Methane meters : How long before they are compulsory in our homes ?
Will they save the polar bears?
(Ed: word of advice: it says above that I posted this on the last day of March. But that was Pacific Standard Time ( out of my control; it's Blogger's chosen international standard).
It was in fact posted early on the first day of April (French time). The devil, as they say, is in the detail.)
OK, so most folk have taken on board the idea that air travel does not really leave a trail of sooty carbon footprints in the sky, that the real pollutant is invisible carbon dioxide gas (CO2).
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And measuring our carbon footprint has, up till now, been concerned mainly with estimating the amount of CO2 we add to the atmosphere through travel , heating our homes, and other activities that burn fossil fuels.
*But extending that concept to methane (CH4), the other major greenhouse gas, sounds to me a big step into the unknown, and I have grave doubts about the soundness of the science.
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But David Cameron’s sudden conversion to the idea of a 'methane tax' sound to me like a tax too far. OK, so I have simplified the name: the full name is Aggregated Greenhouse Index Tax, or AGIT for short.
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In case you missed the item on the news, AGIT works like this: each person, farmer, company etc is rated for their total greenhouse gas emission, which is not just carbon dioxide (obviously) but would now include their personal methane.
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The index is weighted to take account of the fact that methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas , weight for weight, than the equivalent amount of CO2. As such it is considered a major contributor to global warming, climate change and loss of polar bear habitat.
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I would guess that most of us who live in towns or cities have little difficulty with the way AGIT will apply to farms and their livestock. They will bear the brunt of the new tax. The importance of ruminant methane from cattle, sheep etc as a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission, and global warming is well known.
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Technical note: cattle and sheep are ruminants, with a forestomach full of methane-producing bacteria that efficiently break down plant fibre, that would otherwise be indigestible and unavailable as a source of energy and nutrients. In contrast, poultry and pigs are like us, in being monogastric (single stomach).
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Incidentally, did you know that an elephant produces enough methane in a day to run a car for 20 miles ? The comparable figure for a polar bear is unknown (being less cooperative in the matter of meter probe insertion; moreover, not many cars in the Arctic are adapted to run on methane)
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What people will think about paying more for their beef and lamb remains to be seen. Speaking for myself, whilst an AGIT levy of 25p or thereabouts on a T-bone steak would not bankrupt me, I would see it as yet one more nuisance tax, to add to the dozens that Gordon Brown has already introduced - usually by stealth, and often on some dubious pretext of "protecting the environment and polar bears".
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Personally I am very happy to eat more poultry and pork which I see are almost zero rated. Indeed the new tax, if implemented (Dave’s got to win an election first !) may be just what’s needed to push me into vegetarianism.
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But even vegetarians do not get off scot-free, given that the proposed rating of foods applies also to fruit and vegetables, on account of their alleged methanogenic potential. That's due to the fact that many of us harbour methane-producing bugs in our lower bowel. Mind you, so do polar bears, so they have to an extent brought things upon themselves.
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Should polar bears be metered as well for methane production ?
Flatus is the subject of much folklore and many jokes, but it's maybe worth mentioning that pure methane is colorless, odourless and yes, highly flammable. So there's some truth to those stories about the games little boys play in the bath with glass jars and lighted candles ....
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So it's logical, I guess, that Cameron's new proposals should target foods that tend to favour methane production. It's mainly those that are rich in complex carbohydrates, better known as starch and dietary fibre.
*Well, I never did care that much for lentils, baked beans anyway,. But I was alarmed to see some other items being singled out for the top rate of tax, such as my favourite breakfast cereals. And Colin Randall will not be pleased when he sees the top-band levy that's proposed for curry dishes, which rates them as eco-damaging as prime rump steak.
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Incidentally, this is where I have grave doubts about some of the science. The in vitro models used to assess methanogenic potential strike me as somewhat arbitrary and contrived. For example, there is no such thing as a “typical” human gut microflora. Methane production varies enormously from on person to another, even on the same diet, because there is a sizeable variation in one’s ”carriage” of different species of gut bacteria, only a few of which are methane-formers. The same is probably true for polar bears.
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Personally, I don’t know about you, but I think that while there may be a case for discouraging wanton emission of personal methane , Cameron’s proposals are unfair: they penalise certain foods deemed “methanogenic”, even if they do not have this effect in all people.
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I was interested therefore by an article by Ivor Greenbaum of Surrey University's Flatulence Institute in Technology Today magazine. (In passing , I'd mention that he's a keen naturalist in his spare time, with a deep and abiding love for polar bears, despite one of them having eaten his grandfather on Ellesmere Island in 1963). Anyway, according to the distinguished professor, recent advances in sensor technology mean that every home can now be compulsorily fitted with a greenhouse gas meter (or GGM -see graphic above).
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(BTW: Please ignore the meter on the right. Although looking virtually identical, it measures carbon monoxide gas, which is not germane to this topic, but I did not have time to photoshop it out.)
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It's a suggestion that David Cameron has keenly endorsed in his Channel 4 interview last Wednesday.
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One or more of these GGMs would situated within the home, perhaps inconspicuously, he suggests , in the master bedroom, and would continually monitor ambient methane levels.
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They would all be linked into a radio-linked network through a dedicated satellite in geostationary orbit. Periodically they would transmit readings to a central database . There, each home's output of greenhouse gases would be computed, and the homeowner would then be billed annually, possibly through their Council Tax.
*What kind of money are we talking about ? The Surrey prof was reluctant to be drawn on that, saying that was essentially a political decision, but that left to him he would penalise people whom he described as "fecklessly flatulent".
*"People need to be made aware of the importance to choose a prudent diet that does not endanger the planet for polar bears and future generations".
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But he conceded that if the levy was set too high, there might be a tendency by cash-strapped householders to engage in a practice known to the medical profession as “flatus retention” (FR).
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FR has previously been considered a factor in the aetiology of certain bowel conditions such as diverticulosis – people learn to retain ("save up") flatus, perhaps in places where people congregate, and in so doing may build up potentially damaging levels of intraluminal pressure in the bowel. Once clear of one's fellow humans, the pressure can be released......
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There is a danger that FR might be used to cheat on the spy in the home. Folk might be tempted to set their alarm clocks to go off , say, at two hour intervals during the night, and then trot out into the garden for a quick and satisfying vent. That way they might keep their meter readings low.
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But sound, as we know, can carry a long way at the dead of night.
*We surely don't want a situation where everyone in a street full of methane meters is driven to wear ear muffs at night to blank out the sound of their neighbours, out under the stars, cheating on their meters .
*That would signal that a well-meant exercise had become self-defeating, at least where the planet's atmosphere is concerned. And where would that leave the polar bears ?
So perhaps you need to think again, David Cameron . Maybe today is not the time to be entertaining these fool ideas. Or there again, maybe it is.
Comments welcomeThink againThink againn*
Filed at 00:45 , Sunday 1st April, 2007 (Paris time)
Comments welcome: email sciencebod01@aol.com
