For Immediate Release:

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Nov 1, 2016
So you think CO2 is bad?
The last 40 years or so, I have been talking about Climate change. Not in the usual way but in an “it’s the end of the world” way. What do I mean by this?
In 1972, I started talking on my radio show about trees. I called the show “It’s the Trees.” While I still believe that we are damaging the earth and one way is by cutting down our forests and leaving behind a mess in its place. We all know that trees intake CO2 and exhale O2. We all know the damages CO2 does to our planet if not controlled but are we aware of Methane?
Methane traps 40 times more heat than carbon dioxide and 32 times in aerosol usage. Global methane levels have been rising over the years for many reasons, most of it is human-made and some natural.
Way back in time, in the Earth’s early history, both carbon dioxide and methane were present in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide came from various sources more so from volcanoes and the current animals while methane was being produced by the different types of ancient microbes. These bacteria would add to methane concentrations in the atmosphere through their metabolism and produces  amongst others things, was the conversion of hydrogen and carbon dioxide into methane and water. When plants came along, Oxygen started to become a part of the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Animals are naturally creating methane. If you count humans, then methane is being produced by people through many of their practices, especially from animal farming. Significant amounts of the earth’s surface have been changed by the removal of forests and replaced with millions of animals from cattle to chickens to pigs to whatever, all of which produce methane.
So over the past 100 years or so, we have changed the underlying makeup of the earth’s surface that was being used to control and regulate CO2 and Methane (CH4). Now we not only have fewer trees(505of the world’s forests have disappeared in the last 100 years) which take in CO2 but we also have less top soil (over 50% of the earth’s topsoil has also gone in the last 100 years). Topsoil holds CO2, but if you disturb it by plowing, it releases the CO2. We have damaged the oceans. The oceans hold massive amounts of CO2, and that is now being diminished because not only are we killing off every living thing in it but we are also polluting it to the point that the ocean is not able to absorb CO2 and is, in fact, releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere. The melting of the world glaciers speeds up this process in many ways. Fresh water does not hold as much CO2 and other gasses as does salt water. Fresh water does not circulate as does salt water.
Water circulation is important because that produces the gulf stream which in turn control climate change. Stop the gulf stream from circulating, and we have extreme weather unstable. That means warmer summers and colder winters. Eventually, the heat will last longer and longer while producing more and more water in the atmosphere. That water must go someplace, so it gets frozen in the poles, and that will get colder and colder. Cold spells (Ice Ages) always follow heat spells (Global warming).
The last Global warming we had lasted 500 years and was called the Medieval Warming period which was followed by another 500 years of an Ice Age, called The Little Ice Age, between about 1300 and 1800 especially in Europe and North America.
The Medieval Warm Period (MWP), Medieval Climate Optimum, or Medieval Climatic Anomaly lasted from about 950 to 1250.
During both of these time periods, humans had not yet the ability to destroy millions if not billions of forests plus start up millions if not billions of cattle for our consumption. These periods came about through the cutting down of Europe’s forests as well as forests in other parts of the world. This was also compounded thru inventions that allowed humans to destroy more rapidly basically.
This damage was limited to the small amount of CO2 that was increased during that period and does not take into account any methane produced. Which was slowly increased over the years through cattle, bad agricultural practices (tilling the earth loses topsoil), as well as destroying forests to replace with cattle or palm oil (they don’t just cut down a wild forest but actually set it on fire which in turn produces more CO2)?
Now, here is the thing. Yes, we can fix this if we had the time. The real problem is Methane. With the melting permafrost, more and more methane is being released into the atmosphere. Every year sees at least a two-fold increase in CH4 and some scientists see this as a bigger problem than CO2 in that if this increases as it has in the past few years, we and all living things will only have less than 20 or 30 years before we all die.
But again here is what I am trying to say, here is a new problem emerging – Methane Sinks.
What is a methane sink you ask?
Recently on the ocean floor off the Washington, Oregon and California is riddled with deep sea vents that have started releasing methane into our atmosphere. It was bad enough that the permafrost was melting and release CH4, but now we have this. More and more methane into the atmosphere would speed up this whole process and ensure that it will last longer than if we had just CO2.
Remember we have never had this methane problem before during all the time humans have been on the earth. Nothing alive can breathe Methane, while some microbes can convert methane into oxygen, they are very limited and produce Oxygen for their own use, but we might be able to discover how they do that and use them in this case. But again we do not have the time.
So if you think CO2 is bad, here comes CH4!
Any questions? Email me andylopez@invisiblegardener.com response next article
Andy Lopez
Invisible Gardener