Tag: bacteria

The Gooier the Snow, the Deeper the Carbon Goes

It’s that slime at the heart of the ocean carbon pump.

Marine snow, the constant rain of mucus, poop, dead plankton, silt and other detritus from the shallows, carries more than 10 gigatons of carbon away from the surface every year, but only about 2 gigatons make it deep enough to be stored for centuries to millennia.

A new study published Oct 8 in Science says why so much is lost: viscosity.

Marine snow is exactly what it sounds like — it’s snowing in the ocean, 24/7.

Not frozen water. It’s a shower of tiny, fluffy clumps falling from the sunlit surface to the deep seafloor. The term was coined by divers seeing it like snowflakes in a headlamp beam.

Illustration depicting the process of carbon sequestration in ocean waters, featuring a stylized representation of organic matter sinking in a blue ocean environment, with text highlighting the relationship between snow-like particles and carbon depth transport.
AI generated by Meta

It’s that slime at the heart of the ocean carbon pump.

Marine snow, the constant rain of mucus, poop, dead plankton, silt and other detritus from the shallows, carries more than 10 gigatons of carbon away from the surface every year, but only about 2 gigatons make it deep enough to be stored for centuries to millennia.

A new study published Oct 8 in Science says why so much is lost: viscosity.

What they found

Scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of Lincoln, led by Bryce Inman, discovered that the gooier, more viscous, a particle is, the better it transports carbon.

  • Bacteria get stuck on the outside: Less viscous areas near the surface of a particle are easy for bacteria to colonize. The more viscous interior is tough to penetrate. “Think of it like a worm in an apple: The flesh is easy to penetrate, but the core is tough to chew through,” Inman said.
  • Takes longer to break down: Lab experiments showed viscous snow resists bacterial degradation and fragmentation much longer.
  • Sinks deeper: Computer simulations showed that extra resistance time lets it sink further. The team estimates high- viscosity marine snow can shuttle more than six times as much carbon to the deep ocean as low-viscosity particles.

“How far marine snow can sink is a surprisingly complicated problem, and we have added another, very gooey, piece to the puzzle,” said Inman.

How they saw it

This is the first time anyone has watched live bacteria interacting with the physical structure of marine snow, or any mucus.

Starting in 2021, Inman spent 4 years trying to visualize what he calls “the mucoscape”.

In 2025 it worked: using 3D confocal microscopy plus specialized fluorescent molecules called molecular rotors, they mapped the “physical terrain”, bulges, crevasses, viscous pockets, of individual clumps at a scale smaller than bacteria.

The imaging method is detailed in a companion paper in Nature Communications. 

Why it matters beyond carbon

The findings help refine climate models for the ocean carbon sink, but Inman says the technique also matters for any system where bacteria live in mucus, coral reefs, kelp forests, plant roots, and animal and human digestive tracts.

An illustration depicting marine snow, a mucus-like substance carrying carbon from the ocean surface to the deep sea. The image shows the formation of marine snow from plankton, dead organic matter, and mucus aggregating into sticky particles, with arrows indicating the sinking motion, increasing depth, and temperature changes as it descends. Text explains the process of carbon sequestration in the deep ocean.
AI generated by Meta

Marine snow is exactly what it sounds like — it’s snowing in the ocean, 24/7.

What it is

Not frozen water. It’s a shower of tiny, fluffy clumps falling from the sunlit surface to the deep seafloor. The term was coined by divers seeing it like snowflakes in a headlamp beam.

Each flake is an aggregate, no two are the same:

  • Biological glue: transparent exopolymer particles (TEP), basically phytoplankton mucus and slime
  • Leftovers: dead phytoplankton and zooplankton, fecal pellets, shed exoskeletons
  • Mineral ballast: silt, calcium carbonate shells, silica
  • Living passengers: bacteria (orange in that image you saw), microalgae, protozoa hitching a ride

Size ranges from a few micrometers to centimeters. A big aggregate looks like a dirty snowball with mucus parachutes.

