Want To Fight Climate Change? Stop Cows From Burping 299
sciencehabit writes: A simple supplement to a cow's feed could substantially decrease a major source of methane, a planet-warming greenhouse gas, a new study suggests. Each year worldwide, the methane produced by cud-chewing livestock warms Earth's climate by the same amount as 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a little more than 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions related to human activity. That makes cows tempting targets for methane reduction efforts. In a new study, researchers added the chemical 3-nitrooxypropanol, also known as 3NOP, to the corn-and-alfalfa-based feed of 84 milk-producing Holsteins and monitored their methane production for 12 weeks—the largest and longest such trial of its type in lactating cows, the scientists say. For cows whose feed included 3NOP, methane emissions dropped, on average, by 30%.
Burping *is* for cows! (Score:4, Funny)
You are all cows! Cows burp. BUUUUUUUURP! BUUUUUUURP! Buurp cows BUUUUURP! Burp say the cows. YOU BURPING COWS!!
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For once it's actually on-topic and funny.
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For I have found my cow!
What did friday come late or early ? (Score:2)
I'll go for late seeing as this information is at least 30 years old if not older.
Re:What did friday come late or early ? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you look at the raw temp data for the U.S. we have been in a cooling trend for the past 115 years
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/da... [noaa.gov]
If you compare the adjustments to the trend the adjustments are actually bigger than the error bars and larger than the raw data's trend.
What is it we are supposed to be mitigating ?
Re: What did friday come late or early ? (Score:2)
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The temperature of the USA is largely irrelevant, as there's no significant long term land ice in the USA, nor permafrost except in Alaska.
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If you look at the raw temp data for the U.S. we have been in a cooling trend for the past 115 years
Of course the US covers less than 4% of the Earth's surface so that's a relatively meaningless statistic even if it were true.
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If you look at the raw temp data for the U.S. we have been in a cooling trend for the past 115 years
Of course the US covers less than 4% of the Earth's surface so that's a relatively meaningless statistic even if it were true.
OK, if we're so small and meaningless, then we'll just not take any mitigating measures and let the rest of the world deal with it.
So 30% of 4% is 1.2%. What is attractive here? (Score:3)
And if you take into account the problems of implementing this, then this becomes one of the most stupid ideas to reduce greenhouse emissions...
Re:So 30% of 4% is 1.2%. What is attractive here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because all the 1.2% savings that can be made add up to make a large difference. If we find eight ways to make 1.2% savings across different areas then that is nearly a 10% reduction in the human generation of greenhouse gases. The human race isn't limited to finding just one method to solve the climate change problem. If we make small savings across the board with cost-effective, manageable solutions then we don't have to solve the problem with a single grand gesture that ends up costing a lot of money.
And what are the problems that you envisage implementing this? The article says:
Larger tests will be needed to see if detrimental effects crop up over the long term
I find it interesting that you have already found out what the problems are before scientists have managed to do any studies.
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Because all the 1.2% savings that can be made add up to make a large difference. If we find eight ways to make 1.2% savings across different areas then that is nearly a 10% reduction in the human generation of greenhouse gases. The human race isn't limited to finding just one method to solve the climate change problem. If we make small savings across the board with cost-effective, manageable solutions then we don't have to solve the problem with a single grand gesture that ends up costing a lot of money.
What, you mean behaving reasonably might work better than just demonizing political opponents? You may be on to something there.
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What, you mean behaving reasonably might work better than just demonizing political opponents? You may be on to something there.
Judging by the way that the OP responded to my post [slashdot.org], I think that we still have a long way to go before the demonising is done. Not only did he or she demonise the farmers by saying that they wouldn't voluntarily do anything to help in reducing greenhouse gases, but also I managed to get a serve because I didn't magically know that this was the vague "problems of implementing" the addition of a chemical into the cows' feed.
But seriously, I think that there is plenty of work going on behind the scenes to fin
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The demonising is all yours. I did not say anything about the will of the farmers to help at all.
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Then what is this about:
I am saying getting farmers to implement this will be problematic.
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Lets say, just hypothetically, that this is implemented at a federal government level. Further, lets take as a given that this supplement makes cows healthier, happier and cheaper to feed. Additionally, lets assume that we want this enough to subsidize this for farmers to the point that they're actually paid slightly to implement it. I'd call this set of givens the ideal situation.
