Saving the planet may be as simple as saving your breath. Literally.According to experts at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh, humans account for as much 0.1% of the country’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and as much as 1% of its methane and nitrous oxide.And that’s just from breathing, excluding secondary flatus emissions from burping and farting. That’s on top of the carbon dioxide all humans exhale naturally.“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,” as per the research team..Dr. Nicholas Cowan led the study of 104 adult volunteers and collected nearly 400 samples. While it found that every participant exhaled nitrous oxide, 31% also exhaled methane irrespective of factors such as diet — vegetarians and vegans expelled just as much atmospheric gases as meat eaters.Although significant changes in diet would have little impact on those numbers, the report notes that domestic livestock and wild animals also make significant but undocumented contributions to greenhouse gas.“Based on these results, we can state, 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,” it said.There also didn’t seem to be much difference between smokers and non-smokers.The percentage of methane producers was higher in older age groups, with 25% of people under the age of 30 classified as emitters compared to 40% in the 30+ age group. Females (38%) were more likely to give off quantities of the gas than males (25%), though overall concentrations emitted from both groups were similar. .When humans inhale, air enters the lungs and oxygen moves to the blood while waste CO2 moves from the blood to the lungs and is breathed out. Every person breathes out CO2 when they exhale, but the study focused on methane and nitrous oxide. Both are powerful greenhouse gases, but because they are breathed out in much smaller quantities their contribution to global warming may have been overlooked, the study said.The peer-reviewed study was published in the journal PLOS One earlier this week.The conclusion? In the paper Cowan said the evidence of planet-killing breathing is pretty clear and shouldn't be taken lightly. "We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible," he said.
