2 comments

• Max

  February 19, 2015 at 4:20 pm

  Poor chicken Little, you would think that if he was going to cause alarm he should at least have some proof behind his claim. I have researched this and have found NO scientific basis that methane is in anyway harmful to our atmosphere.
  The India researcher on loan to the Goddard institute that started all of this simply stated that methane breaks down into compounds which will cause an increase in the global warming affect.
  The actual true affect was for chicken little to expand the warming concept to hundreds of times, then thousands of times, now it’s on the level of extinction!
  Let’s name the compounds, CH4 (methane) when oxidized with O2 (breathable oxygen) will turn into CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H4O2 (hydrogen dioxide commonly called “WATER” H2O)
  The compounds are so normal that most houses that cook with natural gas (methane) do not require venting.
  There has yet to be shown any relationship with carbon dioxide and atmospheric heating. at 400 ppm, which is less than one half of one 10th of 1% of our atmosphere, it’s unlikely. (it is statistically unimportant)
  Water vapor on the other hand is a true and well established global warming gas, one only has to stand outside when I cloud covers the sun to feal its affect! With 73% of the world covered in water, I don’t think water from methane should be considered a problem.
  Methane from the sun which causes our annual ozone hole over Antarctica, on the other hand, does cause ocean level rise and a fresh supply of carbon to our planet. Think about that next time you see the blue color in the aurora borealis.
• Max

  February 23, 2015 at 11:22 am

  Would anyone like to give some feedback? Or their own observations on this made up problem?
  Four instance, the relationship between cows and methane.
  It is impossible for cows or any animal, plant or fish to make methane. cows do provide a warm moist environment for “anaerobic bacteria” to make methane… The bacteria aids in the digestion of the cellulose material the cows eat. (Cows not fed antibiotics growth hormone that is) most of the bacterial breakdown of the feed occurs outside the body as a pile of cow manure fertilizer. (you can smell the methane for miles)
  But the most important fact about cow methane is that all of the hay and grass the cows do not eat will rot on the ground under the winter snow and turn into methane anyway! Just like all of the fall leaves. Therefore the damage cows do is a net zero sum gain. They eat plants that humans find useless with no nutrition and turn it into food for tables, with the byproduct of fertilizer for our fields.
  This natural process has been going on for perhaps billions of years since life began on this planet. In all of that time, the build up of methane has risen to an astounding 1.8 parts per million. (The money equivalent of a dollar and $.80 cents out of a million dollars) The amount of methane in our atmosphere is so small that is very difficult to measure.
  If “global warming” occurs and rots the tundra in the far north releasing methane, The process will occur slow enough that the tundra plants above the rotting peat will soak up the carbon dioxide as quickly as it’s released.
  Methyl hydrate on the ocean floor is being studied by Japanese. They would like to harvest the methane for cheap power. It’s estimated to be twice as much methane on the ocean floor then there is coal.
  The largest source of methane in theory, other than the sun, is interstellar gas clouds. In telescopes we see clouds of gas that hide stars so we know not all gas forms comets, suns and planets. methane is in the atmosphere of most of the planets, and frozen to the surface of their moon’s.
  If the earth passed through such a cloud, it would hide the stars and put halos around the planets like the ancient pictures of the gods.

  I’ve always had trouble believing in the water world of Noah and the ark. (If the world was covered completely with water, it would still be so today) but then I looked at the story from a science perspective and realized that the world that was covered in water was not liquid but ice! There is physical and geological evidence for not just one but several ice ages (the desert people of the Bible may not had a word for solid water, just as the South seas Samoans had to adopt an English word for ice when they have dozens of words for water)
  Now reread the story with a scientific view. The clouds constantly covered the earth, and they could not see the heavens. Only a light during the day and a minor light at night. Warm all the time with no rainbows or seasons. with no way to know the coming and going of years they probably kept time on a lunar scale. (Methuselah was nearly 1000 lunar years old, in his 80s, making him as normal as people today.)
  The box built and known as the ark was a shelter to wait out the massive world wide snowstorm from the collapsing of the firmament above. When space methane burns high in our atmosphere, it turns our oxygen into water, raising ocean levels perhaps hundreds of feet, releasing the atmospheric pressure and freezing the planet.
  Once our solar system passes through the cloud, the sun regains its brightness and with a much thinner atmosphere, the days become unbearably hot and the nights are incredibly cold. (like Mars temperature fluctuations)
  The snow melts from the upper window first then eventually they can open the doors to the shelter and resume their lives in a much different world.
  I did not change the story, just tried to fit plausible explanations for the evidence given. The pieces of the puzzle not only fall into place but is backed by firm scientific principles….. and it’s really fun.
  Did I make anyone think?