Even if we had such an ideal situation, there will be a lot of ranchers and farmers who don't trust the government's plan (my f
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The scientists are looking for potential negative effects. I am saying getting farmers to implement this will be problematic. If you cannot distinguish the two, then you have no business commenting.
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And yet making unsubstantial allegations and spreading FUD is exactly what we need around here. If you can't make a statement without explaining yourself then you have even less business commenting here than I have.
Believe it or not, farmers are concerned with climate change because it directly affects them. Here in Australia, our farmers often cooperate with the CSIRO (and other institutions) to study various aspects of climate change and methods to combat it. Also, any government that wants to make a chea
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Getting a change of this nature implemented globally is exceptionally difficult and may well be impossible. If you believe anything else, then you are boundless naive.
Re:So 30% of 4% is 1.2%. What is attractive here? (Score:5, Interesting)
This chemical makes the feed more effective, and more of the nutrients gets digested by the cows. Why would farmers not want a more effective feed? How is that naive?
All the complaints here are predicated on the idea that this will cost a lot of money and that farmers will not be willing to pay for it so the it will have to be mandated by a government decree. Nobody has provided any evidence of these claims.
The scientists say that more studies need to be done on this subject, and that they still don't have all the answers. I don't claim to have all the answers. But the people who are against the idea seem to have all the answers; enough to judge this idea as unworkable and call anyone who wants them to justify their claims as naive, irrational, thoughtless and have no business commenting.
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That's a very cynical attitude. There are programs that extract the methane from the waste products of farm animals, but there isn't an easy way to capture a burp. Therefore the focus is on reducing the output rather than harvesting tiny gas emissions.
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This chemical makes the feed more effective, and more of the nutrients gets digested by the cows.
If that's true, then the bovine nutritionists at the dairies will already be considering it. They take efficient feeding very seriously.
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Farmers also operate on a thin budget, so if it increases their expenses they're likely to give it a pass, even if they approve of the idea.
OTOH, if this is cheap and easy to add, then it may be successful. Depending. How many farmers still grow their own feed? How many buy commercial feed? (OTOH, why are dairy cattle being fed corn? That's generally a bad idea. It's usually reserved for beef cattle being held in feed lots to put on fat.)
That said, my grandfather often added molasses to the alfalfa he
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Farmers are easily convinced to do anything with tax incentives. They already get paid to take their land out of production when necessary.
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Nobody but you mentioned governments forcing farmers to do anything
LOL sure, and the use of government force never happens on these issues.
Pull the other one.
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Governments have done a lot of things over the years, but that is not what we are talking about. You made a specific claim about me:
You realize you are trying to discuss rationally the administrative problems of a policy with people who have no trouble with the idea of setting up an Orwellian police state to enforce those policies, and with no real concern about the ostensible goal.
I have not argued for or against an Orwellian state. You made that up. And you pretended that you were being rational while you did it. You were not making an argument, you were simply being abusive.
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Nobody but you mentioned governments forcing farmers to do anything.
It's not a huge stretch to expect that something new gets forced on farmers when a lot of stuff already gets forced on them.
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Because all the 1.2% savings that can be made add up to make a large difference.
That appears to be the theoretical maximum. But like the OP says, if you think about what it would take to implement this, which you clearly didn't, you would have realized that likely a much lower outcome even with great expense. The answer to reducing global warming gasses is not 'do everything', particularly in the near term, because we can't afford to 'do everything'. The smart approach is do what makes sense
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But like the OP says, if you think about what it would take to implement this, which you clearly didn't, you would have realized that likely a much lower outcome even with great expense.
Since you have obviously put the thought into this topic, exactly how much is it going to cost to implement this? How does it compare to the costs to get the same savings from other sources? You say that the smart approach is what makes sense, but why is this not the smart approach?
If the conclusion of this study was that some feed energy not lost as methane was used by the cows to retain body weight that would have otherwise been lost in early lactation, isn't this a win/win solution for the farmers? They
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You'll have to fend off legal action from those that oppose it, including the 'organic' food crowd.
Then you have to deal with the little problem that a huge number of cows are range fed, no
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I think that you are getting fixated on the exact numbers here. Yes, it might not add up to 1.2%, it might be less. If the calculated figure had been 0.7% I would have simply said that it would take 14 projects of a similar savings to make an overall 10% reduction. Any savings that it produces will still contribute to the overall reduction in greenhouse gas emission.