How it forms

  1. Phytoplankton bloom in the surface and excrete sticky sugars
  2. Stickiness makes everything collide and clump, think dust bunnies under the bed
  3. Bacteria colonize it immediately and start excreting enzymes to dissolve it
  4. If it survives long enough, it sinks, typically 10 to 100 and more meters per day, some much faster if ballasted

Why we care: the biological carbon pump

This is one of Earth’s main carbon sinks:

  • Surface phytoplankton fix CO2 into organic carbon
  • When they die or get eaten, that carbon is packaged into marine snow
  • As it sinks, it takes tons of carbon with it. Scientists estimate >10 gigatons per year leave the surface this way, but only ∼2 gigatons sink deep enough to be stored for 100s- 1000s of years

Everything else gets eaten or respired on the way down by bacteria and zooplankton, turning back into CO2 in the upper ocean.

That’s why this new Science paper matters — it shows viscosity is a regulator. The gooier interior acts like a hard apple core that bacteria can’t chew through easily, so gooey flakes resist degradation, sink deeper, and shuttle >6 times more carbon to the deep.

There’s also a recent twist from 2024- 2025 work: sometimes marine snow makes parachute- like mucus structures that actually slow sinking and keep it in the top 100m longer, giving microbes more time to break it down, stalling carbon storage.

So, it’s a tug- of- war at the microscale: ballast and gooeyness help it sink and store carbon; fragmentation, grazing by zooplankton, and slime parachutes keep it up and recycle carbon.

Without marine snow, the Earth would be much hotter. It’s essentially dead stuff at the bottom of the ocean slowing climate change, and it’s also the base food delivery service for most deep- sea life that never sees sunlight.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Marine snow viscosity regulates microbial degradation and the ocean carbon sink

Editor’s summary and Abstract in plain language

The paper asks: when marine snow sinks, will its carbon be released in the upper ocean or sequestered at depth? That depends on sinking speed vs degradation rate.

Using molecular rotors to measure the nanoscale viscosity field of natural aggregates, they show:

aggregates are highly structured microhabitats with less-viscous regions that are accessible for colonization and more- viscous regions that correlate to a barrier to bacterial infiltration

More- viscous aggregates take longer to degrade, sink farther, and contribute more to carbon sequestration, illustrating another way that the physical structure of marine snow can affect the global ocean carbon pump

So it’s not just size, ballast minerals, or density, viscosity itself is a microscale physical constraint on the pump.

What they actually measured

  1. Viscosity mapping: The companion Nature Communications paper describes the method, molecular rotors that fluoresce differently depending on local viscosity and 3D confocal microscopy. This let them see the “mucoscape” inside a single particle for the first time.
  2. Bacterial colonization is patchy: Bacteria latch onto low- viscosity zones near the surface easily but can’t infiltrate high- viscosity cores until they enzymatically break it down.
  3. Degradation rate = function of viscosity: Quantifying the “viscosity degradation rate”, they found high- viscosity snow resists fragmentation. In lab and modeling, that translates to deeper sinking and >6 times more carbon reaching deep water vs low- viscosity counterparts, the number Phys.org highlighted.

The paper frames marine snow not as a uniform clump of detritus, but as a structured habitat with accessible vs protected carbon, where gooeyness acts like a physical defense against microbial recycling in the upper 100- 200m.

Journal: Nature Communications, Science (2026)

DOI: 10.1126/science.adx4170, (Science)

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-75892-y, (Nature Communications)

Provided: University of California – San Diego

Authors: Bryce G. Inman, Stuart Humphries, and Farooq Azam

Abstract

Bacterial degradation of marine snow aggregates is a major component of global carbon cycling. Whether aggregate carbon is released in the upper ocean or is sequestered at depth depends on its sinking speed and degradation rate. However, little is known about the physical constraints of bacterial colonization and degradation of individual aggregates. Using molecular rotors to measure the nanoscale viscosity field of natural aggregates, we show that aggregates are highly structured microhabitats with less-viscous regions that are accessible for colonization and more-viscous regions that correlate to a barrier to bacterial infiltration. By quantifying the viscosity degradation rate, we demonstrate that more viscous aggregates take longer to degrade, sink farther, and contribute more to carbon sequestration, revealing a microscale physical constraint of the global ocean carbon pump.

