and is easier to control.

Putting the gases in order of their contrinution to global warming then water vapour is the largest contributor but this occurs naturally and is uncontrollable, CO2 is second and is something we do have some control over, thrid and fourth are nitrous oxide and methane respectively, both of which are quite hard to control. Further down the list come many of the CFC's and other sythetic gases which are much easier to control. Fifth place for example goes to dichlorodifluoromethane which has been banned outright, so too have many of the other synthetic gases.

Answer 7

The Methane thing is a HUGE scam!! We know for a while that it will NEVER help in anything! This fact alone proved that the whole Global Warming phenomenon is just for the sheeps... It exist yes, but humans are not the responsible for this!! This is a natural occurence and it should be treat like this! What they are doing right now, is to scare peoples in order to keep them in line for asking their government to tackle the problems for them! This is only a joke!! Hope peoples will wake-up and stop being stuffed by televisions!!

Answer 8

methane is a alkane. it burns out co2 dosent

Answer 9

All humans should stop eating greens and stick to meat so that they don't produce gas. Give the cattle
beano so they don't produce gas either.

Answer 10

cause the farts they let out are reducing the ozone layer so they have to try something else but if they stop breathing would it go away?