Cows That Burp Less Methane to Be Bred

Canadian scientists are breeding a type of cow that burps less, in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gases. Cows are responsible for almost 75% of total methane emissions, mostly coming from burps. Stephen Moore, professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science at the University of Alberta, hopes the refined bovines will produce 25 per cent less methane. Nancy Hirshberg, spokesman for Stonyfield Farm says, "If every US dairy farmer reduced emissions by 12 per cent it would be equal to about half a million cars being taken off the road."

Comments

More cowbell

[davidwr]

More cowbell, less cow-burp.

Re:More cowbell

[beadfulthings]

I dunno. It seems to me that if you live in a farm area, "Don't Fear the Reaper" has a whole different meaning.

Easy alternative

[tverbeek]

Or we could raise and eat fewer cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[Z00L00K]

I'm not to worried about the cows anyway.

There have been animals around on earth a long time, and the cows are likely to be pushing away some other species, but overall the methane release into the atmosphere wouldn't be that different throughout history.

An attack on animals farting seems to be plain stupid related to so many other factors involved.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about meat. Neither will you get dairy products without cows or other livestock.

Re:Easy alternative

[The End Of Days]

So long as you figure out a way to raise bare burgers and ribeyes, I'm all for that one.

Re:Easy alternative

[truthsearch]

Or put them back on their natural grazing diet. They only output so much gas because they're not eating what they naturally would.

That would, in turn, force us to raise and eat fewer cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You do realize that the world's cow population has increased substantially over time, don't you? Also of note, ruminants produce substantially more methane than most other flavors of animal, because of their particular digestive setup.

Re:Easy alternative

[Cedric Tsui]

But there are many more cows per square kilometer in farm land than there are other animals.

Furthermore. Most animals don't have the 4 stomach system using anaerobic bacterial digestion. That's what makes the methane.

Re:Easy alternative

[Henry V .009]

And then we could live with all the health consequences of high-carbohydrate diets. Which, if we take American's obesity trends after the move towards higher-carbohydrate diets since the 1970s, cost a damn sight more than global warming ever could.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Dairy products shouldn't even exist. Show me one other animal who consumes another species' milk, let alone an animal that consumes milk beyond infancy.

a) Human infants should only be consuming milk from one source: his/her mother's breasts.

b) Human adults should not be drinking milk from any source.

I've never understood why humans drink cow's milk. It's not natural.

Re:Easy alternative

[Celeste R]

Regardless of how we want to spin it, our world is changing. Managing those changes before they overwhelm us is important too.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

There have been animals around on earth a long time

Not all animals are ruminants. Ruminants release methane due to enteric fermentation. Ruminants are a relatively development on the evolutionary tree. Furthermore, our large population of them in modern times is sustained only through high density industrial agriculture. For example, probably the greatest natural landscape for large grazing herd animals today are the Serengeti and Masai Mara plains. Combined, they only support 1.5 million wildebeest. Even the massive bison herds that once spread across the entire great plains numbered at only 60 million. We raise, what, 1.3 billion cattle?

History has never seen anywhere close to as many ruminants on the surface of the earth as we have today. Thank modern industrial agriculture for that.

Re:Easy alternative

[Narpak]

Or we could raise and eat fewer cows.

I agree. Of course I like various forms of meat and steak; but I try to balance my diet with other substances; like vegetables, fruit, salads and other relatively health articles. While I do not feel comfortable telling people what they should or shouldn't eat; the amount of meat being consumed; or even more importantly the amount of meat (and other food articles) that are simply wasted by the system; is staggering.

While I can not see a simple solution to improving the way we produce and consume food; I believe many changes will come over the next decades and beyond. One of them being the almost ridiculous reliance on cheap oil. Cheap oil means cheap corn, means cheap cow stuffing, meaning cheap meat. When oil prices increase, and they will increase (especially with China and India seeing a massive growth in oil consumption), food prices will soar. Or at least some food products will see a great price increase for a period of time; until the what, how and where we eat adapts to the new state of affairs, or we find new and better ways to produce food at the current scale. But at the moment every link in the chain is reliant upon the price of oil; sowing, harvesting and transportation to name but a few.

While creating "better cows" with less methane production is definitely a good thing; if it works as advertised; it isn't the only thing. If you want to learn a bit more about the food production, as regards to the USA, I found Michael Pollan's Deep Agriculture interesting.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the giant herds of buffalo and other large mammals has decreased by the billions over the last few thousand years. So it equals out in the end.

We need less people, not less cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[Brigadier]

I always laugh when people suggest the 'obvious' solution.... it either equates to, over fishing, destroying rain forest, inhumane treatment of farm animals, or well too much gas. Fact is the real problem is there are too many human beings... not only that these human beings eat a lot and we mess a lot.

Bottom line is the earth simply cannot handle it. In 1950 the world population wa below 3 Billion, in less than a generation we have doubled that. projections show that we will hit 1o billion by 2010.

http://www.treehugger.com/World-Population-Growth-2050.JPG

With the oceans over fished, rain forest being destroyed for farm land, and farm land being turned into industrial and commerce how are we planning to feed all these people ?

There is only one solution

http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/condom%20cartoon.jpg

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

I've never understood why humans drink cow's milk. It's not natural.

It is now. Most mammals become lactose-interolant after infancy; it helps discourage continued breastfeeding. Humans have evolved lactose tolerance. A diet of dairy is supported by our genes. As for what's "natural", nature has evolved all sorts of crazy feeding systems that don't involve killing the animal -- dung eaters, ants farming honeydew from aphids, flesh parasites, intestinal parasites, blood feeders, etc. Why is this particular method any less unusual than them? I'd say it's far more humane than killing the animals for food -- nature's primary modus operandi.

Re:Easy alternative

[Lemmy Caution]

There is nothing natural about cows. They have been bred to be unsuitable for any niche with predators in it; no gene-line descending from the current livestock breeds would have much of a chance of finding a natural niche.

However, it is true that grass-fed, open-range cattle are not only healthier, but more environmentally sustainable. In fact, it may be the least destructive form of food-production there is: it's less destructive than crop-planting.

Re:Easy alternative

[Chabo]

How do you know that this will produce an overall benefit? What if, by making cows produce less methane, we upset the balance of our atmosphere such that we induce global warming, or a new ice age?

Re:Easy alternative

[Jonathan]

1) As people have already said, there weren't *nearly* as many cows around before we started making them a major part of our diet
2) The cows that *were* around ate grass. Feeding cows corn, as farmers tend to do, fattens them up but gives them much more gas.

Re:Easy alternative

[shentino]

High carb isn't the problem, low fiber is.

Re:Easy alternative

[canajin56]

They are proposing multiple solutions that can work together. Solution one, the one that makes for a good headline, is to use selective breeding to select against the genes that cause an overproduction of methane in the cow's gut, though they're also looking at genes that make the cow more efficient about converting food to muscle, so the food will ferment less in their stomachs. Solution two is to get them on a high energy diet. They make methane because the food they eat ferments in their stomach. Corn ferments a lot. Grass ferments a lot too, but not as much as corn. Higher fat vegetable sources like seeds don't ferment nearly as much, but are very expensive compared to corn or grass.

Re:Easy alternative

[panthroman]

Seriously. Obviously 12% fewer cattle is the methane equivalent of "half a million cars off the road," according to their PR lady. So if everyone ate 12% less beef/dairy...

If you eat beef twice a week, then a 12% reduction is skipping one beef meal a month. One of the biggest 'vegetarian movement' mistakes was to paint vegetarianism as a black & white issue. If one meal a month can make this kind of environmental difference, vegetarians might do more for their cause if they applauded and promoted meat in moderation.

Re:Easy alternative

[Colonel Korn]

And then we could live with all the health consequences of high-carbohydrate diets. Which, if we take American's obesity trends after the move towards higher-carbohydrate diets since the 1970s, cost a damn sight more than global warming ever could.

Don't be fooled by the diet industry. Diets composed of almost exclusively carbohydrates are common among many the healthiest, most long-lived people in the world. Other extremely healthy people eat mostly fatty meats. Others eat mostly vegetables and fish. There are many paths to healthy eating, but all of them include a few common threads, such as eating less food.

To quote Michael Pollan, "Eat food. Note too much. Mostly plants."

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

One, beef and grains are not the only foods in existence. It's not a binary choice. And two, almost any health professional would tell you that a high-carb diet is preferable to a high cholesterol diet in terms of health consequences. There's a reason that the medical community was so against the Atkins diet. Atkins himself had had a heart attack, congestive heart failure, and hypertension late in his life (which he adimantly insisted had nothing to do with his high-fat diet -- really!), and it may ultimately have contributed to his death (although the primary cause appears to have been head injury). He was 6' and 258lbs at his time of death. Again, his family insists he gained 60 pounds during the coma after he fell. No, really. And even if that was the case, he'd still be "overweight" when he was injured.

