iStockphoto
The burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, overfishing, and agriculture have all been pinpointed as some of the causes of global warming.
We have known about those for years, but now there is a new threat: humans breathing.
According to a new global warming study published in the journal PLOS One, “Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming. These emissions from humans are not well understood and are rarely quantified in global greenhouse gas inventories.”
The study, led by Dr. Nicholas Cowan of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh, discovered that out of 104 adult volunteers, 31 percent of them exhaled methane and all of them exhaled nitrous oxide.
The researchers also stated that even those who did not exhale methane still probably released a gas called “ion flatus” when they burp and fart.
“We report only emissions in breath in this study, and flatus emissions are likely to increase these values significantly, though no literature characterizes these emissions for people in the UK,” the study stated.
“Assuming that livestock and other wild animals also exhale emissions of N2O, there may still be a small but significant unaccounted-for source of N2O emissions in the UK, which could account for more than 1% of national-scale emissions.”
Fortunately for all those meat-eaters out there, the global warming study did not find any correlation between the release of these gases and a person’s diet.
“Concentration enhancement of both CH4 and N2O in the breath of vegetarians and meat consumers are similar in magnitude,” the researchers wrote.
“Based on these results, we can state that, when estimating emissions from a population within the UK, diet or future diet changes are unlikely to be important when estimating emissions across the UK as a whole.”