Today, I am reading: The world is chasing methane
Despite our obsession with carbon dioxide, methane could be a handier /ˈhændi/handy ally /ˈælaɪ/ to fight climate change What do a rice field, a cow, a bog, and a coal mine have in common? Well, there might be more than one answer, but one thing is certain: all of them are “gassy”. They all release methane, a gas not as famous as carbon dioxide, yet infamous for its capacity to trap heat. And as its emissions are on the rise, the world is paying more attention to it. Scientists and governments see in methane a way to achieve faster results on climate mitigation. But to tackle methane means knowing exactly how much of it gets into the atmosphere and who’s to blame. Methane comes from quite a few natural and human-related sources. About a third of its global emissions originate in wetlands, where massive amounts of organic matter produce methane when decomposing/ˌdiːkəmˈpəʊz/. Agriculture is the biggest contributor of human-induced methane, bringing in more than a quarter of ...