How much Dino-Gas is a too much Dino-Gas?

This morning I read an article that accused the potty humor industry of going prehistoric when David Wilkinson’s report on the effect that dinosaur burps and farts had on the greenhouse nature of their environment millions of years ago was reviewed. Well, not being one to miss out on an opportunity, I have looked just the slightest into this arena and have the following comments to report.

Look here for the original: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/something-in-the-prehistoric-air-that-helped-keep-it-warm-_-methane-from-dinosaur-digestion/2012/05/07/gIQAJX8W8T_story.html

As an aside before we get into the gas released from the burping dinosaurs, I’m would like to state that I’m sure we are all tickled that volcanoes aren’t spewing anyway near the amount of greenhouse gases as they were back in the dino-day.

Chiefly, the article compared the dinosaur volume to be “similar to total atmospheric levels of methane today produced by livestock, farming and industry” and then went so far as to blame our bovine neighbors for the annual production of  “nearly 100 tons a year of methane.”

So, let’s be clear here. Was this the total of “570 million tons of methane” attributed to the dino-era, the yearly dinosaur output of burp-fart gas? It seems a little bit misleading the way the article reads. But, let’s just go with that number as the yearly oops factor of the walking around dinosaurs. The article also lays the heaviest blame on the sauropods—the big guys of the dinosaur lot. To be sure, there was many more dinosaurs walking, burping, and farting around the greenhouse than just the good ole sauropods—let’s just be fare here and spread the blame around, so to say.

 

By the way, just who’s job was it to measure the effect of dinosaur gas back then? Just where exactly was Fred Flintstone? How about Mr. Slate—doesn’t he share some complicity here? Maybe Fred’s crane operator position placed him in such a position that he was laughingly-gassed into never-never land and couldn’t get a gauge on the problem.

 

I will grant you that the average dinosaur doesn’t begin to match the size of an Exxon refinery over in the Beaumont area—they don’t even compare. But, having given away the farm here; there were many, many more dinosaurs running around loose, even in the Beaumont area.

The dinosaurs are believed to have inhabited the earth from the span of 200 million to 65 million years ago.  Now I’m just speculating here, but just maybe with all the platonic shifts that has taken place over the millions of years since the dinosaurs disappeared and the strong possibility, let’s just speculate here again, that half the dinosaurs died with a full belly; there’s a whamo lot of dinoburp and dinofart that has been stored underground all this time that just might now being frack’d up as fossil fuel. After all, what makes a better fossil than a dinosaur and is there anything possibly more disgustingly odoriferous that a 65+ million year old dinosaur burp or fart?

I ask you, is there?