OUR TAKE: Let’s Capture Methane to Delay Climate Change

Climate science has got to be one of the most fascinating and exciting fields to be in today. MIT’s Technology Review has a story by James Temple about how methane traps 84 times more heat during the first two decades than carbon dioxide. Temple cites a new study just released by Nature Sustainability that suggests developing a new system that could capture a few billion tons of methane from the atmosphere to reduce short term global warming. The main idea discussed in this paper seems radical at first blush, but has a firm rationale behind it: instead of capturing carbon dioxide of which there is lots, instead let’s capture methane, of which there is relatively little, because we’d get a lot bigger bang for our bucks. Capturing methane could delay the impacts of CO2 on our climate, and there might even be long-term benefits as well.