Climate Change Is Not Causing New England’s ‘Creepy’ Bacteria and Bugs, Boston Globe

The Boston Globe posted an article titled “Climate change is bringing creepy — and dangerous — bacteria, bugs, and viruses to New England,” claiming that global warming is “fueling an increase in bacteria and disease” in New England. The headline and the attached story are highly misleading. For things like mosquito-borne illness, mosquitos carrying diseases previously thrived even in New England in previous centuries, with 20th century human intervention wiping them out, not temperature changes. Also, bacteria in waterways are a seasonal phenomenon which has always existed.

A soldier in armor holding a weapon stands in the foreground, looking determined, while a large alien-like creature looms behind, blending into a desert-like landscape.

From ClimateRealism

By Linnea Lueken

Close-up of a mosquito with black and white markings, positioned near a surface, possibly feeding.

The Boston Globe posted an article titled “Climate change is bringing creepy — and dangerous — bacteria, bugs, and viruses to New England,” claiming that global warming is “fueling an increase in bacteria and disease” in New England. The headline and the attached story are highly misleading. For things like mosquito-borne illness, mosquitos carrying diseases previously thrived even in New England in previous centuries, with 20th century human intervention wiping them out, not temperature changes. Also, bacteria in waterways are a seasonal phenomenon which has always existed.

The Globe writes that warming temperatures and heavier rainfall in New England are leading to “a hospitable environment across the region for waterborne bacteria, bugs that can transmit life-threatening viruses, and invasive species that threaten to destabilize ecosystems.”

The first focus of the article is on bacterial blooms in water. While it is true that bacteria grows better in warmer waters, this does not seem to be what is driving the proliferation of cyanobacteria in New England waters, but rather major problems with older sewer systems. The Boston Globe links to an article discussing this issue, which does make some gesture towards warming, but the main thrust of the focus is on sewage pollution. The Globe says that sewers and storm water drainage is the usual culprit for bacteria making beaches unsafe, explaining that “while newer systems separate sewage and storm water, some older cities still have so-called combined sewer overflows, which transport both of these flows in the same pipes.”

Records on the overflow issue only begin in 2002, so there is not a long history to lean on. The cited article claims that bacterial blooms have been getting worse since 2002, and they blame this on climate change causing more heavy precipitation events. Heavy rain can cause more overflows, this is true, but analysis from the National Centers for Environmental Information show that although there was a very modest increase in “extreme” rainfall events across Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine from the 1960s through the 1990s, when temperatures were cooler and emissions lower, since then New England states show no upward trend in such events and some states have even experienced a decline. So, more flooding from more rain can’t be causing more pollution and frequent overflows.

Graphs showing the observed number of 2-inch extreme precipitation events for Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine from 1900 to 2014.
From the National Centers for Environmental Information, red state names added by Linnea Lueken for easier identification.

The second focus of this recent Boston Globe article is the claim that climate change is “helping mosquito-borne viruses once limited to more tropical climes find a foothold in New England.”

Their explanation is that warmer temperatures let the mosquitos have a longer breeding season and aid in viral replication, and the aforementioned rainfall “leaves behind stagnant pools in which their larvae develop.”

This is a category of claim that Climate Realism has rebutted extensively in previous posts. In short, disease bearing mosquitos were common across the United States, including New England before the widespread use of DDT knocked their populations down from the 1950s through the 1970s. While it may be the case that more people have caught West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis in New England of late, this is not tied directly to increased temperatures. Rather, the spread of mosquitos is tied to human activity, such as the using less effective vector control methods, and the increased creation of micro-habitats for mosquitos with landscaped urbanization, and moving them via global transportation networks.

Studies on mosquito-borne illnesses show that the range of diseases is tied to human development, like in cities where nighttime temperatures stay elevated, and where a lot of standing water ends up in containers sitting around outside, and in drainage ditches, bird baths, fountains, stagnant or disused swimming pools, and other human structures.

Puzzlingly, The Boston Globe writes later in the article that Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus –two disease carrying mosquito species—are “making their way north.” But these two mosquitoes have long thrived in colder parts of the world like Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia.

Studies like this one from Nature Microbiology  show that temperature may be a necessary condition for mosquito populations to move and thrive, but it is not a sufficient condition. Mosquito populations move to suitable habitats, often carried in trading vessels and the crops, plants, and other goods they carry.

