The Good, The Bad, Vaccines and Methane
It started out as a good day. Biden has backed rules to get rid of methane leaks, which were worked out with industry. The CDC committee and the CDC has approved the Pfizer vaccine for children from 5 through 11, with two shots, at 1/3 the adult dosage. Brazil has promised to stop the deforestation of the Amazon Rain Forest. Unfortunately, all is not gold that glitters.
While there are 28 million kids from 5 through 11, only about a quarter of parents are ready to vaccinate theirs, about 33% are waiting, and 30% are sure that they won’t vaccinate theirs. After vaccinations, kids will not have to quarantine even if exposed. That could be a big incentive. Fortunately, kids are given other vaccines under the care of pediatricians who can recommend the vaccine.
Neither China, nor Russia’s leaders showed up at the conference. Neither did Bolsonaro of Brazil. China is now the leading greenhouse gas emitter, followed by the US. Bolsonaro has been allowing or even encouraging the burning of the Amazon to make farms and cattle grazing areas. Russia has not joined the now 100 nations promising to work on methane emissions, which now cover 70% of the world’s GDP. As a leading driller and shipper of natural gas to Europe and China, Russia needs to join up.
I have seen an article comparing China, the US, and the European Union as historically the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, about 30% each. The article ignores the population differences: China, at 1.4 billion, lhas about four times the population of the US, and the EU at 446 million, but historically adding the UK at 67 million gives 513 million, or 55% greater than the US at 330 million. Similarly, the population of India is about 1.4 billion or four times the US.
The replacement of leaky methane valves and flaring of methane emissions is considered the low lying fruit of stopping greenhouse gases. The news has been quoting that methane is 80 times more toxic than CO2. What they actually mean, is that over an arbitrary 20 year term, it causes 80 times as much warming per weight as CO2. But the lifetime of methane, CH4, in the atmosphere, is only 12 years. If you then compare methane to CO2 over a hundred years, which is the order of the lifetime of CO2, and appropriate for the comparison, it causes about 25 times as much warming, which President Biden got right in his announcement. However, a methane leak occurs periodically or continuously, so it keeps renewing itself. Methane leaks are now easily detected with infrared cameras. Companies have to check methane systems four times a year. Flaring of methane converts the carbon in one molecule of methane to one molecule of CO2, reducing the relative greenhouse gas effect to one-to-one. Capturing methane from landfills, cow barns, and gas wells are now occurring as mitigation measures. Another source is wet farming of rice. Fracked natural gas wells in the US are usually run dry in two to three years, so you have to keep drilling new ones. But they do occur in large fields of wells, so it is not hard to construct piping for them. Methane is 10% of the US greenhouse gases, compared to 80% from CO2. Methane is 16% of global emissions. The plan is to cut global methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
Bolsonaro’s plan is not to reverse deforestation, partly by replanting forests, until 2028. It really should stop immediately. Since the plan lacks details, others do not trust the sincerity of Brazil’s claims on this and on other climate action pledges.
While China is being downplayed, it did announce recently that it would no longer support financing for new coal plants in its worldwide development Road and Belt program.
Another downer, is that the Virginia governorship went to Republican Glenn Youngkin, starting a decade long redistricting of its 11 congressional representatives with 7 D’s and 4 R’s. On the other hand, he did win without directly associating himself with Trump, which is now considered an example of freedom from Trump that others can follow. I wonder what it’s like to have a leader with no government experience at all, who will start “transformation” on day one, with an apparently overwhelming mandate from a 2.5% victory? Improve schools by cutting taxes, putting more into law enforcement, and adding parental controls? He didn’t mention the campaign’s fear inducing CRT hoax in his victory speech, which isn’t actually being taught.
New Jersey’s Governor’s race, with a Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, now been called, and we update on Nov. 4 evening, Murphy is winning by 2.26% with 97% of the vote counted. This is almost as large a percentage as Youngkin is winning Virginia. New Jersey has 12 representatives, currently at 10 D’s and 2 R’s.