But does that make it cost effective? Since nobody knows what this will cost (or indeed if it will actually save money), then it is far too ear
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Well said. Posting to undo wrong moderation.
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So we should stop trying then? There is nothing yet to suggest that this idea will cost the government oodles of money nor a lot of regulation. As I have said, if a company offers farmers a more efficient feed and it happens to reduce the methane output of the cows then this will naturally happen without government intervention.
Other initiatives will require the government to get involved. Tough. If we the public are not going to take responsibility for our impact on the environment then i guess someone has
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No, that is not the whole contention on the subject. This subject is simply about reducing the methane output of cows. The whole argument of saying that it is a bad thing because of the guvment is just off-topic nonsense. And now you are going further off topic by saying that it is all one giant conspiracy; that the scientists are making alarm noises and saying that we must change the economic system.
But look at the article. Do you see anyone saying that we need to change the economic system? No, they simpl
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It's a good thing then that we have free thinkers like you to tell us that all the scientists in the world have joined up in the biggest conspiracy in the history of mankind, that vaccines cause autism, that the halocaust was a lie, that aliens landed at Roswell, that all of Shakespeare's works were actually written by another person who was also named Shakespeare, that we didn't land on the moon, and there really was cake.
Keep the faith!
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And if you take into account the problems of implementing this, then this becomes one of the most stupid ideas to reduce greenhouse emissions...
Actually, on stupidity, I like the theory - or ”research“ result that a mini- or little ice age is around the corner, so actually nothing to worry about, all is fine, much better.
One wonders how much money changed hands on that one.
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One wonders how much money changed hands on that one.
I would say none. The actual study said that the we were coming in a period of exceptionally low sunspot activity (a Maunder Minimum), as was last seen during the mini ice age. It did not claim that this would cause the mini ice age (in fact it happened long after the period started), nor did it say that it would cause one now.
But all they needed to do was mention the two events in the one document and it was enough for the media to go into overdrive reporting that another ice age was coming. I'm sure that
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1.2% is far greater than the total emissions of my state but that doesn't stop politicians from trying to tax carbon emissions.
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Except fascism and communism don't generate better outcomes. They just lead to more corruption and less effective outcomes.
This is why American had guns and butter and the Soviets just had guns.
Cue the smug vegetarians (Score:3)
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If we all went vegetarian and killed off the domesticated cattle, then we'd make a huge difference! Kill a cow today!
I will do my pat by eating a large steak tonight.
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If we all went vegetarian and killed off the domesticated cattle, then we'd make a huge difference! Kill a cow today!
Well, to look at it from a different perspective, it's the vegetarians who are the problem. The vegans don't consume animal products, but most vegetarians consume large amounts of dairy -- milk, cheese, etc. -- as sources for protein and various nutrients.
So, the vegetarians of the world are forcing us to keep a bunch of cows alive to support them, cows that are belching out their greenhouse gases daily. Meanwhile, the meat-eaters are doing their part against global warming by killing cows every day for
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Even if I were a normal healthy person, all veganism would get me is a nutritional deficiency.
Although I'm with the guy that rightly pointed out that these cows would still be a problem if we left things "au naturel" since bison covered the states that now grow corn for cattle feed.
The vegans are advocating genocide of one form or another.
Moooo (Score:2)
I for one am eating them as fast as I can, but think going after power stations, industry and transportation fuels is gonna be more effective.
As far as mitigation goes, increasing forest biomass is good. As far as managing what we've already got, the key factor is chaos theory, which I strongly recommend reading up on: it's fascinating.
Basically we're gonna get progressively more insane weather events because climate's a chaotic system. It's never just 'everything smoothly gets five degrees hotter', instead
But ... but ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... this measure doesn't involve:
So how is that any fun, I ask you?!?
What is the result? (Score:2)
For cows whose feed included 3NOP, methane emissions dropped, on average, by 30%.
And what will that reduction mean in terms of temperature reduction? Is the answer zero?
Being that there seems to be no serious messages (Score:4, Interesting)
Global warming is a complex issue, with many factors and no easy answer. Because of this complexity it makes it easy for someone to just not believe it is true, because the complexity it too much for any one person to handle. It is more complex than switching to solar panels, and electric cars, and stopping cows from having gas.
