Everything You Think You Know About Methane is Wrong
Mother JonesDEC 14 2023
Google Joins Mission to Monitor Methane Emissions From Space
Image copyright: Ian Forsyth / Stringer via Getty Images
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
For too long, international efforts have focused exclusively on cutting CO2 to tackle climate change. While doing so is indeed crucial in the long term, methane and other greenhouse gases represent a fast-moving climate threat that must be addressed now. And here lies the importance of this satellite mission to spot methane leaks around the world.
Establishment-critical narrative
Though reducing methane emissions would be a good thing, the tempting and popular narrative that this action alone is a miracle solution for buying time to address the climate crisis is nothing but a fallacy and wishful thinking. The very idea that methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide is flawed because there is no true equivalence between short-lived and long-lived gases.