[sbaiddn]

The Earth doesn't feel anything because it is not sentient. Anthropomorphizing topics causes us to treat them emotionally.

The OP has an excellent point which you didn't address them: most methane in the atmosphere is from natural causes. When the amount due to humans is removed, the effect on heating is not very significant in comparison of our CO2 emissions.

Stated another way, the OP is warning against premature optimization focusing our energy on issues that are an order of magnitude away from the main process.

If this were a conversation about a C loop, we wouldn't be emotional about it and we'd could argue better (for example, methane production also releases green house gases)

[hkt]

If we're seeking to halt climate change, it seems quite reasonable to look at effective measures for that. If decreasing methane emissions from landfill or farming might contribute, it seems odd to write those things off. This is partly due to the way we silo investment in the west: there isn't an organisation that is a single point of coordination and can make the tradeoffs logically. So for better or worse, we should try to make those tradeoffs wherever we can.

To riff off your programming analogy, climate action is like a program that requires a thousand complicated, interdependent functions to be written for it to do its job. Unfortunately in our analogy, virtually none of them ever speak to one another, so the process will be hard, some people will try to bypass other people's contributions - even if they're better - for want of understanding, and the whole thing will be an organic mess.

The difference is, if the program doesn't do what it says, that's kind of fine. If we don't meet or exceed carbon goals, many people around the world are likely to die.

[sbaiddn]

We could slash emissions tomorrow by lowering the speed limit.

We aren't because we don't actually care.

[porkbeer]

Or not doing business with gross polluters like china that wouldnt be a rounding error like cars.

[myshpa]

I think that we'll have to do not one, two or three big changes, but maybe hundreds/thousands of small ones.

"Human activities contribute significantly to the total amount of methane emissions in the atmosphere. According to the Global Methane Budget, human activities account for about 60% of global methane emissions, while natural sources account for the remaining 40%.

To put this into perspective, it is estimated that human activities emit about 330 million metric tons of methane per year, while natural sources emit about 230 million metric tons per year. Human activities that contribute to methane emissions include livestock farming, waste management, and energy production, as well as other activities such as rice cultivation and biomass burning.

While natural sources of methane, such as wetlands and wildfires, are also significant contributors to methane emissions, human activities have increased the amount of methane in the atmosphere by about 150% since pre-industrial times. Therefore, reducing human emissions of methane is crucial for mitigating the impacts of climate change."

- ChatGPT

[sbaiddn]

You wouldn't cite a random bloke on the internet, a person that has reason and consciousness, why are citing a language model that is trained on what the stupidest of blokes have said on the internet?

If we really cared about CO2 emissions we'd lower and strictly enforce interstate speed to 50 mpg. My Golf's milage goes up 30-40% when I drive 55 vs 80 (any slower is dangerous with 70+ traffic). All for an extra six minutes of commute time.

We don't actually care about emissions, not enough to do something meaningful about it. So we buy stupid electric cars and go on about cow farts. It's all posturing and virtue signaling.