Deep beneath the Arctic ice,
something is trying to escape.
It breathes fire.
It's left its mark all over the globe.
And it has the power to completely
wipe us off the planet.
No, we're not talking about some grotesque
monster lurking underground.
We're talking about an invisible gas
named methane.
If Earth released all of its methane,
it's would be bad news
for everyone on the planet.
Methane is one of the most
potent greenhouse gases,
with a global warming potential of up to
84 times higher than carbon dioxide over a 10-20 year period.
Sure, we can limit the amount of methane
that gets released by human processes like extracting oil.
But as long as global temperatures are rising,
there's nothing we can do about the methane
deposits that get released as the Arctic ice melts.
The last time an abundance of methane escaped the Earth,
it led to a mass extinction that wiped out 90% of the planet's population.
Could that happen again?
You wouldn't know it, but methane is hiding all over our planet.
It's odorless, colorless, and sometimes it can only be detected if you light a match!
Methane can be produced through chemical reactions,
as organic matter decomposes in low oxygen environments like bogs or swamps.
When plants die and sink to the bottom of swamps,
bacteria break them down and produce methane.
In the Arctic, water molecules trap the methane molecules
in a kind of chemical cage of sorts called a clathrate.
They're down on the ocean floor, where the water temperature,
and the pressure, have kept the methane from causing problems.
But, as temperatures rise,
the clathrate cages start to become unstable
and release the methane and water molecules.
The methane deposits expand into gas-forming bulges in the bottom of the ocean.
Eventually, these bulges grow and burst,
releasing the methane bubbles into our atmosphere.
And this isn't the only way that warming temperatures
will release more methane into the air.
Thanks to global warming, in the Siberian tundra, permafrost is melting.
This frozen organic material is like a clathrate
and as it melts,
methane and carbon dioxide gases are released.
In the short term, all this methane being added to our atmosphere
would result in even warmer temperatures.
And in the long term it could cause another mass extinction
similar to what happened during the Permian extinction.
250 million years ago, the Permian extinction wiped out 90% of the planet's population,
and if the Earth continues to release methane at this rate,
we would be headed in the same direction.
Our oceans would rise significantly and force everyone near the coasts to move inland.
And the warming temperatures would mean more insect-borne diseases
like malaria would be able to travel throughout the world.
Drought would lead to major food shortages,
and intense storms would continuously bombard our homes and communities.
Unfortuantely, the release of methane is a cycle that is hard to stop,
but there are some things that we can control.
If we can get human methane emissions from things like
natural gas leaks and coal mining under control,
the natural methane the Earth produces might not be a major concern.
That's why the Environmental Defense Fund has collaborated
with over 140 experts to measure methane gas pollution worldwide
They believe that they can turn that data into environmental action,
and could reduce methane pollution by 40% below projected 2018 levels by 2025.
Ironically, the best thing for our planet would
probably be if our species was actually wiped out.
If humans disappeared from the Earth,
less methane would be released into the atmosphere
and the climate may return to normal levels.
But that's a story for another WHAT IF.