From SciTechDaily on 12 September 2024 comes this headline: Methane Levels at 800,000-Year High: Stanford Scientists Warn That We Are Heading for Climate Disaster.

Here’s the subhead: “Global methane emissions have surged, undermining efforts to curb climate change. Human activities continue to drive emissions from fossil fuels, agriculture, and wetlands, pushing warming beyond safe limits.”

Here’s the lede, followed by another sentence that completes the first paragraph: “Methane emissions, a major contributor to climate change, have continued to rise without slowing down. Despite a global pledge by over 150 nations to reduce emissions by 30% this decade, new research reveals that global methane emissions have surged at an unprecedented rate over the past five years.”

Color me shocked: “Global methane emissions have surged at an unprecedented rate over the past five years.” Our collective, human desire for economic growth has adverse consequences. Among these consequences are unprecedented rates of greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet at an unprecedented rate. Even the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the ongoing rate of environmental change exceeds that of any other event in planetary history. Show me a politician who campaigns on a shrinking economy and I’ll show you an ex-politician. Telling the masses they can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet is a rational approach rooted in the Laws of Thermodynamics. As a result, it’s the fastest path to losing elections.

Please allow me this opportunity to provide an overview of the Laws of Thermodynamics. Historically, there were three laws, known as the first, second, and third laws. Another was added later and became known as the zeroth law. I’ll start there.

The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics defines thermal equilibrium. It indicates that if each of two systems is in thermal equilibrium with a third system, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. Imagine three rooms adjacent to each other in a building. If two of the three rooms are at the same temperature, then the third room is also at that temperature.

The First Law of Thermodynamics indicates that when energy passes into or out of a system, the system’s internal energy changes in accordance with the law of Conservation of Energy. In other words, The Law of Conservation of Energy indicates that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant. Energy is conserved over time. In the case of a closed system, the total amount of energy within the system can only be changed through energy entering or leaving the system. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Rather, it can only be transformed or transferred from one form to another. For instance, chemical energy is converted to kinetic energy when a stick of dynamite explodes.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems never decreases. A common corollary of the statement is that heat does not spontaneously pass from a colder body to a warmer body.

The Third Law of Thermodynamics states that a system's entropy approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero. With the exception of non-crystalline solids, the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically very close to zero.

The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics prohibit, for example, perpetual motion machines. Note that the Laws of Thermodynamics are physical laws. They are not strong suggestions. As laws, they operate all the time, under all known conditions. If any one of them ceases to hold up under any conditions, then it will no longer be recognized as a law.

I’ll now return to the article at SciTechDaily, which indicates that atmospheric concentrations of methane are more than 2.6 times higher than in pre-industrial times. This is the highest they’ve been in at least 800,000 years. Methane emission rates continue to rise along the most extreme trajectory used in emission scenarios. This is no surprise, of course, as our collective desire for economic growth eclipsis all rational thoughts about sustaining this set of living arrangements and the retention of a living planet.

The article in SciTechDaily refers to a peer-reviewed paper published 10 September 2024 in Environmental Research Letters. Authored by 12 scholars, the peer-reviewed, open-access paper includes this information at the end of the initial paragraph: “The world has reached the threshold of a 1.5 °C increase in global average surface temperature and is only beginning to experience the full consequences.” Actually, as I have reported several times in this space, governments of the world reported in October 2023 that Earth surpassed 2 °C in global average temperature. It is unclear to me why paid climate scientists are unwilling to acknowledge this important statistic.

In addition, the long-time goal of holding global temperature beneath 2 °C, based on the work of an economist rather than a climate scientist, was to prevent the occurrence of self-reinforcing feedback loops. Even the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that we have triggered a self-reinforcing feedback loop, any one of which ensures the irreversibility of climate change.

The bottom line of the article in the peer-reviewed Environmental Research Letters indicates where the planet stands with respect to methane: “Methane concentrations have risen faster over the past five-year period than in any period since recordkeeping began. Understanding where and why this is happening is a central goal of the Global Methane Budget. At least two-thirds of global methane emissions are now attributable to anthropogenic sources, an outcome that cannot continue if we are to maintain a habitable climate.”

That we have surpassed the “central goal of the Global Methane Budget” should come as a surprise to nobody paying the slightest bit of attention. Earth is amid abrupt, irreversible climate change.

How abrupt? The fastest in planetary history.

How irreversible? Even the designed-to-fail IPCC admitted to the irreversibility of climate change more than five years ago.

To say we are living on borrowed time would be an understatement. The failure of corporate media outlets, government officials, and paid climate scientists to report this important information represents a profound failure. Please join me in accepting the overwhelming evidence that indicates our days are numbered. Perhaps you can take to heart some words from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” 

Methane Update 1: Why Did Atmospheric Methane Increase Dramatically After a Pause?

Professor Emeritus Guy R. McPherson continues discussing deep time with Niall Shephard. In this episode, we ponder the rapid increase in atmospheric methane that followed a pause in the same.

Author

"Dr. Guy McPherson is an internationally recognized speaker, award-winning scientist, and the world’s leading authority on abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction. He is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for twenty years. His published works include 14 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Dr. McPherson has been featured on TV and radio and in several documentary films. He is a blogger, cultural critic, and co-host of his own radio show “Nature Bats Last.” Dr. McPherson speaks to general audiences across the globe, and to scientists, students, educators, and not-for-profit and business leaders who seek their best available options when confronting Earth’s cataclysmic changes." ^source

Latest Peer-Reviewed Journal Article:

McPherson, Guy R., Beril Sirmack, and Ricardo Vinuesa. March 2022. Environmental thresholds for mass-extinction events. Results in Engineering (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2022.100342.