this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
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The memes of the climate

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The climate of the memes of the climate!

Planet is on fire!

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Fossil methane (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by Fried_out_Kombi to c/climatememes
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Yes, I know it's not technically just methane, but methane is its primary constituent.

"Fossil gas" is also probably a suitable term, but I like "fossil methane" because it gets that spooky chemical name benefit.

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[–] Fried_out_Kombi 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's why I specified fossil methane, the stuff we're getting out of the ground to burn in power plants. I'm all for burning non-fossil methane (e.g., from compost piles) for reducing the impact of those.

[–] Yucky_Dimension 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Still, stating it's 40 times more potent than carbon dioxide also feels deceptive. While it's technically true, it's not a fair comparison. I'd like to clarify here, that I'm not defending gas as an energy source. I don't own a gas stove or anything in that regard.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I know what you mean, but methane leaks are a real problem, so while combusting it produces mostly CO2, all the infrastructure and pipelines bringing the gas to where it's burnt leak a loooot of methane. And methane is overall the second-most responsible greenhouse gas in anthropogenic climate crisis (after carbon dioxide), although a big chunk of that methane is from industrial animal agriculture of course.

[–] Yucky_Dimension 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's what I mean. The biggest source of methane and therefore one of the biggest contributor to climate change is cattle. Which could be considered "natural", but even if we deny it that label, as it is clearly man-made, we wouldn't refer to it as fossil fuel. I'm not sure how much of an impact those methane leaks have on the climate compared to the steady release of agricultural gas, but I bet it's not exactly helping.

[–] Fried_out_Kombi 6 points 10 months ago

But the thing is nobody is calling cow farts "natural gas"; they call them "methane". Even the wikipedia page for "natural gas" refers solely to the fossil fuel we get out of the ground:

Natural gas (also called fossil gas, methane gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and helium are also usually present.[1]

Natural gas is a fossil fuel and non-renewable resource that is formed when layers of organic matter (primarily marine microorganisms)[4] decompose under anaerobic conditions and are subjected to intense heat and pressure underground over millions of years.[5] The energy that the decayed organisms originally obtained from the sun via photosynthesis is stored as chemical energy within the molecules of methane and other hydrocarbons.[6]

I think the key distinction is that "natural gas", as a term, only actually refers to the fossil fuel. That is, "natural gas" != "methane".

The meme is about stopping saying "natural gas" — i.e., the fossil fuel, not other non-fossil sources of methane — and instead calling it "fossil methane". Given we already call cow farts methane and landfill emissions methane, calling the fossil fuel form of methane "fossil methane" seems fitting to me. That way we have overall methane, then we can specify source by saying "fossil methane" or "landfill methane" or "agricultural methane" and so forth.