>>14409819Geologist here. This is true and misleading at the same time. You need to learn about reservoirs and residence time. A reservoir is somewhere where chemicals are stored (minerals, gases, water). You're already aware of reservoirs in relation to water. The atmosphere has some billions of tons of water vapor in it at all times. Clouds, rainfall, humidity. So do rivers, lakes and the ocean. Those are reservoirs for water.
Likewise carbon has reservoirs. There's carbon in the atmosphere, carbon in water, carbon in lifeforms, carbon in rock. These are all part of the natural carbon cycle.
Then there's residence time. How long will a bulk amount of the chemical will stay in the reservoir? Water in the atmosphere for example, stays in the atmosphere for a week. Water in the atmosphere is constantly cycling. A ton of water evaporated from a lake will stay in the atmosphere for a week before it rains out. This is the same for a ton of water, a gram of water, or a billion tons of water. It doesn't matter, one week.
Methane stays in the atmosphere about 10 years. In 10 years it either breaks down from solar radiation into CO2 or it gets absorbed in the ocean, in rock, or in lifeforms. It doesn't matter if it's a ton of methane, a gram of methane or forty billion tons of methane. 10 years.
CO2 however stays in the atmosphere about 200 years. So, first off you have the problem of the CO2 we pump in the atmosphere stays there for fucking ever but all that methane is breaking down into more CO2 that, yup, stays in the atmosphere for 2 fucking centuries!
Do not listen to the animal rights groups. Cows are not causing climate change. Unless of course you're using fossil fuels to transport your cows or meat or using fossil fuels as fertilizer.
