“Mm,” he said. “Western Antarctica is a roiling mass of ice and snow. This whole region is a giant glacier, slowly marching to the sea. There are hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of ice here.” “And we’re going to melt it?” “The sea will melt it for us, but yes. Thing is, Antarctica used to be a jungle. For millions of years it was as lush as Africa. But continental drift and natural climate change froze it over. All those plants died and decomposed. The gases from that decomposition—most notably methane—got trapped in the ice.” “And methane’s a pretty powerful greenhouse gas,” I
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