Many of us already know and understand the implications of the methane problem, but in view of the recent reports from the EPA that they may have been underestimating by half the amount of methane being produced by human activity. we need to act much quicker than it looks like we are right now. For one thing the practice of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) must be banned worldwide asap. Thom Hartmann continues: Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation just released a report that methane releases from the Arctic have also been underestimated. The caption accompanying their graphic says it all too clearly: “Methane is leaking from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. While methane does eventually degrade into carbon dioxide, when large amounts are released over a short time period, their effect on global warming can be dramatic, since methane is such a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.If enough of this methane is released quickly enough, it won’t just produce “Global warming.” It could produce an extinction of species on a wide scale – an extinction that could even include the human race. If we want to avoid an extinction that could approach or even rival some of the five past extinctions that have wiped out so much of life on earth, we must get control, quickly, of our man-made carbon dioxide and methane releases. I wish that there was a way for a critical mass of understanding to be reached much more quickly than it is. The public at large still doesnt understand the implications and for sure our elected officials have their heads so far in the sand that unless we force them as a collective to listen to us, they will not budge enough to take the effective action that we need to mitigate the potential for this tragic possibility.
Posted on: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 13:44:36 +0000
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