Fixing these issues requires changing culture, which is hard, and will create a lot of people resistant to changes, they will hire a lot of people to make their point across, to convince others.
We have a lot of science, and we need more... However I think one thing is needed isn't finding a silver bullet, is to counter the destructive marketing with more counter marketing. Many of the colleges and universities who are doing a lot of science on the topic, also have business schools and programs. Get a handful of those MBA and Public relation majors onto your grant, to help spread the information to help change the culture.
I have seen major cultural changes happen due to effective marketing. From 2004 - 2015 where there was talk to make a constitutional amendment to ban Gay marriages, to it being legal in all states. The rise of smart phones and mobile connectivity...
Marking isn't always bad and trying to sell you products, it is also used to explain ideas. They are actually a lot of MBA students who are not about being money grubbing capitalists, but are about trying to make the world better. (MBA with considerations in not-for-profit is a popular track). These grant for science, should also be allocated to students who are trained to sell the ideas to the general population.
Showing a graph doesn't have impact on those who don't know how to read graphs.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here (Score:2)
But aren't the cows just returning carbon that the plants had recently sequestered back into the atmosphere? It's not as though the cows are digging up coal and eating it.
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong here (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, Well That's Easy (Score:2)
30% of 4% is 1.2% (Score:2, Insightful)
30% of 4% is 1.2%. 1.2% is not worth writing a story about.
Bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
1st. Cow burps are only relevant to the extent that cow burps are fueled by sequestered carbon... if you're feeding them with grain that is produced with petro chemical fertilizers then an argument can be made there. However, if the cattle are not getting their food from those sources then whatever the cattle are doing is not relevant.
2nd. Methane has a short life in the atmosphere... really CO2's life is over estimated but methane's is quite a bit shorter.
3rd. Which meat are we going to shift to instead? A
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You are quite right. That was a lot of bullshit!
It does indeed matter what cows are doing. While methane is short lived in the atmosphere, it has 34 times more effect on the temperature than CO2. Fortunately the entire point of this study is to reduce the methane produced by cows so that we can still eat our lovely meat. They are not trying to turn you into a vegetarian. If you can smell an anti meat progressive lobby then you must have trod in it before you came in.
Keep moving on.
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34?... I saw the other guy citing 20... which of you is wrong?
As to methane being 34 times more effective... that is by mole.
given that methane is an absurdly tiny trace gas what you're saying is 34 times 0 is important... I disagree.
34 times 0 is 0. There's so little in the atmosphere that 34 times potency is meaningless.
The entire issue is stupid. At best this is a whine for government funding for some make work project... possibly the politicians will look at this and think they can get some cheap green
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34?... I saw the other guy citing 20... which of you is wrong?
Who cares? You are more wrong than either of us. At first I thought that you might have been trying to be funny with your original post. It turns out I was being optimistic. If the messages that you managed to read from the article was that they were trying to convert you to vegetarianism AND whine to the government for funds, then I think that it is probably good that you are moving on.
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So you don't care if you're off by a 1/3rd?
Okay... we'll just continue from there.
wikipedia says: 1800 parts per billion is the atmospheric concentration.
So that is 0.00018% of the atmosphere.
Can you please give me a fucking break with this bullshit.
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The problem is that it isn't evenly spread throughout the entire atmosphere as it rises to the top layer, so your figure is misleading. And for someone who values accuracy and correctness, doesn't it seem strange that the people who study this all their lives are worried about methane while you with your reading of the Wikipedia page know enough to say that they are all wrong? With your history of getting the wrong message from reading articles, you should be concerned.
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... okay... more of this apparently...
http://www.democraticundergrou... [democratic...ground.com]
As you can see from the second graph mean concentrations by altitude... its actually not that different. It is more concentrated in the northern hemisphere than the southern... but so what...
As to the political argument you're now making of "shouldn't you be concerned if X is concerned?"...
Lets extend that question to other things. Lets say a military figure says "I'm worried about the Iranian nuclear weapons program"... does that mean y
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I applaud you for having the courage of your convictions. I'm afraid the thing that is encouraging me to reduce my meat intake is the awareness that my arteries contain more cholesterol than blood.
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Eat what you like. If you want to be tired and suffer from malnutrition that is your own business.
I am a homo sapien. I am an opportunistic omnivore. I need a varied diet to remain healthy. A cow can sit there and eat grass all day and he's happy. Some bird can eat nuts all day and he's happy... wolves or sharks etc can eat nothing but meat and be happy.