Re:Easy alternative

[randomaxe]

So, you're suggesting that we supplement with more bacon?

Re:Easy alternative

[ByOhTek]

That's a very tough stretch, are you suggesting the cows would produce something else instead, or that methane reduces global warming.

and a side note, related to your sig, FLACs aren't portable?

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Also of note, ruminants produce substantially more methane than most other flavors of animal...
Ruminant is my favorite flavor of animal. Hmmm...Ruminant.

Re:Easy alternative

[Chabil Ha']

We need less people, not less cows.

That's the spirit! We've been attacking this problem from the wrong angle. Since it is obvious that Man is responsible for climate change, we can just eliminate the species from the Earth and solve all our climate change problems.

Now, who to inherit the Earth once Homo sapien has been removed?

Re:Easy alternative

[Dare nMc]

Basically most animals spend 80% of their awake time foraging for food, that's why we don't need to copy "nature" and instead alter our diets to allow a lifestyle.

Show me one other animal who consumes another species' milk

well growing up on a farm, I have personally watched: cats, dogs, birds, pigs, numerous insects, and mice that drink other animals milk. basically about equal percentage do vs don't. maybe most don't require it in their diet (except many bacteria) or compose a regular portion of their diet (again similar to humans), but then again their is no single item in most animals diets they couldn't do without.
Similar arguments would make more sense with cooked/steamed foods (IE a good chunk of our diet, even a vegans diet) that no other animals follow that. Although humans don't require even meat to be cooked, just ones who haven't grown up eating raw meats. Same with processed foods, drinks, refrigerated items. Basically your argument works against most everything humans eat in the modern conviences.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck that. I need my beef. Gimme steak, burgers, and all the rest

Re:Easy alternative

[morgan_greywolf]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral. And carbon methane only has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 7 years, so the whole "carbon methane is more damaging than CO2" stuff is just complete nonsense.

The real question we need to ask ourselves is this:

Why is that we seem to have such a hard time divorcing the science from the politics and pseudoscience? I'm not one of those "global warming is BS" freaks, but as someone concerened about pollution and the effects of human activities on the ecosphere, I wish we would focus more on science and less on politics.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

Yeah, but the giant herds of buffalo and other large mammals has decreased by the billions over the last few thousand years. So it equals out in the end.

The historic buffalo population is estimated at 60 million. So your estimate for the current bison population is several billion negative buffalo?

Re:Easy alternative

[badfish99]

I thought everyone was agreed that the cockroaches were next in line?

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

For a quantitative comparison, I remember from The Omnivore's Dilemma (read it if you haven't) that converting all the cornfields used to grow cattle feed into well-maintained pasture would be equivalent to taking four million cars off the road.

Re:Easy alternative

[ChefInnocent]

And I do thank the modern industrial agriculture for it. Now, please cut me off another rib eye, and cook it in bacon fat. While you are at it, would you mind passing the Russet Burbank potato along with the butter and sour cream? I quaff down another "Bud" while I wait.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Cannibalism - End world hunger and overpopulation in one fell swoop.

And with less people and less processing on food, global warming should fall from being a issue again.

Re:Easy alternative

[SupremoMan]

And what will people eat instead? The problem has never been too many cows, it's always been too many people.

As a side note I can see the classic corporate dick move. Come up with a cow that create less methane. Patent this cow. Lobby US Congress to mandate that this cow become the only cow allowed by law under the guise of lowering methane emissions. Sit back and collect money.

Also why does this cow make less methane. Do we know for sure that there is no side effect to this? Maybe the cow is less efficient at digesting. and requires more food. Maybe it just tastes bad. When you try to select for a certain gene, you usually realize rather quickly that a gene does more than one thing. So far they have not made this magical cow. When they do, we might find that it is impractical to use this breed of cow at all.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral.

Irrelevant -- not all carbon is created equal. False -- growing grain for cattle consumption is not carbon neutral.

And carbon methane only has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 7 years

That's on the low end of estimates, and really, that's not a good argument. Particulate matter in the atmosphere has an even shorter atmospheric residence than methane, but would you like the world if we removed all particulate control filters from power plants and vehicles? Methane is raising our total forcing. If we stopped emitting it, the problem would go away faster than the problem of CO2 forcing if we stopped emitting it, but that doesn't change the fact that it still is causing problems as long as we keep emitting it.

Ice core records show that the abundance of CH4 in the atmosphere has ranged from around 400ppb during glacial highs to around 700ppb during interglacials during the last 650,000 years. Do you know what it is now? As of 2005, it was approximately 1,774 ppb. That's about 30% of the forcing of CO2.

Why is that we seem to have such a hard time divorcing the science from the politics and pseudoscience?

Why is it that people who denounce elements of global warming as pseudoscience have near universally not read a single peer-reviewed paper on the topics that they denounce? If you want to "focus more on science and less on politics" -- read the science!

Re:Easy alternative

[twidarkling]

Only in the developed world. In areas like South America, you're constantly needing more foraging ground, which includes slashing forests for pasturage.

Re:Easy alternative

[superslacker87]

They only output so much gas because they're not eating what they naturally would.

Best thing that could ever be said. I'd mod you up, but I don't have mod points, and I couldn't have supported you with research.

  Read Fast Food Nation or watch Super Size Me

Both are good looks into how beef and other animals are used in the fast food industry and how the meat industry has changed over the last 150 years. You want to know what your cows are really eating? Here's a hint: it's not grass-fed in most cases. Your ruminants (multi-stomached) are actually having foods that have been laced with the blood of their previously fallen in order to have them grow faster and get onto your plate quicker. If that's something an herbivore would normally do, then I look forward to some cannibalistic times ahead.

I'm not the world's best example of a vegetarian, that's for sure, but I do know what's going on.

Re:Easy alternative

[twidarkling]

You misread your graph there, buddy, They say 10 billion by 2050, not 2010. And that doesn't take in to account the trend of developed countries to have lower birth rates, so if some countries start to develop, their birth rates will fall, as well.

As for your "only solution," I find that world wars tend to have a real good impact as a means of population control.

Re:Easy alternative

[Penguinoflight]

It's a stretch of sorts. On the other hand there's a possibility that methane would stop other polluting effects.

FLAC doesn't have a marketing campaign, so most mobile media players don't play them. The other motivation to "squish" FLACs is size; a set of earbuds isn't capable of reproducing the complete quality of a lossless file, at the same time smaller files allow for more of your collection to be portable.

Re:Easy alternative

[residieu]

Natural != Good, Unnatural != Evil. Milk tastes good, it's a good source of calcium. I'm not going to stop drinking it just because no other adult animal drinks milk. Humans do a lot of things that no other animals do.

Re:Easy alternative

[Chabo]

What I'm saying is that doing any specific action "to stop global warming" could have unforeseen consequences. Nature has a way of balancing things, and a sudden drop in methane production could have an effect on our climate besides "stopping global warming".

As for FLACs, they're portable in the sense of different platforms, but I meant in the sense that they take up huge amounts of space. I have a 2GB Sansa running Rockbox, and the FLAC folder on my computer is over 30GB. I can only fit about 4 albums' worth of FLACs on my Sansa, but I can fit about 20 albums' worth of Oggs, encoding at "-q 6".

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is a little more complicated than that because "beef meals" are usually just a small part of cow products people consume.

You would need to reduce your total cow product consumption by 12%. That includes all dairy products and anything else that comes from a cow (eg. some glues, gelatin, pet foods, etc). The typical person probably uses a whole lot more cow-based products than they think.

Still, 12% is not much so I think everyone could do it. It would mean more than just skipping a single beef meal per month though.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Score 5, Insightful? Vegans are out in force today!

Here, let me help you get more deep-fried steak on a stick.

Re:Easy alternative

[phiro_ict]

Or we can do both.

Re:Easy alternative

[dAzED1]

or do both. I decided to not buy another car (blacktop footprint, gas, etc) and will only do 2-wheeled things now (bicycles, motorcycles, etc). And, I went vegan. It may sound drastic, but in actual implementation...well, I never have to wait in traffic (legal to split lanes in California), I never ever have to worry about parking, and it's not nearly as hard to find something to eat as people would think. So long as I don't keep in mind my Bs and omegas, I've got no problem keeping up with everything else.