The Boston Globe also blames climate change for the spread of “kissing bugs” which cause Chagas disease, even while admitting that “other factors seem to be involved.” Those “other factors” that the article neglects to go into detail on include deforestation forcing the bugs into more contact with humans and the loss of their usual prey, as well as international trade carrying insects to new areas of the world regardless of habitat suitability.

Blaming these health threats on the modest warming of the past century is an example of missing the forest for the trees. Hyper-focusing on one element and ignoring the rest, especially factors that weigh far heavier, is the kind of mistake that can hamper the adoption of policies and individual actions that would do far more, far faster, to mitigate the problems or prevent the harms than misguidedly attempting to solve them indirectly be limiting fossil fuel use. The Boston Globe should know better, especially since they reported on many of more factors in previous stories.

New England Facing Energy Crisis, Worries About Bugs

For things like mosquito-borne illness, mosquitos carrying diseases previously thrived even in New England in previous centuries, with 20th century human intervention wiping them out, not temperature changes. Also, bacteria in waterways are a seasonal phenomenon which has always existed.

A large, alien insect-like creature with metallic features and glowing green eyes, set against a sandy desert landscape.

From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

A sci-fi movie poster featuring a large insect-like creature looming over two human figures running in a futuristic setting. The title 'INSECT' is prominently displayed at the bottom, with German text indicating a horror theme.

Linnea Lueken explains the false alarm in her Climate Realism article Climate Change Is Not Causing New England’s ‘Creepy’ Bacteria and Bugs, Boston Globe.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

The Boston Globe posted an article titled “Climate change is bringing creepy — and dangerous — bacteria, bugs, and viruses to New England,” claiming that global warming is “fueling an increase in bacteria and disease” in New England. The headline and the attached story are highly misleading. For things like mosquito-borne illness, mosquitos carrying diseases previously thrived even in New England in previous centuries, with 20th century human intervention wiping them out, not temperature changes. Also, bacteria in waterways are a seasonal phenomenon which has always existed.

The Real New England Crisis is Green Agenda Attack on Electricity Supply

Map showing New England with symbols indicating closed or retiring electricity generation resources and those at risk of retirement, along with annotations about the total megawatt capacity affected since 2013.
Source: granitegeek, Concord Monitor

Daniel Turner explains in his Real Clear Energy article The Green Agenda Turned New England Into an Energy Price Punchline.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Fall is here, the leaves are changing, the temperature is dropping and sadly New England families know the routine.

Every month, the electric bill arrives, and it’s larger than the month before. The region pays more for electricity than almost anyone else in America—higher than the national average and, outside of Alaska and Hawaii, higher than anywhere else in the country. This is not a coincidence. It is the inevitable result of politicians who pushed the risky and unreliable green agenda while forcing reliable power plants off the grid.

Map illustrating state average residential electricity rates in the United States for 2022, highlighting pricing with varying color codes.

Here’s an inconvenient history lesson. When Joe Biden took office, electricity in New England cost 20.7 cents per kilowatt-hour. By the time he left, it was more than 28.2 cents. That’s a staggering spike of more than 36% in just four years. Hundreds of dollars gone from family budgets and small businesses every single year. For working households already feeling the squeeze of Biden’s inflation, it can mean the difference between savings and debt, between heating a home and keeping it uncomfortably cold.

Pie chart illustrating energy sources in New England, with 48.1% from natural gas, 32.7% from nuclear, 7.2% from hydro, and 11.9% from renewables.
October 2022 generation in New England, by fuel source

And the blame is clear. The forced closure of coal, oil, and natural gas plants in the name of “climate progress” is why rates are climbing. In 2022, Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey traveled to Somerset to celebrate the shutdown of traditional energy plants. They smiled for the cameras, congratulated themselves on a “victory,” and then went back to Washington while families were left to pay the tab.

A cartoon depicting a man in athletic clothing jumping in surprise at a high electricity bill, with power lines in the background and the text 'NEW OLYMPIC SPORTS: Electricity Bill Jump' above.

First came the celebration, but now we see the deflection. Four Democratic senators, including Warren and Markey, recently wrote a letter to the Trump administration suddenly pretending to care about rising electricity bills. It is political theater and nothing more. They didn’t care when they cheered the closures in 2022, and they don’t care now. New England’s families are stuck with the consequences of the green agenda they applauded; they just want to escape the blame.

