Forget the Trump tweets. This is the Trump action that might actually kill us.

[Zorro]

If you want to understand the long-term consequences of the Trump presidency, forget his Twitter feed. Instead, think about methane.

Methane is the main ingredient of natural gas. When released into the atmosphere, it traps 80 times as much heat as its better-known greenhouse-gas cousin, carbon dioxide, over 20 years. Because of methane’s potent heat-trapping abilities, this “super-pollutant” is the sleeper issue of climate change.

Unfortunately, scientists don’t know precisely how much methane is being released because there hasn’t been adequate measurement. But recent studies suggest emissions are much greater than previously believed. In fact, recent research estimates that the fossil-fuel industry emits about 13 million metric tons of methane annually. That’s 80 percent higher than estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. In heat-trapping terms, it is roughly equivalent to total carbon dioxide emissions from all of the United States’ remaining coal-fired plants.

Considering that Death Valley in California on Sunday notched the hottest temperature (130 degrees) recorded on Earth since at least 1931, this is not exactly welcome news.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/forget-the-trump-tweets-this-is-the-trump-action-that-might-actually-kill-us/2020/08/17/e912c0ae-e0b8-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html

[Bayard]

1. Industrial cattle and pig farming

They are methane machines.

"Livestock emissions make up anywhere between 14.5 and 18 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Comparably, the transportation sector is responsible for around 14 percent of emissions. By those numbers alone, our current system of meat production is extremely damaging. Perhaps more looming, however, is that while transportation creates CO2, livestock farming is hugely responsible for producing methane. As you may know, methane is 23 times more potent when it comes to warming the planet."

https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-or-cars-1919932136.html

[Karadeniz]

2. Trump would sell his children for the right price.