WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2009) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that methane poses a danger to human health and to the environment.
E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate methane because it threatens human health and welfare.
The E.P.A. website states that “Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that … is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.” The primary human-influenced source is flatulence, Ms. Jackson said.
There are also high levels of antimony tri-oxide in flatulence (it provides some flame retardance against afterburner ignition) in human-sourced methane.
In her prepared remarks, Ms. Jackson reported on the Methane to Markets Partnership. “It is intended to reduce global methane emissions, with a focus on cost-effective, near-term methane recovery from colorectal sources primarily in the United States,” she said. “A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. of gas in a single flatulent emission, or more than a pint every single day.”
Beginning in early-2013, the E.P.A. will phase in a program to capture all human-sourced methane at each originator. “Our research shows it is far more effective to issue each citizen with an individual, belt- or shoulder-mounted, man-portable collection and storage tank (MOST).” The program will begin in ten large urban areas including New York City, Los Angeles, and Orlando in the first two years, then fan out across the country.
“My Agency is working with three prime contractors to produce prototypes now,” Ms. Jackson said. Recycling centers will be tasked to retrieve the MOSTs for emptying and return to other users.
Industry groups have criticized the decision, saying that the regulation of the near-ubiquitous methane, will be technically challenging, legally complex, and will impose huge costs on an already challenged economy.
“The fake-leaked British climate research group e-mail messages have stirred doubts among a number of people about the integrity of some climate science,” Ms. Jackson said, “but we have serious research to back up the methane regulations we are announcing today.”
The National Association of Manufacturers has taken the wrong approach to challenge the regulation.
“Unemployment is hovering at 10 percent, and many manufacturers are struggling to stay in business,” said Keith McCoy, vice president of energy policy for the National Association of Manufacturers. “It is doubtful that the endangerment finding will achieve its stated goal, but it is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy.”
That implies the science it sound and that only the consequences during the current economic woes should stop us from implementing the regs. What? We should put them into effect when more people are back to work?
“‘It is intended to reduce global methane emissions, with a focus on cost-effective, near-term methane recovery from colorectal sources primarily in the United States,’ she said.”
Colorectal sources? So why arent they piloting this system RIGHT NOW starting with all personnel in the US Capitol Building in Washington DC???
Finally we are discussing something that I know a lot about. Not human flatulence, but science.
I sheepishly admit that I have emitted coleorectal methane at times in my life. Not often because my spiritual mentor told me that Thou shalt not fart was the 11th Commandment. It was on the stone tablet that Moses had to leave up on the mountain because he only had two hands with which to carry them down. So your choice of subject title for this posting has Biblical as well as coloerectal sources. (BTW, according to my mentor Commandments 12 through 17 would make Crap and Trade look like an OTC drug disclaimer.)
So, my failings in that area of environmental pollution were purely accidental albeit perhaps *silent killers* if what the Agency says in true.
But I dont think it is true. In fact, none of the greenhouse gas rhetoric is true because of the junk science behind it. Here is the reason: Gases such as CO2 and Methane do not statify in the atmosphere. Oh, there are occassions where CO2 has been known to *pocket* in low areas along the earths surface if allowed to lie there undisturbed; but that is not the same thing that the whacko environmentalists are talking about because the atmosphere is in constant turbulance.
Besides, *Humethane* (if I may coin a phrase) is seldom allowed to lie undisturbed because some prude nearby is always going to go, Whooeee! and start fanning the air with a magazine.
George
Fortunately, the MOST is designed to capture a high percentage of George’s Humethane so the prudes will have to fan at the recycling center.