Environmental Leader

METHANE CONTRIBUTIONS TO GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

There are several scientific comments that I would like to make about “Global
Warming” and “Global Climate Change”.   There is a basic principal
involved that has been overlooked by most of the non-scientific media.

Every statement in this paper is verified in detail in the references presented
at the conclusion of this discussion.

FIRST –  is that Global Warming is NOT a new effect.   It has occurred five
times during the past 500,000 years!  The basic cause is Methane (CH4)
“natural gas” and NOT man-made Carbon Dioxide (CO2).  The present
global warming cycle began about the time man was crossing the frozen
land bridge from Siberia to North America.

We need to understand the sources and mechanics of Methane that 
are actually the basic cause of our global warming.  Anything that has
grown, ranging  from yard clippings to a decaying body, produces 
methane as it decomposes.  Methane gas from permafrost is a decay 
product. Methane gas from the deep ocean (methane hydrate) is totally
different.

Methane gas from oil wells is yet a very different composition. These
must all  be recognized as such and understood as to their manner of
existence, production, and/or release.

Deep Sea Methane appears to be the waste product of a bacteriological
process and is therefore a renewable resource!  (See Reference 2).  
It is a relative clean product of our environment. It has recently been
produced (as clean natural gas) in continuous commercial quantities
by Japanese & American scientists in Canada in 2008.  It is this Methane 
gas that has been bubbling up, for eons, from the continental shelfs 
around the world that is the real culprit and basic cause of our present
situation.

Oil well Methane gas is a very dirty gas mixture — it is methane with
huge amounts of sulfur and other noxious gases mixed with it.  The
Methane often mentioned in the media as “Bubbling up from Undersea
Permafrost” is a decay product.  It is NOT from a Hydrate!

NEXT –  Drastic Global Climate Change has taken place at least FIVE
different times during the last 500,000 years. Our present cycle is
the only one during which man has been a factor!   (Ref. 1 & 2). 

Methane gas which bubbles up continuously from the deep ocean
sources (and which in turn disassociates into CO2) is the true source
of the “Greenhouse Gas” that has operated in the previous five
interglacial cycles — all of which have been extinction cycles!  
As will this one!

Proof of this CH4 history was discovered in the Vostok ice cores 
made in Antarctia. See charts at:
https://www.box.net/shared/nak3lhquby

These five previous cycles are NOT man made effects, nor is the
present cycle, and it IS TOO LATE to change our present cycle,  we 
may actually now be past the peak.  We can only learn to adapt! 
We cannot STOP the process although we might slow
it down for a few years, which in geological time is nothing.

We MUST ADAPT to survive!    ADAPT!     ADAPT !    ADAPT  !

REFERENCES

There are several prime references associated with the material that I
have covered, if ever so briefly.

(1) EARTH’s  CHANGING  CLIMATE.  Lecture Series by Dr. Richard
Wolfson, the Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics at Middlebury
College. This is a six hour lecture series (12 segments of 30 minutes
each) on two DVDs produced by The Teaching Company of Chantilly VA
20151-1232.?http://www.TEACH12.com

This series covers in-depth detail of the science and methodology of
climate change.  It is not an advocacy program.  Interestingly, Dr.
Wolfson does not even mention Methane-Clathrate in this lecture
series — knowledge on that subject is almost too new to have been
included.  It was first discovered on a moon of Venus by NASA about
1985.  At the time we did not even know that it existed on Earth! 

(2) FIRE IN THE ICE.  Quarterly Journal , U.S.Department of Energy,
Office of Fossil Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory.   Also
known as Methane Hydrate Newsletter.   Recommended reading is all
issues to current issue from about 2000 forward.  This is the best of
several technical journals devoted to the science of Methane
Clathrates.?http://www.netl.doe.gov/about/index.html

(3) HIGH TIDE  by Mark Lynas. Picador, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY.
10010. ISBN 0-312-30365-3.   This well written book clarifies the problems 
of Global Warming “… The American People have been subjected to one 
of the most pervasive misinformation campaigns ever undertaken  … “?http://www.picadorusa.com

(4) WITH SPEED AND VIOLENCE   [Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in
Climate Change] by Fred Pearce. Beacon Press; 25 Beacon Street; 
Boston, MA 02108. © 2007. “We are on the precipice of climate system
tipping points beyond which there is no redemption”
http://www.beacon.org

(5) Natural Gas Hydrate Studies in Canada; Hyndman & Dallimore from 
The Recorder, 26,11-20, 2001, Canadian Society of Exploration 
Geophysicists.

JCSpilman, P.E.  (Ret.)  Huntsville, AL
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JCSPILMAN | April 27th, 2009