Re:Easy alternative

[phiro_ict]

You would assume we'd copy this digestive track to convert grass to natural gas. May solve our fossil fuel crises. (Or at least alleviate it) A larger producer of methane by the way are termites. But they are considered part of the natural carbon cycle since we do not breed them. (So I hope) One of the theories is that the new ice age, that was till the 70's believed to be overdue, mass farming with cattle had it pushed back by the methane emissions.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Longhorn cattle would probably be ok without human intervention. You can read about them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_longhorn_(cattle)

Re:Easy alternative

[Henry V .009]

But is Pollan correct? Yes, the Japanese do great on complex carbohydrates combined with low-calorie intakes. If you're interested in some of the most exhaustive research I've ever seen on the subject, I'd recommend taking a look at Gary Taubes.

Until then, I'd suggest that you probably can't go wrong eating what your ancestors evolved to eat as big-game hunter-gathers -- high-fat diets supplemented with green vegetables to some degree.

Re:Easy alternative

[interval1066]

In a related story Ingrid Newkirk, the diabetic president of PETA who requires insulin produced by slaughtering sheep, has pledged that all PETA members (except her of course) will shove corks up their asses in an effort contain their collective human-emitted greenhouse gases.

"

Give a hoot, don't toot!" is submitted as the slogan and will be featured in their new television campaign.

"We hope this will serve as a model of human behavior for the entire world. A cork in every ass," smiled Newkirk.

Re:Easy alternative

[Henry V .009]

Debunking your idiocy about Atkins would take you 5 minutes on Google. It's 180 degrees from fact. More puzzling to me is figuring out exactly what is wrong with your reasoning process to think that the your garbage might be relevant, even if true. As your teachers no doubt despaired of telling you, "the plural of anecdote is not data."

Re:Easy alternative

[dkleinsc]

In some areas of South America, notably Patagonia, that isn't really the case. In Brazil, it is, but South America isn't all rainforest.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

Name one thing that I wrote that is incorrect. The American Heart Association says it puts you at risk for heart disease. The American Medical Association has repeatedly gone on the attack against it. So has the American Dietetic Association. And Snopes categorizes the role of Atkin's heart problems in his death as "undetermined", citing the arguments of both sides, and links to his death certificate on The Smoking Gun. What "5 minutes on Google" are you looking at?

Re:Easy alternative

[modmans2ndcoming]

The developed world is not the problem and China is keeping families to one child to reduce their numbers. As long as we hord our food, the developing world will self correct.

Re:Easy alternative

[OpenGLFan]

Agreed; and humans do a lot of things that other animals would do if they could.

I mean, cats didn't evolve to eat food out of tins, but if your cat could work a can opener then he'd be done with you for good.

Re:Easy alternative

[Reece400]

Damn right, next thing they'll want us to walk on all fours!

Re:Easy alternative

[garcia]

That would, in turn, force us to raise and eat fewer cows.

Wrong, it would cause more cows to be raised because people have become accustomed to eating more meat (doesn't matter what variety) than any other time in our history. Because of this, the demand would remain high and more cows would need to be raised on a natural diet (I eat grass fed beef, free range chicken and pork BTW) to keep up with what everyone has been doing for the last 20 years.

Re:Easy alternative

[CrimsonAvenger]

projections show that we will hit 1o billion by 2010.

Unlikely, since 2010 is seven months away, and we have less than 7 billion now.

Or did you mean 2050, as your source graph suggested? Note that increasing the population by about 50% in 40+ years is actually a pretty slow population growth rate.

Also, note that almost all the population growth expected in the next 40 years in the the so-called, "developing nations". Not the USA, not Europe. So, we've done our part on slowing population growth, talk to Africa and Asia and South America about them getting up to speed...

Re:Easy alternative

[Slur]

If you've ever been to the Indian subcontinent you would know, the monkeys are already taking over.

Re:Easy alternative

[R.Mo_Robert]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral.

Not when they're fed corn that was shipped, using fossil fuels, halfway across the country to get there. (Let's not even go into the fact that this corn was produced using artificial fertilizer, derived from petroleum, and sprayed with pesticide--you guessed it, more petroleum. And the fact that the cow itself, after being processed, will be shipped halfway across the country again to reach your dinner plate--fossil fuels.) Also, cows are ruminants: they're supposed to eat grass. Grass is free, and its energy comes from the sun--not long-dead dinosaurs.

If all farmers farmed more locally and closer to organic practices, cows would be a lot closer to being carbon-neutral.

Re:Easy alternative

[Henry V .009]

Typing in the words "Atkins heart attack" into Google too hard for you, and I need to do it for you, huh? Here's some pics of Atkins 2 months before he had the fall that put him into a coma: Photos. Sorry, but if that man was 260 pounds when he died, it was water weight gained during the coma, just like the family says. The man looks healthy in those photographs.

Now, go away from the internet, please.

Re:Easy alternative

[morgauxo]

Anon Coward> Dairy products shouldn't even exist. Show me one other animal who consumes another species' milk, let alone an animal that consumes milk beyond infancy.
<br/><br/>
OK, ants.
<br/><br/>
Now, with that out of the way other species don't normally live nearly as far into their potential lifespan as we do.  Show me a species that enjoys osteoporosis why don't you?

Re:Easy alternative

[morgauxo]

Anon Coward> Dairy products shouldn't even exist. Show me one other animal who consumes another species' milk, let alone an animal that consumes milk beyond infancy.

OK, ants.

Now, with that out of the way other species don't normally live nearly as far into their potential lifespan as we do. Show me a species that enjoys osteoporosis why don't you?

Re:Easy alternative

[Demonantis]

I think humans were honestly carrion eaters before we started cooking our food. Most beef sold isn't fresh its been decomposing for about a month in a controlled environment so that its tender. I don't know about the other meats though.

Re:Easy alternative

[kazagistar]

And then spend much of the waking day chasing deer with spears through the forest. Yes, after a day of strenuous sprinting, high fat and high protein is a good thing.

Re:Easy alternative

[hot soldering iron]

I heard about this a "few" years ago... Actually, the reduced methane production is sought after because it's energy wasted, instead of being converted into meat. My uncle has developed a small herd over the last 50 years that puts on 6lbs a day until they reach maturity (the average weight in his herd is over 1200 lbs). A friend of mine said they looked like giant sausages with legs. Selective breeding gave them rapid growth, strength, and a strong immune system (less expensive medications/vaccines). Less flatulence was just a nice side-effect! : )

Re:Easy alternative

[baKanale]

Yeah, we are!

Re:Easy alternative

[Gordonjcp]

Or we could raise and eat fewer cows.

Yes, and then eat peas and beans. Great idea.

Re:Easy alternative

[kazagistar]

Just to make it clear... the "self correct" above means hundreds of millions of people dying of famine and starvation, and hundreds of millions more perishing in the genocidal wars that follow.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

If you type "Atkins heart attack" into Google and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky", it brings you to Snopes which confirms his heart attack. What are you smoking?

Your link didn't load. And again, even if he *did* only weigh 200 pounds or whatnot when he had his accident, for a 6' man, that's still overweight... and he still had a heart attack, congestive heart failure, and hypertension shortly before his death.

Re:Easy alternative

[deraj123]

Natural != Good, Unnatural != Evil. Milk tastes good, it's a good source of calcium. I'm not going to stop drinking it just because no other adult animal drinks milk. Humans do a lot of things that no other animals do.

More importantly, cheese is like heaven...I suspect the only reason other animals don't eat it is because they haven't figured out how to produce it.

Re:Easy alternative

[StikyPad]

No thanks.

Re:Easy alternative

[OrigamiMarie]

No, then you switch to lots of fruits and veggies. They are good for you, and in enough quantity they will sustain you. Dark leafy greens have a surprising amount of protein in them (think chlorophyll). And you can also eat fish & fowl, both of which are more efficient ways of turning plants into protein. Yes, we do need to treat the chickens better too, so . . . repeat with the increased veggie count.

Why do we have a tradition of eating cows then? Because of the glory of the hunt. I've heard a story [citation needed] of some sort of aid group that was trying to help a tribe (I forget where) that had been minimally influenced by the modern world. Aid workers were teaching them to snare birds of various sorts to improve their nutrition. Ruminants are tasty and all, but they are not an efficient way to catch your protein. The tribe had eaten birds before, they just hadn't been very good at catching them. So their technique was improved through training, and the aid workers went away. Some time later these aid workers came back to see how the tribe was doing and . . . found that they were still doing just as miserably. Birds are practical food, but they don't lend glory to the man who catches them. He who catches the beef gets the honor, the women, and the new babies. No man was willing to give up these things, even if it meant feeding his existing children better. So no progress was made in the area of nutrition.

Re:Easy alternative

[StikyPad]

If we stopped emitting it, the problem would go away faster than the problem of CO2 forcing if we stopped emitting it, but that doesn't change the fact that it still is causing problems as long as we keep emitting it.

That's three and three. Do I hear four? Four "emittings" and four "problems" in one sentence?

Going..

Going...

