Yes, I know it’s not technically just methane, but methane is its primary constituent.
“Fossil gas” is also probably a suitable term, but I like “fossil methane” because it gets that spooky chemical name benefit.
Yes, I know it’s not technically just methane, but methane is its primary constituent.
“Fossil gas” is also probably a suitable term, but I like “fossil methane” because it gets that spooky chemical name benefit.
But the thing is nobody is calling cow farts “natural gas”; they call them “methane”. Even the wikipedia page for “natural gas” refers solely to the fossil fuel we get out of the ground:
I think the key distinction is that “natural gas”, as a term, only actually refers to the fossil fuel. That is, “natural gas” != “methane”.
The meme is about stopping saying “natural gas” — i.e., the fossil fuel, not other non-fossil sources of methane — and instead calling it “fossil methane”. Given we already call cow farts methane and landfill emissions methane, calling the fossil fuel form of methane “fossil methane” seems fitting to me. That way we have overall methane, then we can specify source by saying “fossil methane” or “landfill methane” or “agricultural methane” and so forth.