Map illustrating the Access Northeast Pipeline Project, highlighting locations that it serves, including major cities like Boston and Portland, and its role in providing fuel for electric generation in New England.
Project abandoned in 2017 after New York blocked planning and permit processes.

Let’s be clear: This cascade of closures started when Joe Biden was vice president and accelerated under his presidency. Nearly 400 fossil fuel plants have been shuttered across the country since 2010, including almost 300 coal plants. In the Northeast alone, names like Indian Point in New York, Eagle Point in New Jersey, Schiller Station in New Hampshire, and Canal Station in Massachusetts have been crossed off the map. Each closure meant fewer megawatts of reliable power and higher bills for families.

Map showing the pipeline route for the Northeast Energy Direct Project (NED) across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont, indicating new transmission lines and existing loops.
 Project abandoned in April 2016

The problem is not complicated. Shutting down affordable, always-on power and replacing it with expensive, intermittent sources like wind and solar leads to higher prices. Add the surge in demand from artificial intelligence data centers, which analysts say could double electricity consumption by 2030, and the consequences are obvious: higher costs, weaker reliability, and a grid at the breaking point.

There is a way out of this crisis, but it requires real action, not pointless blaming. My organization, Power The Future, lays out the steps in our recent report.

♦  First, use the Defense Production Act to treat grid reliability as the national security issue it is, and direct resources to keep critical plants online.
♦  Second, build new fossil fuel plants—modern natural gas and coal facilities that can deliver decades of dependable, affordable power.
♦  Third, halt premature closures until replacement capacity is running, not just promised on paper. And fourth, expand the capacity of existing coal plants, many of which are running below potential thanks to political limits, to quickly add thousands of megawatts back to the grid.

These are not radical ideas. They are common sense. They put working families, not political slogans, at the center of energy policy. They recognize that you cannot run a 21st-century economy on wishful thinking, photo-ops, and subsidies for technology that fails when the wind doesn’t blow, or the sun doesn’t shine.

Too many of New England’s “leaders” in Washington have turned their states into punchlines of America’s power prices. Working families deserve leaders who care more about their constituents’ bills than their standing with environmental activists. They deserve an energy policy grounded in reality, not ideology.

If you want to know who killed affordable power in New England, it wasn’t President Trump and it wasn’t the utility companies. All you need to do is just look at who popped the champagne when the plants closed.

A man speaking at a conference, gesturing while discussing energy policy. Quote displayed beside him reads: 'In the energy sector, we've essentially had policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy.' ---Gerard Holland, Page Research Center.

Surprise! We thought trees emitted methane, but instead they absorb it… (What else don’t we know?)

Methane is supposedly 80 times more powerful as CO2 over the short term, and we are already feeding our cows seaweed and dubious additives like Bovaer® to reduce it, and we’re trying to make steaks in labs, and create burgers out of crickets. But it turns out, the experts were wrong, yet again, and trees are absorbing more methane than they emit. So just like that, there is a major new sink to remove methane from the air, and it’s been there all the time.

wallup.net

From JoNova

By Jo Nova

Quick! Set up a trillion-dollar market and figure out the science later

We got it wrong for so long

Methane is supposedly 80 times more powerful as CO2 over the short term, and we are already feeding our cows seaweed and dubious additives like Bovaer® to reduce it, and we’re trying to make steaks in labs, and create burgers out of crickets. But it turns out, the experts were wrong, yet again, and trees are absorbing more methane than they emit. So just like that, there is a major new sink to remove methane from the air, and it’s been there all the time.

The funny thing is that for years everyone was measuring the air at the bottom of the tree trunk and finding methane emissions, but when Vincent Gauci et al measured 1 – 2 metres further up the tree, not only did the methane emissions shrink to nothing, but the gas also started to disappear from the air around the trunk. Apparently, bacteria under the bark were dining on the methane.

The team looked at trees in Brazil, Panama, United Kingdom and Sweden and estimate that all the worlds trees might already be absorbing as much as 50 million tons of methane, about as much as” is coming out of all the worlds landfill sites”, or roughly equivalent to half the worlds cows.

