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Farting, breaking wind, cutting the cheese, or gas. The English language has numerous words for flatulence and this is even before we devolve into the subcategories that make up the genre. Whatever you call it, farting is a taboo act, but it is also a source of fascination. It’s not for nothing that there is a popular children’s book series called Fart Squad or that the preview of the most recent installment of the Alvin and the Chipmunks dynasty led with the punchline, “Sorry, pizza toots.” Today farting is something for which we perfunctorily ask forgiveness, but in the past...

The Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge Wednesday to immediately enforce new restrictions on the release of potent methane emissions at oil and gas drilling operations on public land. The ruling came at the behest of California and other states, which charged the administration is required by law to enforce the new rules intended to cut the release of 175,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas annually, as well as reduce the emission of associated toxic pollutants. The Interior Department had been delaying enforcement as it mapped out a strategy to rescind the new rules, which industry has...

If you had plans for the weekend, a Christian numerologist says you won’t get to them because the world is about to end. David Meade, a self-proclaimed “researcher,” is predicting that a series of apocalyptic events will begin on Sept. 23 and, “a major part of the world will not be the same.” According to Meade, the mysterious rogue planet Nibiru, also known as Planet X, is on a collision course with Earth, which will bring world-ending tsunamis and earthquakes. The numerologist claims the dates of recent events like the Great American Solar Eclipse and Hurricane Harvey’s flooding of Texas...

To honor cats on the International Cat Day, DW encourages their human companions to protect the planet we all share. From carbon pawprint to waste to wildlife, it is in our hands to take up better practices. Your cat’s sweet purring and loving, contented looks won’t change the fact that it’s guilty for the planet’s suffering — just like we are. A recent study confirms that pets’ meat-based diet has a fatal impact on the climate, due mainly to high carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, our loyal friends are big resource consumers and waste creators. The situation is particularly worrisome...

The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court Friday to hold off from enforcing its decision to allow Obama-era methane rules for fracking to move forward as it weighs its options for appeal. The agency asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for "relief from immediate compliance" with its Monday ruling, which said Trump's EPA lacked the legal authority to delay the methane rules on oil and natural gas drillers for two years while it mulled repealing the rule.

WASHINGTON — Dealing another legal blow to the Trump administration, a federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency cannot suspend an Obama-era rule to restrict methane emissions from new oil and gas wells.The 2-to-1 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is the first major legal setback for Scott Pruitt, the E.P.A. administrator, who is trying to roll back dozens of Obama-era environmental regulations. The ruling signals that President Trump’s plans to erase his predecessor’s environmental record are likely to face an uphill battle in the courts.

An Arctic methane explosion that took place close to 12,000 years ago resulted in several large craters at the bottom of the ocean, a new study has discovered. But what stands out as interesting is the fact that thousands of years later, gas is still seeping out slowly from the seafloor. The study published earlier this week in the journal Science details yet another set of findings regarding these explosions that took place over the past thousands of years. And with climate change very much a hot-button topic these days, scientists are wondering whether it’s possible that these Arctic methane...

Researchers have discovered hundreds of huge craters, with many over 3,000 feet wide, on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. The craters in the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia, formed through huge mounds full of methane exploding suddenly and catastrophically around 12,000 years ago, and are still leaking methane. Scientists say the discovery could help explain why so many craters have appeared in Siberia over recent decades, with the same processes causing these explosive events. ... he Arctic ocean floor hosts vast amounts of methane trapped as hydrates, which are ice-like, solid mixtures of gas and water. These...

Three Republicans joined Senate Democrats on Wednesday to reject an effort to overturn an Obama administration rule limiting methane emissions from oil and natural gas drilling. Only 49 senators voted to move forward with debate on legislation to undo the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule, short of the 51 votes needed. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) joined all 48 members of the Democratic caucus in rejecting the resolution under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Graham and Collins had previously publicized their plans to vote against the legislation. But McCain’s vote came as a...

A Chinese chemical company says it has begun building a $1.85 billion plant in St. James Parish, about 15 miles north of Thibodaux, that promises to create hundreds of jobs. Yuhuang Chemical began construction on the methanol plant in January and expects to complete the complex, along the Mississippi River, in late 2019, the company said in a news release Thursday. “The first phase of the project is a $1.5 billion methanol manufacturing complex,” the company said. “Two more phases are set to follow, leading to the employment of 100 permanent workers. The plant is also expected to create around...

