Given that only half of global warming is due to CO2, while
another half is caused mainly by methane, world-leading
scientists such as Professor of Global Environmental Health Kirk
Smith and NASA’s Prof. James Hansen call for methane reduction
strategies, for instance through reducing livestock, to be
implemented rather than risky and untried geoengineering carbon
sequestration strategies. Dr Smith writes: “One tonne of methane
is responsible for nearly 100 times more warming over the first
five years of its lifetime in the atmosphere than a tonne of
CO2. Methane is removed from the atmosphere much more rapidly
than CO2, with a half-life of 8.5 years compared with many
decades for CO2.” According to NASA article entitled “Global
warming in the twenty-first century: An alternative scenario“,
co-authored by Professor Hansen: “Rapid warming in recent
decades has been driven mainly by non-CO2 greenhouse gases
(GHGs), such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Methane (CH4), and
Nitrous Oxide (N2O), not by the products o