Earth Equity News

Curbing Climate Change by Sealing Gas Leaks. By Andrew C. Revkin and Clifford Krauss, NYTimes, October 15, 2009. "Some three trillion cubic feet of methane leak into the air every year, with Russia and the United States the leading sources, according to the Environmental Protection Agency's official estimate. (This amount has the warming power of emissions from over half the coal plants in the United States.) And government scientists and industry officials caution that the real figure is almost certainly higher. Unless monitoring is greatly expanded, they say, such emissions could soar as global production of natural gas increases over the next few decades... Acting quickly to stanch the loss of methane could substantially cut warming in the short run, even as countries tackle the tougher challenge of cutting the dominant greenhouse emission, carbon dioxide, studies by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggest... Unlike carbon dioxide, which can remain in the atmosphere a century or more once released, methane persists in the air for about 10 years... [It is] a valuable target because while it is far rarer and more fleeting than carbon dioxide, ton for ton, it traps 25 times as much heat, researchers say."