Re:Easy alternative

[Tablizer]

Carbohydrates by themselves are not the problem. The problem is processed carbs. To make buns, donuts, and noodles whiter and fluffier, the processing plants remove a lot of good stuff, including fiber. It's difficult to get true whole grains at restaurants and regular supermarkets. Often the labeling is lacking, misleading, or confusing; and food industry lobbyists want to keep it that way.

Re:Easy alternative

[Fieryphoenix]

Well, thumb monkeys would no longer be needed to get food, but they'd still be good for opening doors.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the spirit! We've been attacking this problem from the wrong angle. Since it is obvious that Man is responsible for climate change, we can just eliminate the species from the Earth and solve all our climate change problems.

Now, who to inherit the Earth once Homo sapien has been removed?

Not that I'm advocating radical population reduction, but why would you have to completely eliminate humanity to see benefits? Wouldn't a 50% reduction result in somewhere around a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions? Seems like you're arguing a false dichotomy.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Something I've always wanted to do (as someone who works with cows) is harvest the methane - set up some sort of air scrubbers up at the top of the roof - then use it as a fuel.

Probably totally uneconomical though

Re:Easy alternative

[StikyPad]

My cows drink copious amounts of soda so that the CO2 displaces the methane. Problem solved.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Cars shouldn't even exist. Show me one other animal who builds itself an inanimate, internal combustion vehicle that runs on fossilized micro-organisms.

a) Human infants' vehicle should only be one animal: his/her mother.
b) Human adults should only ride horses, but only bareback.

I've never understood why humans built cars. They aren't natural.

Re:Easy alternative

[Pandrake]

Take a while for the production of meat to be reduced to match the reduction in consumption, especially if it's cheaper to reprocess it back into cannibal cow food if humans don't buy it first.

Re:Easy alternative

[ahabswhale]

Can't we just give the cows Beano? According to the commercial, if you take Beano there will be no gas. Then we don't have to give a shit about people becoming vegetarians. I like veggies and all but seriously, nothing compares to a great steak!

Re:Easy alternative

[gb506]

When I'm in my best shape, meaning very little fat, good muscle tone and good endurance capability, I weigh between 175lbs and 180lbs. I'm 5'7" tall. Six foot, 200lb people are not necessarily overweight, they may have much more natural muscle mass than others. Your BMI charts have never applied to the entirety of the population.

Re:Easy alternative

[Doomdark]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral. And carbon methane only has a half-life in the atmosphere of about 7 years, so the whole "carbon methane is more damaging than CO2" stuff is just complete nonsense.

No, you are taking the silly buzzword (carbon neutral) too literally. It's not the carbon that matters, it's the heat-trapping aspect of gases (which are carbon-based, hence this ill-chosen term) that matters. 7 years (assuming that is the accepted definition) is plenty long time to act as heat-trapping agent, especially considering that current estimates suggest there is strong feedback component too (warming itself induces additional effects that amplify warming). And in that role, yes, methane is more efficient than CO2 by multiple orders of magnitude.

But as to carbon neutrality: to be carbon-neutral, you would have to explain exactly how are cows supposedly reducing effective amount of greenhouse gases in equivalent (or exceeding) amounts compared to production. I have hard time figuring out what exactly you might be implying here -- only thing I can think of are actually producing more of various gases due to breathing, digestion and perspiration.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank modern industrial agriculture for that.

Thanks modern agriculture!

There go my dreams of rewriting country songs with recordings of cow burps. You remember those christmas songs with dogs barking jingle bells? Yeehaw!

Re:Easy alternative

[truthsearch]

Changing all current livestock to grazing would probably be impractical due to the land area required. If it were possible it would become extremely expensive. That's what I meant by forcing us to raise fewer cows.

Re:Easy alternative

[operagost]

Or I could tell YOU what to eat.

Re:Easy alternative

[rbrander]

You got the sixty million right, but are an order of magnitude out on the current population of cows. Here's my comment to Salon magazine 2 years ago on this subject:
Here are my calculations, with references, courtesy of google and an hour of my time. Thanks also to the USDA and PBS.
Size of national herd, all cows and calves: 106 million.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/Catt/Catt-07-20-2007.txt
Number on feed (multiplying their GHG impact): 11 million.
(in short, they are only on feed near The End.)
http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/cofd0907.txt
Number of bison they ecologically replaced, bison that ALSO produced GHGs:
60 million.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay8.html
OK, so because of the 11 million on feed, the 106 million cows have the GHG impact of a good 120 million grass-fed, so they have double the "natural" level produced by the bison?
But wait! Or, rather, weight:
Bull bison (37% of herd): 1800-2500 lb.
Cow bison (45%): 900-1200 lb.
Calves (18%) :35 lb up to numbers above
sources:
Herd composition:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-541X(198907)53%3A3%3C593%3ACOBPEW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R
Weight:
http://www.gunpowderbison.com/Kids%20Corner
So the TONNAGE of natural ruminants on the North American plains can be calculated from the above numbers (giving calves half the average of cow and bull) to be an "average bison" weight of 1559 lb. Times 60M, is 46.8 megatons.
The US herd is lighter because it's mostly younger than a natural one; we slaughter cows at 2 years, bison live 20, so a higher proportion of the total is calves.
My first reference also notes that just 33M of that national herd is over 500 lbs. Conservatively giving them all the full adult weight (from wikipedia, "cattle") halfway between 1300 and 1900 lb, and the average of the other 74M that are under 500lb, conservatively, at 400 lb...we get a total tonnage of beef at 41.2 megtons.
Bottom line: there are fewer tons of beef now than there were of bison in the 19th century. Beef eater's disturbance of the natural methane balance is zero, indeed it may be NEGATIVE.
Maybe not; 41.2MT is only 12% less than 46.8MT and my whole-hour of research may have missed a few things. Also, the amplification of GHG output by the 10% of the herd that's on feed is a factor. I'm willing to call it even, although my weight numbers were quite conservative.
So, there's no GHG impact at ALL, compared to the original, natural state. At least not in North America -- but what was the former methane production everywhere that are now cattle ranches? Most ranching is done where there was an equivalent animal before. And even swamps and rainforests have quite a bit of decomposition that produces methane.
Until you do that part of the calc - the previous GHG load from the former "natural" environment, you don't have a calculation, you have HALF a calculation.

Re:Easy alternative

[operagost]

I don't know what third-world country you live in, but we have refrigeration here and beef can't last for a month without freezing it-- and I don't buy frozen beef.

Re:Easy alternative

[operagost]

Good luck forcing all the Muslims and Catholics in third-world countries to use those. They don't read Slashdot. If you want to slow down population growth, tell your leaders to stop encouraging developing countries to do exactly the opposite.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is that cows are carbon neutral.

Not when they're fed corn that was shipped, using fossil fuels, halfway across the country to get there. (Let's not even go into the fact that this corn was produced using artificial fertilizer, derived from petroleum, and sprayed with pesticide--you guessed it, more petroleum. And the fact that the cow itself, after being processed, will be shipped halfway across the country again to reach your dinner plate--fossil fuels.) Also, cows are ruminants: they're supposed to eat grass. Grass is free, and its energy comes from the sun--not long-dead dinosaurs.

If all farmers farmed more locally and closer to organic practices, cows would be a lot closer to being carbon-neutral.

Wow.. did you burn any petroleum thinking all that up? You must hurt after all that.

Most farmers do farm locally. Meat is sold locally. Processed locally. Consumed locally. You're confusing mega-hormone meat factories with farms.

Try less fossil fuels and get over it, Gore lost. :)

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually cows on a more normal diet do not always produce less methane. Cows in India which are often left to much of whatever weeds they find actaully produce signficantly more methane than cows fed in the US.

Re:Easy alternative

[tverbeek]

Try substituting "humans" for "cows" in your comment and "petrol exhaust" for "methane" and see if it makes any sense. (Hint: it doesn't.) Animals are not simply interchangeable, and the global mammal population is not a zero-growth, zero-sum phenomenon. Humans are cultivating additional animals to feed on at rate comparable to their own exponential growth.

Re:Easy alternative

[tverbeek]

"Now, who to inherit the Earth once Homo sapien has been removed?" The meek, of course. It's in the Bible.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Still suffering from your authority issues? Well, maybe when you get out of high school you'll be over it.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

It's not a judgement call; it's a technical term. He was at the very least overweight when the accident occurred. 200 pounds and 6' is a BMI of 27.1, which is in the "Overweight" range of 25-29.9.

Your BMI charts have never applied to the entirety of the population.

So you get around the fact that he was overweight by saying that the scale is broken? Cute. Wow, wouldn't that be a great diet craze -- the "redefine what is fat" diet!

