[HN Gopher] Methane might be made by all living organisms
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       Methane might be made by all living organisms
        
       Author : Brajeshwar
       Score  : 35 points
       Date   : 2022-03-13 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | hsnewman wrote:
       | Then again, it might not. I never read articles that include
       | conjucture in their title.
        
       | comfrey11 wrote:
       | Blame the beans. Time to take personal responsibility for climate
       | change and stop blaming the cows and big industry. /s
        
       | The_rationalist wrote:
       | > It is textbook knowledge that some bacteria can generate
       | methane enzymatically
       | 
       | Archea are not bacteria, so can bacteria actually produce methane
       | or is the introduction wrong?
        
         | olliej wrote:
         | That was my first thought but paywall overlay meant I couldn't
         | read more
        
         | pvaldes wrote:
         | The error is understandable. Had been classified as a type of
         | bacteria for a long time.
        
       | silicaroach wrote:
       | Kind of unexpected that this hasn't been looked at before esp.
       | given that methane is a greenhouse gas. Didn't you kind of think
       | that we already knew all about all sources of methane before
       | pronouncements started being made about the 'dominant source of
       | methane is cows' or some such. If it turns out humans are a
       | significant contributor just by _being_, then human population
       | growth becomes a consideration ... one that is rarely mentioned
       | btw in climate change discussions.
        
         | kurthr wrote:
         | As TFA states, the generation of methane in cows (and others)
         | is mostly from archaea bacteria. That other processes might
         | generate small amounts of methane during "oxidative stress",
         | which often equates with serious cellular damage, is kind of
         | irrelevant to greenhouse effects.
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | This has been overlooked, because the methane produced by the
         | newly discovered path is not produced by a normal function of
         | the living beings.
         | 
         | It is caused by an undesirable defect of all living beings.
         | Most of the structure and constituents of the living cells have
         | their origin before large concentrations of free dioxygen have
         | appeared on Earth, and they are easily damaged by it. The
         | living beings that have adapted to live in the presence of
         | dioxygen have acquired many adaptations to protect their
         | sensitive parts from the action of the dioxygen, but these
         | adaptations are not perfect and a little damage may still
         | occur.
         | 
         | Unlike in certain bacteria (the methanogenic archaea), which
         | transform a part of their food into methane to produce energy,
         | this new method of methane generation does not have any
         | advantage for the living beings where it occurs.
         | 
         | On the contrary, it is a byproduct of a process by which the
         | ambient dioxygen destroys a small part of the living matter,
         | which is a loss for the cells where it happens.
         | 
         | This methane is like the soot from an incomplete burning of
         | some organic matter.
        
         | JadeNB wrote:
         | > human population growth becomes a consideration ... one that
         | is rarely mentioned btw in climate change discussions.
         | 
         | Not in the context of methane generation, but I'd imagine
         | there's scarcely a discussion of climate change that _doesn 't_
         | include the impact of humans in general, and human population
         | growth in particular.
        
           | adenozine wrote:
           | There's a subtle difference in examining the actual footprint
           | of a human body, versus the environment that exists to
           | support the humans. It's easy to say that, because we examine
           | air conditioning, automobiles, etc, but how often do we
           | consider the volume of air that we breathe compared to these
           | other impact factors?
           | 
           | I haven't seen it done so much, maybe not ever. I'm biased,
           | of course, from reading studies that interest me.
        
             | js8 wrote:
             | > There's a subtle difference in examining the actual
             | footprint of a human body, versus the environment that
             | exists to support the humans.
             | 
             | Rule of thumb, human body footprint is negligible. The top
             | 10% wealthiest humans account for 50% of GHG emissions, and
             | top 1% account for 15% of GHG emissions. (See
             | https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-
             | ric...)
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-13 23:01 UTC)