Photo by Urs Wachter
Say “boo” to cow gas
Ecological danger: burping (and farting) cows! Cows are responsible for 75% of methane emissions. In other words: three cows emit as much greenhouse gas as the average car.
Stephen Moore, professor at the University of Alberta (Canada), has investigated the genetics behind the production of gas in a cow’s four(!) stomachs. By selective cross breeding professor Moore has managed to develop a special kind of cow, which produces less methane than the average cow.
The fact that a scientist is devoting years of study on how to minimise cows’ burps and farts forces me to question: wouldn’t it be better for people to simply eat less meat and stop breeding the excessive number of cows currently on the planet? Rather than trying to maintain our meat eating habits and try to make the cow produce less methane? Surely this line of thinking is back to front.
Well, we have to start somewhere, right? After all, methane is harmful to the environment because it adds to the greenhouse effect. It’s said to be about twenty times stronger than CO2. What’s more, the amount of methane in the atmosphere has doubled in the past two hundred years. According researchers at the Dutch University of Wageningen, an average cow loses about 400 grams of methane daily.
The bottom line, as put by Dutch research organization Milieu Centraal, is clear. Most emissions come from meat eaters. If we eat less meat, there will be less methane in the atmosphere.
This is absurd. You can’t try to turn people vegetarian. Thats a dietary choice, not an ecological choice. And you also can’t prevent a natural function! Whats wrong with you! I support the scientist who realizes this and is trying to make a REALISTIC change- minimizing the amount of gas emitted by cows, not discouraging people from eating meat.