Greenhouse gas emissions are on the minds of almost everyone at some point in the day, environmentalists and politicians in particular. Gas emissions were once merely a hot political debate. Now that many politicians have come around to realizing that gas emissions are an issue, the question has been, "What can we do about it?" Now the hot topic is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This, of course, means restrictions on corporate waste dumping and that sort of thing, which leads to discussions about where methane emissions, for instance, come from. Not to mention how many emissions can be somewhat safely allowed, since we're obviously not going to put things back exactly the way they were.

The first question that is especially relevant today concerning gas emissions is where do they actually come from? Reducing greenhouse emissions won't be possible until we actually learn what, specifically, we are doing to case them in the first place. Take methane emissions, for instance. To put it simply, methane is produced by the breakdown of organic waste matter-such as the fermentation of feces or the rotting of flesh. It is also present in natural gas fields, from which it is mined for use in fuels. And yes, it is also produced in great quantities by the belching of cattle. But there are other greenhouse gases as well.

The production carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a natural part of living on planet earth. The point is not to eliminate them, after all, we create a greenhouse gas each time we breathe. The problem is that we create to many greenhouse gases. The plants and trees are the natural air cleaners that they earth uses to make our air breathable. When the amount of pollution becomes so great that the plants and trees can't keep up, that's when we have problems.

But gas emissions come from such varied places, that there may be other things we can do. For instance, methane is also made by producing and transporting coal, natural gas and oil. Additional carbon dioxide is produced when wood, solid waste and fossil fuels are burned. Besides carbon dioxide and methane, there are other natural greenhouse gases filling our atmosphere: water vapor, nitrous oxide. However, there are some powerful greenhouse gases that are not naturally occurring. Those include sulfur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and chlorofluorocarbons.

As we begin to see physical evidence of the global warming that is a result of methane gas emissions and other greenhouse gases, people are finally starting to take positive steps. Education has been the biggest problem, and the willingness of public figures to use their influence to get the word out has played a key role in this shift. Most people just don't understand how important it is to continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It's not that they don't care, it's just that they have so many problems in their day to day lives already that they don't see how driving their car to the supermarket is causing anyone any harm.