I can't do that. I have to eat a little of everything.
And I will. You are welcome to do what you want. But don't come between the thinking ape and his meat.
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Actually it is relevant because it doesn't build up in the atmosphere.
Methane totally degrades in the atmosphere in under 12 years and half of it is gone in 7.
it is also a very very very very very very very very very very very minor trace gas in our atmosphere.
20 times 0 is 0. And that's basically how much methane we have in our atmosphere.
Don't just look at some biased numbered by the smelly dread lock crew... actually put the numbers into perspective.
20 times more powerful than CO2?... so what? there's ba
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Hmph. Not worth discussing anything anymore on this site.
Posts are politically loaded and mods seem the same. Anyone want to buy a 4 digit UID?
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My posts are no more loaded than yours... and as to the mods... who gives a flying fuck what they think? I'm always baffled by the people that care about mod points.
I tell people to go fuck themselves with a rake in one post and get modded down because the special snowflakes don't like it when people are meanies. And then I get modded up in another post where I talk about something no one finds controversial.
Net result... excellent karma rating.
I don't care. Its so fucking easy to get an excellent rating. A
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"My posts are no more loaded than yours"
That was my first post on the site in weeks and it contained nothing but facts and links to reputable sources.
You're the one who referred to the EPA as a "dread lock crew." It's an argument which would give you an F in grade 9 science class. Mods like it though.
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The EPA is a political organization every bit as much as the US State Department. Every branch and department of the US government is subject to politics. Suggesting otherwise is naive.
What is more, I wasn't referring to the EPA specifically as the dread lock crew but rather the people attempting to gin up alarmism on the issue of methane.
To conflate a given position an organization might make with anything the organization might say is not valid.
A reputable newspaper can have a writer that is an idiot post
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no... it's valid. A lot of these people basically just want other people to give them money and power... because "reasons".
What I find depressing is that their reasons are so often stupid and I don't understand why so many people fall for it.
Do some fucking research you fucking ignorant peasants.
Methane? Give me a fucking break... literally... the people making this argument should drop and make a face like a donut.
Do grassfed cows produce as much methane? (Score:2)
Do cows fed on the diet they evolved over 1000s of years to eat, namely grasses and similar plant species, produce as much methane as cows fed on GMO cereal grains and such do?
Oh wait, if you fed cows what evolution designed them to eat, you couldn't sell $1 hamburgers at the golden arches...
CO2: Cows v. Electricity Generation (Score:2)
Based on a range from 1.6 to 3.5 gigatons: 1.3b cows * [50|110kgCH4] * 25kg CO2 GHG effect (beef = 50kg, dairy = 110kg)
because china's industry is so clean (Score:2)
the global economy
non-nitrooxypropanol cows sold here (Score:2)
In related news ... (Score:2)
Obligatory XKCD (Score:3)
Why cows matter: https://xkcd.com/1338/ [xkcd.com]
I for one welcome 3-nitrooxypropanol laced beef! (Score:2)
I have been lately very concerned that, even between all the pesticides, hormones and antibiotics, I am not getting enough foreign chemicals in my burgers. Maybe this one will finally do the trick and help me mutate into green and 2-headed superior species!
No. The impact is negligible. (Score:2)
Methane may be a powerful greenhouse gas, but it doesn't last very long in the atmosphere. Within 10 years most of the methane emitted is gone (typically due to chemical reactions in the upper atmosphere). Carbon dioxide emissions, on the other hand, elevate atmospheric CO2 concentrations for hundreds of years.
So reduce the methane emissions permanently and you reduce the total greenhouse gas levels by a tiny amount: in 30 years, the effect will be the same as it will be in 5-10 years. Reduce CO2 emissio
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Except that cows give milk from their *udders*. Otherwise, nice job.
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If our war on any other imaginary enemy is any indicator, by eliminating freedom.
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Uh, sure. The thing is that we're actually talking about Bovineogenic Climate Change.
I would try making my point in more sensible terms, except you are either:
a) Denying the existence of greenhouse gasses. We know that there are greenhouse gasses since the Earth would be much colder otherwise. This is basic math that can be performed by a high school student.
or
b) Denying that human activity produces these gasses. Since we know that human activity produces greenhouse gasses, it is hard to deny.