Scientists got this wrong, every way they could

Researchers used to think trees did nothing much with methane, but around 2006 some scientists were surprised to discover that trees emitted methane, especially in swampy areas.  In 2017 a paper showed wetland trees gave out a lot of methane, “like a chimney”:

““In the seasonally flooded part of the Amazon, the trees become a massive chimney for pumping out methane,” says one researcher.“

The bad news back then, was that most of the world’s estimated 3 trillion trees emitted methane at least some of the time. If it had have been Porches instead, we’d have heard all about it.

Since methane is supposedly responsible for a quarter of global warming, you’d think the science industrial complex would have been all over this so they could save the world. Apparently forest scientists even used to entertain students by setting fire to the gases hissing from the trunks in the Amazon, so it’s not like “nobody knew”. Everyone knew, but apparently no one really wanted to announce bad news about their forest friends and give the deniers ammunition to cut down a tree, so people didn’t want to look.

Among the first was Vincent Gauci, then at the UK’s Open University and now at Birmingham University. “When I was first working on this, it was poo-pooed,” he says. When Pangala, then also at The Open University, made her first measurements of trees emitting methane in the swamps of Borneo, she had the same experience. Despite finding that the trees increased standard estimates of emissions from the swamps sevenfold, “it took 18 months to get it published,” she says. “We were rejected by several journals. They just weren’t interested.” — e360Yale

So prejudice and politicized funding stopped humans from figuring what trees were really doing for ages.

The same Vincent Gauci went back and did the study higher up the trees only to find the exact opposite of what they expected and had read in peer reviewed papers:

Trees may be even bigger climate heroes than we thought

By Laura Allen, ScienceNewsExplores

Trees, too, were known to release methane, especially those growing in wet soils. These trees take up the gas from soil and emit it through their trunks.

Vincent Gauci studies methane emission from trees. He’s an environmental scientist at the University of Birmingham in England. Gauci knew trees in wet places, such as the tropics, give off methane from their trunks. Next, he wanted to study its release from trees in drier soils. He expected these upland trees would give off methane, though less than those at wetter sites. But that’s not what he found.

“We were surprised to see the exact opposite,” says Gauci. The trees were actually taking in methane. Think of how many trees there are on the planet, he notes. That could add up to a lot of methane being removed from the air.

Very little is known about these microbes, says Gauci. In fact, little is known about gas exchange in tree bark and branch surfaces. And those surfaces add up to a huge area. “If we were to unwrap all the trees and roll them flat, they would basically cover the entire Earth’s land surface,” he says.

This discovery may have doubled the amount of methane that the land absorbs (that we know about).

This research is important and eye-opening, says Kazuhiko Terazawa, a forest ecologist. He studies trees and methane at the Hokkaido Research Organization in Japan. The study’s estimates for how much methane trees might take up surprised him. If correct, he says, this means the land absorbs nearly twice as much methane as people had thought it did.

Not surprisingly, the methane was taken up a lot faster in the tropics than in colder places like England and Sweden. What took just a few minutes in Panama took 20 minutes in Europe. Naturally, bacteria work faster in the warmth. It follows then, though no one said as much, that in a warmer world, methane will be removed from the atmosphere even faster.

Using data from the four sites, the team estimated how much methane all the world’s forests may be absorbing. It might be as much as 50 million tons, they calculated. “It’s a sizable chunk,” says Gauci. That’s about as much methane as wafts from all the world’s landfills.

In preindustrial times some 50 million bison may have roamed North America emitting methane for thousands of years without reaching a “tipping point”, turning Earth into Venus or causing the sixth mass extinction.

From the press release: Trees act like a chimney…

POST NOTE: There is bound to be a benefit to the trees.

For all we know, the microbes that feed on methane probably help the trees in some way. Perhaps they defend the bark from fungus, or produce some nutrient trees need, or perhaps they help in moisture control. Who knows? In which case, the trees acting like chimney-pumps for methane are just feeding the good guys in the bark higher up the tree.

If I had to bet, I’d put money on the healthy tree biome stopping fungal rot of some sort, or perhaps producing some phytochemical trees need, like a pesticide that makes chewing bark less fun for beetles.

UPDATE: And lets not forget it was only this year that we realized 90% of the latest surge in methane comes from microbes around the world, not from us.

REFERENCES

Bark-dwelling methanotrophic bacteria decrease methane emissions from trees, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22333-7

Gauci, V., Pangala, S.R., Shenkin, A. et al. Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07592-w