Global warming could be solved by genetically engineering or breeding cows to fart less Bill "The Science Guy" Nye said in an interview Tuesday. [Snip] Nye was responding to a question from a vegan on how eating meat could reduce the world's greenhouse gas emissions. [Snip] Environmentalists are very interested in reducing methane from cow farts, with some groups like Friends of the Earth pressuring public schools to switch their lunch menus away from beef to reduce emissions. The Obama administration released a methane plan in 2014 that called for reducing emissions from the dairy industry 25 percent. That meant...

Last month, the House passed legislation that would repeal new controls on natural gas production installed in the waning days of the Obama administration. It's now up to the Senate to pass a companion bill and help make the repeal official. Sens. Michael Bennet and Cory Gardner ought to lead the way; left unaltered, these controls will crush local energy firms and destroy local jobs. Excessive regulations keep gas production on federal lands artificially low. Firms have to navigate lengthy, hugely expensive approval channels to get the green light. As a result, while gas production on private and state territories...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday reversed an Obama-era plan to collect massive amounts of data from oil-and-gas companies — information that ultimately would’ve been used as the basis for new federal regulations on methane. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the requests made by the prior administration constituted unnecessary burdens on the energy industry. His action also seems to signal that the EPA will not pursue any new methane regulations anytime in the foreseeable future.

Holy cow! Dairy farmers are balking at crazy climate change legislation that will rob America’s middle class of affordable dairy products.The Golden State used to be a place you could visit for a relaxing vacation filled with sunshine, palm trees and bayside avocado burgers—and then fly home to live a relatively free life—leaving California residents to cope with the “crazy” aspects of the state, like sky-high taxes. Not anymore. California is America’s largest milk-producing state. Thanks to new regulations from CA Gov. Jerry Brown, one thing is certain: if you love milk and cheese, significantly higher costs are coming your...

Well, Brown(gov) is at it again. This time, he’s passing legislation targeting dairy cows for the horrific crime of releasing methane when they pass gas, belch or defecate. Brown has decided that he knows more than centuries of farmers—all over the globe—who have used and prized manure as a fertilizer. “Manure is a valuable fertilizer for any farming operation and has been used for centuries to supply needed nutrients for crop growth,” according to researchers at the University of Minnesota. Organic! Natural! Free-range! Environmentalists routinely employ these words to make themselves sound hip and helpful. But if you’re truly “green,”...

Scientists have found 500 seabed vents bubbling methane into the Pacific Ocean off the United States, roughly doubling the number of known U.S. seeps of the powerful greenhouse gas, a study showed on Wednesday. Methane naturally escapes from the sea floor in many places around the world and can stoke global warming if it reaches the atmosphere. Worldwide, scientists are trying to see if rising ocean temperatures cause more leaks. "It appears that the entire coast off Washington, Oregon and California is a giant methane seep," Robert Ballard, who is famed for finding the wreck of the Titanic and has...

Hydropower has always been touted as a clean source of generating electricity, despite of the facts that it displaces thousands of people from their natural abodes, destroys their lives and livelihoods and submerges huge amounts of lands and forests. Now, a new study claims that it is also accelerating global warming. […] The study is done by Washington State University the has found that during times of drawdown — a period in which the water level behind a dam is rapidly lowered — temperate reservoirs can produce up 20 times more methane than normal. …

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown has signed legislation that regulates emissions from dairy cows and landfills for the first time as California broadens its efforts to fight climate change beyond carbon-based greenhouse gases. Brown’s move Monday targets a category of gases known as short-lived climate pollutants, which have an outsize effect on global warming despite their relatively short life in the atmosphere.

California legislators have approved a bill targeting cow flatulence and manure, which lawmakers blame for releasing greenhouse gases. The legislation aims to reduce methane emissions related to manure to 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030. Senator Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) authored the bill, which passed shortly before the end of the legislative session. Lara agreed to a compromise that will give dairy farms more time to comply with the new regulations. Critics have expressed concerns the new regulations will result in an increase in the price of milk from California cows. Proponents of the bill say methane emissions have...

(Phys.org)—A team of researchers from Belgium and the U.S. has identified the active site of an iron-containing catalyst that has raised hopes for designing a practically useful catalyst that might make converting methane to methanol a possibility. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the researchers describe their efforts, what they discovered and why they believe their findings may lead to a practical way to convert methane to a more efficient energy resource. Jay Labinger, with the California Institute of Technology offers a News & Views piece outlining the work done by the team in the same journal issue....