The only r
Wrong, and wrong [Re: How do you...] (Score:5, Informative)
Don't climate "scientists" have a personal bias invested in a certain outcome?
No. That's the argument made over and over again, but it isn't actually the way science works. In the long run, scientists gain kudos by getting the right answer. Despite the arguments of deniers, scientists aren't idiots.
And in the scientific community, the standard is: the more sensational the claim, the more evidence is required. And climate "science" has made some pretty sensational claims
Again, wrong. In some ways, the problem with actual climate science (not what's in the press, real science) is that the effect isn't sensational. The climate scientists are claiming that anthropogenic carbon dioxide has warmed the planet by on the order of one degree-- far too little for anybody to actually personally notice, although well measurable on a statistical basis. That's only a few percent of the natural greenhouse warming (which is well understood, and not at all controversial, even though it's exactly the same physics).
The reason that denial is so easy is that the effect is so small. Over the long term, of course, it does built up-- but that's brings in the argument "why should we do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for us?" [brainyquote.com]
that have a history if not coming true.
Again, wrong. I've been tracking the predictions to data for several years now, and climate modelling still seems to be pretty good; tracking to well within statistical error. The only people who say it isn't are saying so by cherry-picking data that isn't statistically significant.
But we knew that: if the greenhouse effect didn't exist, the Earth would be a frozen snowball.
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Don't climate "scientists" have a personal bias invested in a certain outcome?
Even if there weren't anthropogenic global warming there would still be a climate to study. It would still be a subject of considerable interest to us so climate scientists would have plenty of work to do understanding it.
As Geoffry Landis point out the effects of AGW are small on the time scales most humans are aware of. It's a slow motion disaster that's easy to ignore until the effect build up and you wake up one day and ask "Wha' happened?" By then it's too late to fix it except on the slow motion ti
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...In order to contribute to that, please go kill yourself Cow.
ftfy
Re: How do you... (Score:2)
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Bison once roamed over vast stretches of the country now occupied by farms and cities. Make up your mind, people: is man killing off all the large animals or promoting too many animals?
One small step... [Re:How do you...] (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole idea that cow burps could produce enough carbon to destroy the planet is why so many people deny even the possibility that emitting industrial quantities of carbon can change the climate. It just makes the whole issue sound ridiculous. Methane may be 20 times as powerful a greenhouse gas as CO2, but because of its reactivity it does not persist in the atmosphere in the same way.
There's some insight in that comment-- compared to the 40 trillion kilograms of carbon dioxide [livescience.com] emitted into the atmosphere by combustion of coal, the amount of warming by cows is small. However, although it is smaller effect, it is not negligible contributes. According to the original article [sciencemag.org]:
Each year worldwide, the methane produced by cud-chewing livestock warms Earth’s climate by the same amount as 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a little more than 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions related t
Re:One small step... [Re:How do you...] (Score:5, Interesting)
What bothers me, however, is that the article is talking about burps, while the problem is cow emissions. Not all cow methane emissions are burps.
The majority of the methane a cow produces is burped up rather than coming out the other end. That is from the microbial fermentation that takes place in the cows rumen. [wikipedia.org]
The uppermost area of the rumen, the headspace, is filled with gases (such as methane, carbon dioxide, and, to a much lower degree, hydrogen) released from fermentation and anaerobic respiration of food. These gases are regularly expelled from the reticulorumen through the mouth, in a process called eructation.
I'm not particularly concerned about the methane released by cows and other ruminants because that is carbon from plants they eat that originally drew it from the air in the first place. So it doesn't add to the total carbon in the active carbon cycle like burning fossil fuels does which is the real problem. If all we were getting was some increased methane from raising more livestock it would be a minor problem that would hardly be worth worrying about if CO2 levels were still around 280 ppm. Far more concerning to me is the methane being released from organic matter in the permafrost and methane ices under the sea that's been sequestered from the active carbon cycle for a long time.
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The way we raise cows is an issue but fixing the problem of methane released by ruminants will not fix the problem of AGW. It will just make a slight reduction in the warming.
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You seem to be humor-impaired. Or maybe functionally illiterate. It is really implausible that you have missed the first half of that sentence.
Re: And also, you know; cars, jets, freight liners (Score:2)
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Just an excuse to keep feeding cows an unnatural diet of corn.
Mod parent up. (Score:2)
Excellent video.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's the link. [youtube.com]