Methane and other greenhouse gasses are heating up the world’s atmosphere, fueling global warming. 18% of those gases come from the burps and farts of the billions of cows in the vast herds feeding the world’s growing appetite for meat. Face it, Earth’s human population isn’t going to go Vegan, and cow-mounted catalytic converters just don’t cut it. What’s to be done?
Santa in a Capitol Hill CVS in early November.
Global Warming has really disturbed the seasons here in Washington DC. Christmas started breaking out before Halloween. It’s not even Thanksgiving, but Christmas is in full swing all over town.
Actually, it’s not Christmas, it’s Xmas, the annual high holiday of retail. Here’s the early scouting report from the neighborhood:
A 2006 UN study claimed meat production is responsible for creating more greenhouse gas emissions than the exhaust of all cars, SUVs, buses, planes and trucks combined. Methane and other greenhouse gases are produced by cow flatulence and burping.
If you need to discuss it in polite company, the process that makes cows gassy is called “enteric fermentation.” Cow burps are “ruminant eructation.”
A 2009 study estimated that half of all greenhouse gases are generated by livestock. Investigators have been collecting cow gas emissions (methane and nitrous oxide) in huge plastic containers for analysis. People concerned about Global Warming have urged a reduction in meat eating in order to reduce the size of gassy cattle herds.
It’s snowing in the District of Columbia. A foot of snow is on the ground and it’s not even winter yet. President Obama couldn’t even use his helicopter after returning from the failed Copenhagen climate change summit. He traveled from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House by car.
Climate change denial is a growth industry among those who don’t believe in evolution, either. Global Warming skeptics see a massive conspiracy involving UN black helicopters or Hollywood Jews, little green men, or mad scientists. Those with a vested interest in the status quo are glad to support them. Many who deny anthropogenic global warming are funded by huge corporations that grow rich by generating greenhouse gasses (more here).
Today is Earth Day 2009. On this 39th annual commemoration of ecological concern, we may be about to reduce one major source of air pollution and global warming: cow flatulence.
Factory breeding of beef cattle and vast dairy herds produce tons of atmospheric methane or CH4 (not Carbon Dioxide or CO2, as claimed by master chemist and House Minority Leader John Boehner). Methane is a major “greenhouse gas” that contributes to global warming.
Funny? Yes. A joke? No.
Calm down,Sarah Palin; this isn’t a Sixties nostalgia trip. Washington DC is paralyzed with terror because it snowed yesterday.
Nothing inspires terror in Washington like a few snowflakes. Al Qaeda has probably abandoned the “dirty bomb” for something that would really paralyze the nation’s seat of government, the “snowy bomb.”
It wasn’t quite this bad in Venice, but the high water (acqua alta) was deep these past two days, up to 5 feet, 2 inches (“1.56 meters” to natives). This was the worst flooding in the ancient island city In 22 years, endangering the city’s wealth of art and architecture, a major part of the legacy of Western Civilization.
The waters are now receding, but Venice has been flooded 50 times between 1993 and 2002 due to subsidence of the underlying soil and rising sea levels due to global warming. Projects are under way to mitigate future flood damage.
Scott Schliebe, USFWS
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin says there are just too many darn Polar Bears. She is suing the Federal government, which put the pesky critters on the Threatened Species List. Why? Your Threatened Species beasties can wander over and seriously interfere with the drilling of oil.
Dan Joling of Associated Press asked Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity about the Governor’s remarks:
She’s either grossly misinformed or intentionally misleading, and both are unbecoming. Alaska deserves better. Even the Bush administration can’t deny the reality of global warming. The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this.
I have yet to read a discussion of the food/energy/greenhouse-gas equation that factors in the energy costs of refrigeration. In the USA, most of the farm-to-retail food stream moves through a “cold chain” of refrigeration at all stages — producer storage, distributor storage, wholesale and retail storage — and the intervening “reefer” transport between stages.
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