“Methane Is” by Ruth Hardinger

This is a guest piece by artist Ruth Hardinger on artist Aviva Rahmani’s Pushing Rocks blog.
“The global warming potential of CH4 has been upgraded by IPCC to at least 86 times stronger than CO2 during a 20 year time frame of this gas, and 105 times stronger over a 10 year time frame.  Methane, grouped with other near-term climate forcers such as black carbon, hydrofluorocarbon and aerosols, is the most likely greenhouse gas escalating the planetary heat now, because there is so much of it being released.  There have been few measurements of gas leakage from gas wells and pipelines.”
If you are wondering why artists are engaging with science and engineering at this level, and where the art is,
“In recent art installation exhibitions, Hardinger has used abstraction from the methane measurement work for The Basement Rocks and The Basement Rocks – LOUDER.  The materials and sensitivity of constructions encourage awareness of the underground.  These exhibitions are accompanied with “Grounding” a sound of the underground, by rock musician Andy Chase, and letters for the visitors to take that convey her conversations with scientist, Bryce Payne, PhD and professor Ron Bishop, PhD regarding damage that is happening to the underground, the place of the most biomass in our planet.”
The image is a rendering of fugitive emissions spatialised data overlayed on the landscape. Read full article here,
http://pushingrocks.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/methane-is-shale-gas-methane-emissions.html?m=1