Now that we’ve talked a little bit about why a 2 degree increase is so significant, let’s look at how we got here and what changes we could make to dial back the speed of global warming. You may have heard at this point that the burning of fossil fuels is impacting and accelerating the rate at which the earth is warming. C02 lingers in the atmosphere building up for years and years and the result is that bubble of greenhouse gases, trapping heat against the earth. Methane is also one of those gases and is thought to be almost 30 times as potent when it comes to the impacts of global warming than CO2. One of the biggest differences, however, is that Methane does not linger in the atmosphere nearly as long. It stays in up there just over a decade versus hundreds of years like CO2.

So, while we produce a large amount of methane from burning fossil fuels and industrialism, cows, goats and other livestock contribute over a third of the human caused methane production in the world. Take a look at this video to learn more.

As you can see, even though methane from cows is in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time, because of its potency, alleviating this source of methane will still have a significant impact on our forecast of the future. This is probably our best opportunity to quickly reduce the level of methane we are releasing into the atmosphere. So what can you do?

Voting with your actions, your wallet and your vote are going to be the best ways to support mitigating the damage we’ve already done! Next time, let’s look at what will happen and is already happening if we don’t push for intensive change today!