Sorry, but Atkins, at the time of his death, had heart disease and was overweight. These are the facts. Deal with them on your own time.

Re:Easy alternative

[The Archon V2.0]

In a related story Ingrid Newkirk, the diabetic president of PETA who requires insulin produced by slaughtering sheep, has pledged that all PETA members (except her of course) will shove corks up their asses in an effort contain their collective human-emitted greenhouse gases.

I know you mean this as humor, but Newkirk's not diabetic. One of PETA's VPs, Mary Beth Sweetland, is.

Re:Easy alternative

[cstdenis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_aging

Re:Easy alternative

[ceoyoyo]

All of which has absolutely no connection to a hypothetical cow that burps less.

Re:Easy alternative

[The Archon V2.0]

Just to make it clear... the "self correct" above means hundreds of millions of people dying of famine and starvation, and hundreds of millions more perishing in the genocidal wars that follow.

And all that bloodshed will keep CNN, MSNBC, and all the other news stations in business. See? Win/win!

Re:Easy alternative

[wellingj]

The question still remains, will this new breed burp less, and yield less beef as well? Necessitating more cattle for the same amount of beef? You don't get something for nothing...

Re:Easy alternative

[ceoyoyo]

That no other animals drink milk as adults is one of those silly little myths that seems self evident to everybody but isn't really true. I looked it up once, a couple of years ago, for another Slashdot posting. If you're really interested you can either find that post (good luck) or do your own research.

Many other animals will drink milk if they can get it. In the wild you don't pass up a fantastic source of food like that. The only reason we don't see more animals drinking milk is that it's very hard to get. In the wild an adult animal doesn't just let predators come and suckle.

There are exceptions though. I think there's even at least one species of animal that makes a habit of sneaking into nests of a second species and impersonating the young so it can suckle. Also, cows (and apparently sheep and goats) will occasionally allow other adult members of the herd to suckle, which they do.

Re:Easy alternative

[Samah]

~# cat "can of food"
cat: cannot open can of food
~#

Damn.

Re:Easy alternative

[crmarvin42]

Ok, most of your post is actually not far off of the mark. Cow are not carbon neutral, and the current distribution system is at least partially to blame. However I need to take a moment to beat you over the head for that last nonsensical sentence that nearly removes any value from your post.

Modern agriculture (ie Fertilisers, pesticides, Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, antibiotics, posilac, et al.) is far "greener" than organic farming will ever be. I know this because I work in Agricultural research.

Modern fertilizers and pesitcides enable greater crop yeilds/acre, meaning less acres need to be planted, meaning less acres need to be driven by tractors both harvesting & planting. Organic production actually requires you pull out the tractor and appy fertilizer and pesticides more frequently (Organic doesn't say you can't, it only says you can't use specific ones becuase without both no one would be able to grow enough organic corn to feed their organic chickens) becuase it forces you to use fertilizers and pesticides that don't work as well. It also forbids the use of roundup ready crops that require a fraction of the fertilizer and pesitcide applications and can be planted without tilling the soil.

Tilling the soil is the single largest reason for nutrient leaching from soil into surface water when it rains. The tilling breaks up the soil, airing it out, and making it easier for rain to wash away important nutrients, thus requiring greater applications of fertilizers (See where I'm going with all of this?).

CAFOs enable producers to manage larger heards more efficiently, with a greater attention to detail. Some one that works with weanling pigs all day every day will have a better eye for which pigs are struggling than a farmer that only spends part of their day with the weanling pigs, and the rest of the day spread across the growers, finishers, boars, 1st and 2nd parity gilts, sows, and the farrowing house. It's akin a doctor specializing in one particular field of medicine instead of forcing them all to be General Practitioners.

Posilac (trade name for recombinant bovine somatotropin or rBST) enables farmers to use less cow, and as a result less feed, to produce the same volume of milk. That kind of math shouldn't really need explanation or defending, but the organic movement forbids the use of posilac, despite it being molecularly identical to the naturally occuring bovine somatotropin normally found in milk. Milk from these cows contain BST at the same concentration and cannot be differentiate from milk from cows not injected with rBST. The fact that tests have been done where rBST and purified 'normal' BST have been injected into human tissue and proved to be too dissimilar to interact with the receptors for human sotmatotropin seems not to faze anyone for some reason.

Sub-theraputic use of antibiotics both prevents clinical, as well as sub-clinical infections and is primarily used in animals predisposed to infections due to stage of development (weaning comes first to mind). They also prevent the need to use much larger doses of theraputic antibiotics, and help animals grow more efficiently as less of the energy and nutrients in animal feed go toward growing bacterial populations and more goes toward growing the host animal. None of the data coming out of the EU in the wake of their complete ban of sub-theraputic antibiotics has shown any reduction in the prevalence or distribution of antibiotic resistance genes. My belief is that's because most people don't interact with farm animals on a regular basis, but they do go to doctors offices and hospitals where antibiotics are abused to a shameful degree (and all the bugs there can colonize humans, where many bugs that colonize pigs or chickens cannot colonize humans. The internal environment is too dissimilar.)

However, since I'm one of only a handful of people on /. with any actual education in the agricultural arena. Let the cherry picking of the topics for refutation with regurgitated FUD beign in 1... 2... 3...

Please let my pessimism be wrong for once.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? I have yet had a pet (from Reptiles, Cats, Dogs, Ferrets, Birds, Growing up I lived in a Zoo almost) that did NOT like Cheese. Typically, the more pungent the smell, and stronger the flavor, the more they loved it. (Well, the lizards not so much, Iguanas liked it from time to time, in small chunks, theyd typically just put their nose next to it and smell it for a while.. probably to attract insects I figure)

Cats especially love cheese. My oldest cat when he was a kitten use to attack me when I had any sort of cheese. (Non-oil created cheese that is)

If They could figure out A) Where cheese comes from and B) how to produce it, you better damn well believe they would do it in a heart beat.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Dairy products shouldn't even exist.

Dairy products exist because humans domesticated animals, an ability that is also unique to humans. At approximately the same time, humans evolved the ability to digest milk into adulthood. This is a fact proven by genetics; the gene involved is carried by 90% of Scandinavians.

Please refrain from spreading your ignorance about human diets; whomever is feeding you that tripe should be ignored.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the straight dope about beef.

Re:Easy alternative

[scot4875]

Nature has a way of balancing things

Well, frequently nature's way of "balancing" involves mass extinction. Do we really want to roll the dice and let nature decide?

--Jeremy

Re:Easy alternative

[mattwarden]

For every animal you don't eat, I'm going to eat three.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, how much money does Monsanto pay you anyway?

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

"If all farmers farmed more locally and closer to organic practices...."

Don't you have this backwards? The farms were here first. Maybe the people need to live closer to the farms??

Re:Easy alternative

[R.Mo_Robert]

I contemplated not even saying it, and I guess I shouldn't have: when I said "organic," I didn't mean "USDA organic," because the USDA managed to mess even that up by allowing some of the things you mentioned. I guess I really meant "natural," although that word probably doesn't mean anything anymore, either. This means imitating a natural rotation of crops and animals--Polyface Farm is a famous (well, as famous as a farm can be) example of this. It can be done. Most of the problems you mention are problems with "organic" (USDA-certifiable organic, I mean) farms that try to operate like conventional farms, just without the prohibited pesticides and fertlizers. There are better ways. Basically, if your farm smells or if all your plants or animals are getting or are on the brink of getting sick, you're doing something wrong.

In light of this, I'm not convinced that conventional farming's use of fertilizers and pesticides is somehow greener than not using them (except in some "industrial organic"--dare I call them Big Organic?--farms like those I mentioned; you're certainly right that their excessive tilling [often used as a non-pesticidal form of weed control] and other practices is not necessarily better). While it may be purely in terms of the amount of energy you consume on the farm (which, again, is only a problem on "industrial organic" farms), it certainly doesn't take into account the fact that these pesticides and fertilizers run off the fields and into our water, not to mention the plants themselves, and eventually our bodies. (And even if you don't think they do anything to us [we've certainly been wrong in the past, by the way], there are other problems that don't involve just us, like algal blooms.)

Re:Easy alternative

[Chris Burke]

That kind of math shouldn't really need explanation or defending, but the organic movement forbids the use of posilac, despite it being molecularly identical to the naturally occuring bovine somatotropin normally found in milk.

Molecularly identical means it's no different than what's naturally occurring pharmaceutically, but the effect of pharmaceuticals change with dosage. This is what is alarming to me about bovine growth hormone, that the concentrations are much higher than before.

The fact that tests have been done where rBST and purified 'normal' BST have been injected into human tissue and proved to be too dissimilar to interact with the receptors for human sotmatotropin seems not to faze anyone for some reason.

