The naturally occurring methane shows that global warming is not to blame for cows

"Here is a source of chemical energy created by geology …"

Picture of Graham C99 (CC)

(Lionel Parrott, Liberty Headlines) Scientists have discovered huge amounts of methane deep below the surface of the Earth, challenging why politicians are working to reduce emissions of this gas it is natural.

According to an article Newsweekmethane is released through the deep-sea vents. In 2016, scientists discovered more than 500 spewing vents spewing methane on the west coast of the United States.

Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) then collected samples from hydrothermal sites around the planet, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Ridge, the Mid-Cayman ascent and the Pacific Basin. Guaymas.

WHOI found that almost all of them contained pockets of methane – and now say that vents could be the largest source of abiotic methane (without organic matter formation) in the world.

Large how? The team said the methane trapped in the rocks could be more methane than in the Earth's atmosphere before the industrial revolution.

"We were totally surprised to find this huge reservoir of abiotic methane in the oceanic crust and mantle," said Frieder Klein, lead author of the group. "Here is a source of chemical energy created by geology."

Methane is considered a greenhouse gas and is generally considered released by the decomposition of organic matter.

Once emitted into the atmosphere, it has a warming effect well above that of carbon dioxide, although its lifetime is also much shorter.

In the popular imagination, the most common source of methane is perhaps the flatulence of the cow. Bovine flatulence has been identified as the cause of climate change in the deployment of Green New Deal legislation promoted by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY.

After the "cow farts" pretense was ridiculed, she blamed this absurd reference on a staff member who "had a very bad day at work" and uploaded an unfinished draft proposal on the Internet.

With the discovery of naturally occurring methane, he could be back to the drawing board for the Green New Deal crowd.

Killing all the cows may not be enough.