02 May, 2008

Global warming conspiracy

Global warming appears to be a serious problem. However, I think some of the proposed solutions would only make things worse: for example, people are encouraged to drive less. Which means either walk, or bike, or take public transportation. Walking is often unrealistic: while yours truly does walk to work, many people live too far from the office to do that. Public transportation is in premature state in most of the US cities, which leaves one thing: biking.

Biking is all good and healthy, but nobody seems to think about methane (aka fartgas). Intensive exercise, like biking, by millions of people will lead to excretion of millions of tonnes of methane, which is, as I've heard, a more potent greenhouse gas.

On the other hand, if harvested, all that methane can be an additional renewable power source - may be it won't be enough for transportation, but it probably could recharge your cell phone. Alas, we hear a lot about how good biking-instead-of-driving is, but next to nothing about the dangers of unharvested methane, which makes one think this is an elaborate conspiracy.

I am not that naïve and easily distractable to believe this is done by some out-of-space (knees-back) aliens who want to make the climate warmer for their liking. No, this is done by humans and most likely, by those humans that live in cold places - think Nunavut, or Franz-Joseph Land. They have thousands of miles of beaches but alas, its too cold there. No ladies in bikinis, no muscular surfers - only white bears and polar night. By warming up the planet they want convert their endless icy plains into prime real-estate!