system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:About those giant methane bubbles in the arctic that could cause a new mass extinction.

Why don't they just light it on fire and burn it all away? I mean obviously they can't or they would but I don't get why.
gpt
> Why don't they just light it on fire and burn it all away?

Because that would still throw tons of CO2 into the atmosphere which is just as bad. Methane is probably the worse greenhouse gas we could let escape into the atmosphere, but burning it all (which is a fuckton by the way) would still throw a colossal amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. 

Plus, even if you were to try and burn it all, some of the methane itself would escape in the process. Plus again, that would be a TREMENDOUS waste of a resource that we could *potentially* find a way to harness and use usefully.

Burning it all is just a bad, bad idea. If anything, burning it all might actually help to cause some sort of extinction sooner.