Methane is frequently portrayed as a clean source of energy. It’s not.   

Methane (a.k.a. natural gas) is an extremely potent greenhouse gas that’s often used for heating, creating carbon dioxide.  While methane is extremely harmful to the environment, a strong case can be made that carbon dioxide is even worse.

NASA has stated that “in its first 20 years of reaching the atmosphere, methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide (CO2).” But the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium at the University of Illinois states that “carbon dioxide is responsible for about three-quarters of global warming.”   

How can this be? In their own way, methane and carbon dioxide are both “bad actors.” The devil lies in the details.

Over a relatively short time of 20 years, methane traps 80 times as much heat as the same amount of carbon dioxide.  But over a much longer time period, the harmful impact of carbon dioxide surpasses methane.

While there are many sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane is a primary source. When methane is burned as a fuel, its offspring – carbon dioxide – inevitably appears, adding to the environmental  problems already caused by methane.  An existing problem becomes even worse. Like father, like son.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas, according to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the “long haul” carbon dioxide is worse. 

“However, methane is about 200 times less abundant in the atmosphere, as it lasts for roughly a decade, while CO2 can last for centuries,” write Andrew Moseman of the MIT Climate Portal Writing Team and Jessika Trancik, associate professor at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems and Society. “To put it another way, methane does its damage quickly, but soon fades away, while CO2 traps a smaller amount of heat, but consistently causes damage, decade after decade.”

Methane and carbon dioxide both contribute significantly to climate change.  Nevertheless, the dominant role of carbon dioxide is an essential part of the story and must not go unrecognized.

The claim that methane is a source of green energy, while ignoring carbon dioxide, is false and deceiving. In their own way, each is a major contributor to climate change.