The Very Hungry Microbes That Could, Just Maybe, Cool the Planet | They feast on bubbles of methane seeping out of the ocean floor. Could their appetites be harnessed to slow climate change?

5 comments

1. Mostly reminds me of [this article about how zany ideas mostly are an indicator that we’re no the wrong track](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-09-16/climate-change-zany-ideas-show-how-far-off-track-we-are)

2. But what will the explosive populations of this microbe do? It feels like all of these solutions forget the whole entropy of the system, various K factors, web of life etc etc.

3. The most important part I got from it.

   >“Globally, all of the methanotrophs on the planet are consuming many times the amount of methane that humans are releasing into the atmosphere,” said James Henriksen, an environmental microbiologist at Colorado State University.

   >That means Earth today would probably be even hotter without these creatures. It also means that if these microbes could be made to work a little harder, they might cool the planet

   …though at the rate methane is increasing, I think “cool the planet” would be better replaced by “slow the rate of warming.”

4. Great stuff. Soooo fascinating

5. Careful here. Some solutions are problems not as yet seen. Just ask an Australian rabbit

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