THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS HERE ~ It can be limited! You can reduce methane emissions!

You can help cut methane. See this TED Talk ~ #CUTMETHANE

TED TALK VIDEO by Ilissa Ocko, Countdown Summit, October 2021

In the time it took me to walk on stage around 10 seconds, more than 10,000 metric tons of climate-warming gases have been pumped into the atmosphere from human actions. To provide some context on just how much that is, That is the weight equivalent of 170,000 of me emitted in gas in 10 seconds.

Ninety-nine percent of this pollution is carbon dioxide, CO2, and we know we need to reduce it. The other one percent is almost entirely methane, which mostly comes from producing fossil fuels, managing waste and raising livestock. But that one percent of methane could cause more warming over the next 10 years than all that CO2. This is because methane absorbs a lot more energy per unit mass for reasons relating to its molecular structure and its ability to form other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

CO2 is important because it can linger in the atmosphere long after it is emitted, which means we must achieve net-zero emissions to eventually stabilize our climate. This is key for protecting generations to come.

But with climate change already devastating so many lives today, we can’t focus only on the distant future. My work as a scientist aims to identify ways to slow down warming as fast as possible, so that we can lower the risks of worsening damages in the near future.

This is where methane comes in. That one percent of methane may cause more warming than all that CO2 in the next several years, but it only lasts in the atmosphere for around a decade. Methane’s warming power is therefore not from the gradual buildup over time like CO2, but almost entirely from recent emissions. This means that every time we reduce methane, we can reduce a lot of warming right away.

In fact, cutting methane is the single fastest, most effective opportunity to immediately slow down the rate of warming.

See the rest of this transcript and the video from which it came!

SOURCE ~ https://www.ted.com/talks/ilissa_ocko_the_fastest_way_to_slow_climate_change_now