I've never heard that before, which is a good reason why that hasn't fazed me. If it's true that it doesn't interact with our bodies, than that resolves my concern. It'll take more than a slashdot post to convince me, but I'll keep an eye out. I'm just cautious around hormones, since my father worked with pharmaceutical hormones a lot, and I learned they can be fairly "general" even when using another species' hormones, but it's ultimately all about the chemistry that I don't know and might mean nothing happens.

So, good, it's not the beef hormones in McD's that's making kids mature faster and get fat, that's just the crap load of fat and calories in it.

Sub-theraputic use of antibiotics both prevents clinical, as well as sub-clinical infections and is primarily used in animals predisposed to infections due to stage of development (weaning comes first to mind)...None of the data coming out of the EU in the wake of their complete ban of sub-theraputic antibiotics has shown any reduction in the prevalence or distribution of antibiotic resistance genes.

Okay, but, I'm still not convinced that's a good idea. Why would not using antibiotics reduce the number of resistant strains once they're already "in the wild"? This behavior sounds like giving every kid Amoxacilin because they just turned 9 and kids that age might have strep throat. Like, worse than the shameful abuses in hospitals that I've seen with my own eyes. Sure most of the bugs only affect the animals themselves. Again, not sure why that makes it a good idea.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

They already have, and they elected Obama.

Re:Easy alternative

[azgard]

CEO, is that you?

Re:Easy alternative

[sumdumass]

The only reason cows aren't considered part of the natural carbon cycle is because there is money to be gained from labeling them otherwise. In the last two cap and trade bill that has come out of commties, livestock has been attacked with a tax.

But here is the problem. Cow don't make methane or any greenhouse gas. They emit sequestered GHG's usually in the form of methane as part of their process to extract nutrients from the feed. Now we don't dig live stock feed from 2 miles under the ground, we don't drill the bottom of the ocean to get livestock feed, we grow the food either in a field as pasture land, hay, or corn with some other products going in too. If the cows did not exist, the only difference would be how much GHG's are pulled from the air by the planting of these feeds and how long it would take to go back into the air.

So without cows or other livestock, the only thing that would change is that instead of a cow eating the food and turning it back into GHG's, it woulod fall and decay in the fields and be released as Co2 or Ch4 or whatever. And no, there won't be any difference in the greenhouse potential because of methane is converted to Co2, the volume of Co2 increases and contains the same thermal effects. In other words, 1 bale of hay eaten by a cow will produce the same effective amounts of GHGs as it would sitting there rotting and decaying naturally. If your not planting hay, it would be field grass or whatever.

Trees are the same, Canada did a study to see if their forested lands could offset their Kyoto obligations and it was found that all stored GHG's in trees will be released into the air again when the trees die and rot. If they aren't cut down and taken out of the ecosystem and used for something useful, they release everything they soaked up in their lifetime creating a zero sum gain over their lifetime. Cows are just a middle man in the process.

Re:Easy alternative

[sumdumass]

Managing cows isn't something that is necessary. Cows get all their nutrients from plants, all of their methane is Co2 stored in those plants, the green house value coming out of the cows in the form of methane will match the amount of GHGs in the plants they eat.

If cows didn't eat the plants, they would just die off, shed leaves and whatever, and release all of their stored GHGs naturally when they decompose.

Re:Easy alternative

[sumdumass]

I'll take a stab at it, carbon neutrality

Plants capture carbon, they then die, hibernate and shed leaves or whatever and rot. All the carbon they absorbed gets released again. When a cow eats hay or corn, it's just being a middleman in that cycle. The cow would offset a number of insects, bacteria, fungus, and other animals that would be processing the carbon and releasing it into the air too.

Now, as for the heat trapping aspect of gasses, It's true that given the same volume of gas, methane is about 20 or so times more potent at trapping heat. However, because the methane is coming from something that would have released all it's carbon to begin with, you end up with 1/20th the amount of Co2 or water vapor or whatever greenhouse gas would be created by the decaying plants. So the fact that methane is released instead of Co2 is negated when you consider the chemical makeup and that they are limited to the elements availible.

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

only if you get the 50% of the riches (not third world, apart Brazilians which are strong farters - as in fart)

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

This still makes it not a cow problem.
The co2 and methane that are released within the ecosystem are a result of a logistical problem, amongst other things.

Also I find it hard to believe that the fuel and fertilizer would not be used if all cow farms would turn biofarm.
Earth people seem hell bend on burning every last drop of non neutral fossil fuel we can get to our refineries.

The trouble begins when people suggest that on top of our silly self-destructive behaviour, cow are contributing in addition to our carbon output.
They are either part of the same problem by what we put into them. The fuel will be bruned and if this is via cow, car or korn transport, the cow itself isn't the problem.

Re:Easy alternative

[TapeCutter]

"What I'm saying is that doing any specific action "to stop global warming" could have unforeseen consequences. Nature has a way of balancing things, and a sudden drop in methane production could have an effect on our climate besides "stopping global warming"".

I don't know where the notion that "when one stops shitting in ones own nest it will somehow create more shit in the nest" comes from, but I find it absurd. I also find the "cow beltch problem" absurd since (apart from sunshine) it's a closed loop, ie: Cow->Methane->CO2+H2O->Grass->Cow

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how long have you been suffering from SPS?

Re:Easy alternative

[TapeCutter]

"False -- growing grain for cattle consumption is not carbon neutral."

Although I think AGW is a serious problem as summarised in the IPCC reports I think the cow beltch thing is a bit of a red herring, sure it takes fuel for tractors/trucks to produce/transport the feedstock for the minority of cattle that are not raised on pasture but apart from that it's a closed loop.

If you are talking about clearing forests to raise cattle then that is indeed a big problem but it's a land use problem not a cow beltch problem.

I have looked at the science over the past 3 decades and I'm certainly not sticking up for politcally inspired psuedo-skeptics here but if you have some evidence that I'm wrong can you post a link pointing out what I am missing?

Re:Easy alternative

[slb]

Good research, but there's a flaw in your logic.

As you said, a bison has an average life of 20 years while whe slaugher cows at an average life of 2 years.

So what you need to compare is not the average weight of the herd at a set date, but the cumulative weight of the grown and slaughtered herd over 20 years.

Although we don't have the figures, it's obvious that the growth of a calve to a full-grown adult require far more energy (and thus produce far more methane or externalities like imported soy) than the sustenance of an adult.

Re:Easy alternative

[TapeCutter]

"When a cow eats hay or corn, it's just being a middleman in that cycle. The cow would offset a number of insects, bacteria, fungus, and other animals that would be processing the carbon and releasing it into the air too."

The cow is more a container than a middleman since it's the bacteria inside the cows stomach producing the gasses. /pedant

Re:Easy alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the Geek shall inherit the Earth. It's ours!

Re:Easy alternative

[hesaigo999ca]

I agree 100%

Re:Easy alternative

[ByOhTek]

*hugs his FLAC playing mobile media player and high quality headphones*

Good thing I find earbuds extremely uncomfortable.

Re:Easy alternative

[Mordac]

The one day with moderator points... Thank you.

Don't need to give up meat, just cut back. For your health, your paybook and your environment.

People can start out by just having one vegetarian day per week, it'll be a great start.

Re:Easy alternative

[PhotoGuy]

Ruminants are a relatively development on the evolutionary tree.

And even more unbelievable, is the fact that they the whole thing.

Re:Easy alternative

[flyneye]

Silly, if we raise and eat fewer cows, where is the beef going to come from? Genetically modified Okra?
Silly Canadian scientists too, If a cow burps methane, we can be sure its part of necessity due to design (evolution).
My money is on it being part of digestion process and if disabled there will be a herd of sick experimental cows leading a very short life.
Eating less beef at this stage in human development has caveats too. In spite of supressed and spun information, eliminating meat from our diet produces people who go from intellectually normal to dingy in a couple months. I have personally witnessed this on more than one occasion when the "fad" of veganism swept pop culture in the 80s. Those that wisely rejected this self destructive fad returned to normal function, those that didn't remain bubbleheaded, inattentive and suffer various maladies I associate with malnutrition. As with most extremes, eating not enough meat is bad as eating too much. Finding a suitable portion should be the focus instead of a fad promoted by an emotional ,radical subculture of hippy leftovers.
          We can also be sure that through millions of years there were other species, cow related or not that destroyed a self sustaining ozone over and over. The sky is not falling, you can pull your head out of your butt and quit hiding. Have some jerky!

Re:Easy alternative

[crmarvin42]

Basically, if your farm smells or if all your plants or animals are getting or are on the brink of getting sick, you're doing something wrong.

