Get Energy Smart! NOW!

John Boehner dismissed CO2 gas as a pollution concern, by claiming on ABC’s This Week, basically, that Cows release it, so what’s the problem?

BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide.

http://abcnews.go.com/…

Boehner’s reasoning is wrong in so many ways, that it would be funny, if his startling lack of Scientific knowledge, weren’t so serious for future generations, that they hope to lead

First off, it’s another Greenhouse Gas, that is produced from the business-end of those Cows, he points to — METHANE.

And Methane IS the “Wild Card”, in the high-stakes Poker Game, of betting against the consequences of long term Climate Change.

Betting against the fact humans DO impact on world systems — is truly a fool’s bet. Just look at the Global Chaos cause by about 400 hotshot traders in AIG’s back boiler rooms — to see that reckless human actions CAN indeed have Global Consequences!

Methane is a little talked about Greenhouse gas, except for in Scientific circles. But when was the last time you seen a Scientist on TV?

Most Methane lies dormant in the world’s frozen permafrost and in vast frozen deposits, on the chilly sea floors, around the planet.  Long as it stays frozen there, it’s not much of a problem.

Once it starts melting however — LOOK OUT!!!  The frozen carbon-hydrate Methane (CH4) once it’s released as a Gas — is about 10 to 20 times more potent at trapping the the Sun’s heat in the Atmosphere, than is Carbon Dixode (CO2)! … (that is some “Wild Card”!)

Methane Burps: Ticking Time Bomb
by John Atcheson – Dec 15 2004

… but it ignored a ticking time bomb buried in the Arctic tundra.

There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times as much methane as is in the atmosphere. Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

Now here’s the scary part. A temperature increase of merely a few degrees would cause these gases to volatilize and “burp” into the atmosphere, which would further raise temperatures, which would release yet more methane, heating the Earth and seas further, and so on. There’s 400 gigatons of methane locked in the frozen arctic tundra – enough to start this chain reaction
…
Once triggered, this cycle could result in runaway global warming

http://www.energybulletin.net/…

Ever wonder where those “Jungle Planet” scenarios really came from in all those Dinosaur science programs?

1-4 Degrees average Global Temperature increases, from CO2 alone wouldn’t do it — But try multiplying that increase 10 to 20-fold, from that Methane kicker! I hope you like Steamy Sauna’s and the subsequent mass chaos — because that is the Future Scenario, that the Climate Change deniers, like John Boehner, are perfectly willing to RISK.  I hope the Oil Lobby is paying them well, for the inane deceptions they are constantly putting forward. How do these ‘Oil industry front men’ get so much TV Air time anyways?

IF only Science, WAS REALLY given a Voice
in our petty National Dialogs,
which usually just kick the can down the road.

But Scientists don’t have a Lobby — do they?
SO why should they Matter?

Click for Wide format image

Where’s the Profit in listening to Science?
(in the long run were all dead, right? — as George W. used to say)

Still they continue to do research … as Scientists Always do:

U.S. Geological Survey
Marine and Coastal Geology Program
Gas (Methane) Hydrates — A New Frontier – Sept 1992

Gas hydrates occur abundantly in nature, both in Arctic regions and in marine sediments. Gas hydrate is a crystalline solid consisting of gas molecules, usually methane, each surrounded by a cage of water molecules. It looks very much like water ice. Methane hydrate is stable in ocean floor sediments at water depths greater than 300 meters, and where it occurs, it is known to cement loose sediments in a surface layer several hundred meters thick.

The worldwide amounts of carbon bound in gas hydrates is conservatively estimated to total twice the amount of carbon to be found in all known fossil fuels on Earth.

This estimate is made with minimal information from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and other studies. Extraction of methane from hydrates could provide an enormous energy and petroleum feedstock resource.
…
Methane, a “greenhouse” gas, is 10 times more effective than carbon dioxide in causing climate warming.

Methane bound in hydrates amounts to approximately 3,000 times the volume of methane in the atmosphere.

http://marine.usgs.gov/…

Interesting Methane Hydrate can be used for Fuel?  What are its by-products when you burn it? …

the combustion of methane in air will yield, in addition to the major products of carbon dioxide and water

http://en.wikipedia.org/…

Darn more CO2, we really need to figure out how to capture that dang Molecule (or how to break it down into Carbon and Oxygen). If only there were SOME WAY to create the Economic Incentives to Capture CO2 Molecules! (While that “10 Year Window” to DO SOMETHING, is still Open.)

Even modern day Scientists are sounding the Urgent Alarm about the runaway Methane train.  Why is it the Media mostly ignores this?  Could it have anything to do with the Oil Advertising Revenues, they receive?

Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice
By Margot Roosevelt – Los Angeles Times
February 22, 2009

As permafrost thaws in the Arctic, huge pockets of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — could be released into the atmosphere. Experts are only beginning to understand how disastrous that could be.

International experts are alarmed. “Methane release due to thawing permafrost in the Arctic is a global warming wild card,” warned a report by the United Nations Environment Program last year. Large amounts entering the atmosphere, it concluded, could lead to “abrupt changes in the climate that would likely be irreversible.”

Methane (CH4) has at least 20 times the heat-trapping effect of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). As warmer air thaws Arctic soils, as much as 55 billion tons of methane could be released from beneath Siberian lakes alone, according to Walter’s research. That would amount to 10 times the amount currently in the atmosphere.

http://www.latimes.com/…
So you see, there is a LOT more at stake, as the Ice Caps melt, besides just rising sea levels and changing Climate patterns around the world.

Actually we risk the Earth itself making one terrible “rude” release of Gas, that is frowned upon in polite company.

Instead of fretting about “Cow Farts”, the Republican (and Democratic) Obstructionists really need to get ready for that silent but deadly “Earth Burp”, that’s quietly waiting to be released, in the wings …

As the Permafrost goes, SO Goes the Planet!

Ask any Alaskan about how fast the Permafrost is melting — it’s creating their own Real Estate crisis in the Last Frontier …

And once the Ocean’s heat up through and through, the legacy heaped upon this generation, will be one of great disdain.

for the few left, who can still muster such emotions …

Remember it’s not just the Ice Caps that are Melting, that will leave our mark, on the world —

The Permafrost melting, will be the gift, that will just keep on giving.

And there will be NO EXCUSING it, in the Long Run …
no matter how we try to rationalize it, or say “Pardon Me”.

Future Generations, just CAN’T afford, US taking that Bet!
(So why are we?)