Not true between CO2 and methane. The total amount of carbon is the same but in methane form is worse for greenhouse effect.
Methane doesn’t linger in atmosphere forever, it decomposes into CO2 in a decade or so. This means atoms of methane emitted from the fields are pretty much exactly paired with atoms of methane in atmosphere decaying into CO2.
This means that methane emitted from the fields doesn’t increase the total amount of methane in the atmosphere, the way burning fossil fuels does with CO2.
Because you could start with zero methane in the atmosphere, just lots of CO2, but the rice would introduce methane.
Eventually yes you can get to a steady state of methane, but the point is that the more rice there is, the higher that steady state becomes. Which is bad.
So the total amount of methane would absolutely increase. (And if you stopped planting rice at all it would eventually decrease over the subsequent decades.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35483780
The point is, though, that the amount of methane that currently have in atmosphere, is only barely relevant when it comes to how it affects climate from human perspective. If all methane disappeared tomorrow, our climate would be back to 2010, which is hardy a significant change. Nobody would even notice other than climate scientists. Similarly, if we increase the rice cultivation, the amount of methane will increase in the steady state, but the increase will be wholly immaterial, so that it does not affect us in any real way. This is not really “bad”.
Uh, no. It is quite significant, and a mountain of evidence says that the climate changes from concentrations in the last decade are very significant. You appear to be a denier of anthropogenic climate change who is willing to make silly straw men arguments.
> You appear to be a denier of anthropogenic climate change who is willing to make silly straw men arguments.
You appear to be unable to discuss the issue on merits, but this doesn’t necessitate resorting to ad hominem. You can do better than that.
You, however, are claiming that they are unable to discuss the issue - that is.
There is not a single thing I have said in this thread that can be interpreted as “denial of anthropogenic climate change”. You are welcome to find it and quote it though. On the other hand, there are many places where I very much reaffirm the reality of anthropogenic climate change, for example
Yes, the more rice there is, the higher the steady state would be.
However, we aren't planting more rice. The ammount of rice grown and methane released is already in steady state.
This is a seperate point than if atmospheric methane would go down if we grew less rice than today.
Can you point to which part exactly is “completely wrong”?
First you said:
> Not really. These GHG emissions from rice are in steady state with the amount of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere.
And then now
> That’s why, as I said, in steady state, when the we keep steady the amount of rice under cultivation, the amount of methane in atmosphere is not changing over time.
These two statements are contradictory. If we assume steady state, then yeah the amount of methane is stable, but changing the way we cultivate rice is the opposite of steady state: if we reduce the methane emissions, then the amount of methane in the atmosphere will decrease that's it.
> perennial rice may end up reduce GHG emissions substantially.
(because that's the starting point of this conversation, and it's the opposite of steady state)