Livestock farms smell, Always, No matter what! The central reason being that livestock produce feces which contains incompletely digested nutrients, and urine which contains excreted compounds. You can manage the smell, mask it to varying degrees, or have so few animals that you don't notice it unless standing next to the manure pile, but there is no way to produce meat for yourself and have enough left over to sell at a profit without producing a lot of smelly manure.

Farmers farm to make money, just like everyone else. They chose the field they did because of an affinity for the animals and/or land, but if they don't turn a profit they'll be forced to sell the land and animals at a loss to someone capable of managing things more efficiently. That's why they use intensive agriculture (CAFO's). It minimizes overhead an means that they get to turn a profit more years than not (Currently most US hogs being sold by farmers to processing plants are being sold at a loss, ie it cost the farmer more to feed the pigs than they are getting for them at the plant).

The original tenants being the "Organic" movement are that "Natural is best" and "Industrial is Bad". Unfortunately, the world is not that simple. Natural is usually not best, and in many cases isn't even good.

Take chicken for example. The methionine requirement for growing broiler chickens is 0.5% from 0-3weeks of age, 0.38% from 3-6weeks of age and 0.32% from 6-8weeks of age (nutrient requirement of poultry. 9th edition pub. National Research Council, 1994), at which time the bird is usually at market weight and harvested. I use methionine as an example because the birds use a lot of it for growing feathers. It is impossible to formulate a broiler diet that is adequate in methionine that isn't wasting over half of the protein in the diet. This is because plants are poor sources of methionine (Corn = .18%). You have to add so much soybean meal to the diet that you end up with concentrations of all the other amino acids well in excess of requirement. This leads to a lot of excreted Nitrogen, which is one of the 2 main environmental pollutants in animal waste (the other being Phosphorus). The USDA-certifiable organic guidelines have an exception for the use of synthetic methionine (99.99% methionine by weight) because otherwise organic farmers would never be able to stay profitable. If you are one of those that believes these kinds of exceptions are cheating, then I can assure you that there is no such thing as "Organic" chicken in the US. I can also assure you that any attempt to produce "Organic" chicken will result in very expensive meat that has at least 2x the negative impact on the environment of "Industrial" chicken.

This is not an isolated example. Most of the changes away from "Organic" agriculture were made because they were the best practices as determined scientifically. The organic movement is about putting emotion above rigorous scientific examination of the evidence when deciding how to run a business.

Fertilizer is expensive, as is pesticide. Not using either is unacceptable because the US needs most of the corn and soy it produces every year. You could of made the (weak) argument that the US's level of production was unnecessary a decade ago, but not now that >25% of the domestic corn crop is going toward the ethanol industry. Organic farmers choose to produce grain and meat inefficiently at a time when we are trying to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil by making the whole country more efficient. These two movements have found acceptance in the minds of many of the same people despite being contradictory to the goals of each other.

I used to think that the Organic movement was a good idea. Let the farmers charge those with too much money and not enough brains more for the emotiona

Re:Easy alternative

[crmarvin42]

Molecularly identical means it's no different than what's naturally occurring pharmaceutically, but the effect of pharmaceuticals change with dosage. This is what is alarming to me about bovine growth hormone, that the concentrations are much higher than before.

Only in the cow, not in the resulting milk. The BST increases milk volume, thus diluting out the extra BST. The net math is 10% more milk/cow, 0% increase in BST in the milk, and less tons of feed per unit of milk volume.

'm just cautious around hormones, since my father worked with pharmaceutical hormones a lot, and I learned they can be fairly "general" even when using another species' hormones, but it's ultimately all about the chemistry that I don't know and might mean nothing happens.

There are 2 main types of hormones. Steroid hormones, which are derivatives of cholesterol and identical across virtually all animal species. Protein hormones, are the result of protein synthesis, and susceptible to mutation over the eons as speciation occurs, resulting in many hormones serving similar roles in different species, but being dissimilar enough as to not work in even closely related species. BST falls into the latter category.

So, good, it's not the beef hormones in McD's that's making kids mature faster and get fat, that's just the crap load of fat and calories in it.

BINGO!!

Okay, but, I'm still not convinced that's a good idea. Why would not using antibiotics reduce the number of resistant strains once they're already "in the wild"? This behavior sounds like giving every kid Amoxacilin because they just turned 9 and kids that age might have strep throat. Like, worse than the shameful abuses in hospitals that I've seen with my own eyes. Sure most of the bugs only affect the animals themselves. Again, not sure why that makes it a good idea.

This is because the issue is more complicated that previously believed. The original theory behind the ban was that:

1. antibiotic use in animals promoted the distribution of resistance genes
2. These resistance genes were not wide spread previously because having these genes present in the absence of selective pressure (antibiotics) they were actually a hindrance to the bacteria [like carrying your winter jacket through the dessert, as opposed to wearing it in Alaska]
3. By removing the selective pressure (antibiotics) the bacteria without these genes would out compete those bacteria with these genes.

That was not what ended up happening. It turns out that the selective pressure did cause the genes to become more widespread within the animal population, but didn't seem to affect the rate of transmission to human colonizing bacteria. It also turns out that these genes were not the hindrance that they were expected to be and the incidence of antibiotic resistance genes with in livestock have not changed at all. The real reason that we have a lot of antibiotic resistance genes in humans is the abuse of antibiotics in humans.

Unfortunately, No one want's to hear that the scape goat you've picked out is innocent, and it's all your fault, especially if you are a politician. Consequently, you won't be seeing the ban repealed in the EU any time soon. Despite the overall tonnage of antibiotic use by EU farms is now higher than it was before the ban. They aren't feeding low doses to young pigs that appear healthy, but are instead feeding much larger doses to pigs of all ages that are obviously sick for a net gain in antibiotic use.

Re:Easy alternative

[ukyoCE]

Ugh, so much misinformation in the responses to this post (and the OP itself) I'm giving up mods to post.

I'll just throw out some facts on both sides:

-Milk, in its natural state, is a highly nutrient-dense food that is highly beneficial to feeding nations (ie: europeans domesticating cattle)

-Milk, as sold in stores in modern times, has been reduced primarily to fat, protein (casein), lactose, and artifical hormones

-About 50% of Europeans can digest lactose. The others get stomach pains and gas from consuming dairy. Most people of european ancestry still generate excess mucus due to the glue-like protein in milk (casein).

-The majority of people of African and Asian descent can not digest lactose or casein

-I don't know the details, but the hormones you get in milk can affect the human body (i've heard it said it makes kids grow bigger, which might not even be bad?)

-The high protein content of dairy offsets any calcium you get from it (protein leeches calcium from bones). Dairy and meat-focused diets cause osteoporosis. Asian populations, for example, which have the same lifespan as europeans, have seen an increase in osteoporosis as consumption of dairy has increased. A large study of nurses also showed that milk consumption did not correlate with a decrease in osteoporosis.

-Studies (the lollipop study) have shown that calories from drinks do not decrease appetite and thus result in overconsumption (obesity). However the lollipop study compared soda to candy, and it's possible the fat content of milk reduces appetite to offset the lack of chewing. I have not heard for certain of dairy consumption correlates with obesity. However I suspect that it does.

For your average American, the high caloric content of milk, plus intolerances (mucus and gas/stomach pain), plus the absence of nutrition (from industrial processing), plus hormones all combine to dairy being generally a bad thing to consume. At best, it should be compared to junk food as a 'treat' that should be eaten with caution.

All that said, "nature" is pretty irrelevant. It's pretty clear that milk in its natural (nutritious) form was such a success that it evolved the population towards lactose tolerance.

However, that history has very little to do with the reality of modern americans consuming over-processed dairy products.

Re:Easy alternative

[ukyoCE]

Humans have evolved lactose tolerance

That should say "a small portion of humans". The 90% statistic quoted is unique to Scandinavia, with the overall tolerance being about 50% of europeans, with much lower numbers (about 10%?) for Africans and Asians.

For humans to have evolved lactose tolerance at all, especially in such a short time frame, drinking milk must have been so advantageous that it contributed substantially to the survival of Europeans.

Just because we're largely intolerant of the sugar and protein in milk, does not immediately imply the benefits of milk are outweighed.

Likewise, there are plenty of foods that our bodies are entirely tolerant of that are terrible for our survival considering our alternative food sources. Soda pop, for example.

Re:Easy alternative

[ukyoCE]

The comparison to cooking meat is a stellar example. There IS such a thing as "raw vegans" who think that cooking food is unnatural and therefore "bad" and unhealthy.

Personally, I'd wager that cooking food is tremendously responsible for improved survival of humans. It eliminates almost every troublesome bacteria and virus that can be transmitted via food.

Milk is an interesting combination of the two points. In it's natural form, milk is highly nutritious. Pasteurization destroys those troublesome bacteria in milk, but it also destroys most of the enzymes and vitamins that make milk healthy to drink.

Re:Easy alternative

[Rei]

In addition to what slb wrote, you're only looking at cattle in America. The US is a net importer of beef (we do export significant amounts, but we import even more -- generally exporting quality products to Asia and importing cheap stuff from South America). And what other giant herds of bison outside North America are you picturing as existing historically that make you not want to look at the world cattle production as a whole? The arctic plains never supported a high ruminant density. The eurasian steppes were dominated by equines, which are not ruminants. We already covered the eastern african plains; the southern African plains aren't very different. Forested, desert, mountainous, and jungle regions tend not to support high ruminant densities (the pre-columbian estimate for deer populations in the US is 50m, and deer are much less massive than cattle). And on and on. Bison in North America were exceptional *because* of their large numbers. And if you want to diverge into talking about other ruminants, well, we need to discuss the other ruminants that we raise in huge numbers *now*, such as sheep and goats. The simple facts are that today's population of ruminants is only sustainable via modern agriculture.

And lastly, methane levels are at ~1700ppm. As evidenced by air pockets trapped in ice cores, until modern times, methane levels over the past 650 million years ranged from 400m to 700m. So *something* is causing this, whether you accept livestock's role or not.

Re:Easy alternative

[Dragofix]

I also prefer this one, simple as it is. People are just addicted to eating meat they won't even recognize that it's bad for their health. Sad i know..

Re:Easy alternative

[sumdumass]

Sure it is. However, when I said middleman, I was thinking of someone who doesn't do much but facilitate a sale between you and a buyer and takes a cut of either the profits or the product or both.

The bottom line I was attempting to convey is that the same Co2 - CH4 released by a cow would be released without the cow even being there by similar and other means.

Re:Easy alternative

[TapeCutter]

Yeah, I agree with you. The problem with cattle is that they clear forests to grow them and their feedstocks, ie: it's a land use problem not a methane problem, cows themselves have nothing to do with the current high levels of methane.

The excess methane is thought to come from peat exposed by the poleward retreat of permafrost in the N. Hemisphere. Methane sources are the least understood of the GHG sources and climate models have historically done a poor job of predicting the concentration trend.

Re:Easy alternative

[crmarvin42]

Sorry it took a while to track down a reference. It's from Elanco (the current manufacturer of Posilac), but the relevant claims were verified by the USDA prior to approving Posliac for use in diary cattle.

The fact that tests have been done where rBST and purified 'normal' BST have been injected into human tissue and proved to be too dissimilar to interact with the receptors for human sotmatotropin seems not to faze anyone for some reason.

I've never heard that before, which is a good reason why that hasn't fazed me. If it's true that it doesn't interact with our bodies, than that resolves my concern. It'll take more than a slashdot post to convince me, but I'll keep an eye out. I'm just cautious around hormones, since my father worked with pharmaceutical hormones a lot, and I learned they can be fairly "general" even when using another species' hormones, but it's ultimately all about the chemistry that I don't know and might mean nothing happens.

http://www.elancodairy.com/faqs/fda_safety.html

Re:Easy alternative

[badkarmadayaccount]

That, or getting rid of homosexual prejudice. I'm serious. Most people are against it because "treating them normal, and allowing them to adopt children means more homos!". And I ask, so what?

The critical question

[jeffmeden]

Will burp-free cows be as tasty? Produce as much milk?

And then the question has to be asked, why not just breed them to only make big burps, fit their stomach with a methane extraction tube, and collect it for later use?

Re:The critical question

[oneirophrenos]

Will burp-free cows be as tasty? Produce as much milk?

Yeah, I was thinking about this... If they select only the burp-less cows to be bred, what if that means they select the ones that also produce less meat or milk? Then they'd have to raise more cows to meet the demands and the advantage of having cows that burp less is lost.

Re:The critical question

[badkarmadayaccount]

How about methane oxidizers (bacteria) in the gut?

Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[XPeter]

But what about farts?

Re:Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[davidwr]

But what about farts?
--
I live in my mom's basement, but I'm 15.

Ah, I see now.... :)

Re:Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[canajin56]

To answer your question, and that of all the other people being clever, the article says they produce less methane in their gut, not that they burp less...

Re:Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[Janeshat]

Learn your cow biology people!
They have to belch up their food and re-chew it several times before they ever fart or poop. to 3 or 4 belches to one fart ratio in cows.

Re:Cool...less burps! Green cows!

[SomeWhiteGuy]

Tax the Sh*t out of them... no pun intended. Cow Fart News

Eat Mor Chikin?

[davidwr]

Or perhaps we should pig out on pork, the other white meat.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[morgan_greywolf]

Attention grammar nazis: In case you're not from the U.S., or don't have one located near you, "Eat Mor Chikin" is an advertising slogan used by Chick-Fil-A, a chain of quick-service restaurants that specialize in chicken sandwiches, in their advertising and commercials, which feature cows, who, of course, can't spell.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, your Wikipedia link says pork is white meat.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he was referring to an advertising campaign the pork industry did a few years back that had the slogan "Pork, the other white meat".

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[freemywrld]

The original LOL-cows?

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[JYD]

More like "there is no cow level"

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read your sources? Wikipedia lists pork as a white meat.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[AK Marc]

Actually, your Wikipedia link says pork is white meat.

"and pigs is traditionally considered white" (with no mention of who considered it white)
"pork is also red" (when stating that red meat concerns pre-cooked color, and pig meat may go white after cooking, but that it is still a red meat)
"According to the USDA all meats obtained from livestock are red meats because they contain more myoglobin than chicken or fish." (which I presume pigs to be livestock, and thus red meat according to the USDA)

So, where does it state pork is a white meat? Oh, it says some unknown people may or may not have considered it white meat because it looks white after being cooked, but that its actual properties place it firmly in the "red meat" category and always have. Close enough for me.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually RTFA you link to?

That's unpossible!

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[srjh]

If you follow the references, they do mention who considered it white - the Oxford English Dictionary.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[Ihmhi]

Chick-Fil-A has been moving steadily northward in the last few years. A pastor buddy of mine loves it, and when I told him that there's one not eight miles away from us (we live in Newark, NJ), he about shat himself.

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[TapeCutter]

What wine do you recommend for red salmon?

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[flyneye]

According to G.Gordon Liddy , we can eat any part of any animal except the liver of a polar bear.
Around the world they do. We have merely popularized beef and pork due to the meat / effort ratio .
Some places eat bugs,puppies,kitties,lizards,snakes,rats, etc.
I'll quote a friend of mine who often says " If God had wanted us to not eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat!"

Re:Eat Mor Chikin?

[leenks]

I pasted the wrong wikipedia link. oops.
It should have been this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_meat

At least this proves you can't trust wikipedia on it's own - but the numerous listed sources, and the reasoning for red meat being worse for you (ie higher fat and myoglobin content) suggest Pork is a red meat.

From wikipedia - "however, meats which are red when raw and turn white on cooking, like pork, are categorized by the United States Department of Agriculture as red meats.[3]" (referenced doc is sadly now 404).

Alway more cowbell!

[JesterUSCG]

Or we could just ship all the burping cows to Al Gore's house and he could create a documentary about burping cows.... I mean really, your tax dollars at work here people!

In unrelated news...

[nadamsieee]

An unexplained rash of spontaneous cow explosions has resulted in a glut in the Canadian beef market...

Re:In unrelated news...

[Dunbal]

An unexplained rash of spontaneous cow explosions has resulted in a glut in the Canadian beef market...

      Actually the glut is now all around and outside the Canadian beef market...

Grass

[Prien715]

Or you could have cows eat grass which does the same thing, and has nutritional benefits for the consumer. I know, it's radical.

Re:Grass

[Duradin]

But how does King Corn make money from cattle eating grass?

Or did Monsanto patent grass?

Re:Grass

[bzzfzz]

A more relevant questions is: How does the dairy farmer make money using a lower quality, higher cost feed? Profit margins are thin in that business, and a 10% change in feed costs is enough to bankrupt an operation. Unless you are selling your milk to a customer that will pay extra for environmentally correct practices (as in TFA), it doesn't work.

Re:Grass

[canajin56]

RTFA, that's exactly what they're suggesting, in addition to breeding out the genes that make them overproduce methane. In fact, read your own link, too, because it suggests creating new bacteria that don't make as much methane, which is a bit more radical than simple selective breeding...

Re:Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

We could call it Soylent Green!

Re:Grass

[Colonel Korn]

A more relevant questions is: How does the dairy farmer make money using a lower quality, higher cost feed? Profit margins are thin in that business, and a 10% change in feed costs is enough to bankrupt an operation. Unless you are selling your milk to a customer that will pay extra for environmentally correct practices (as in TFA), it doesn't work.

The grass is free, actually. The problem isn't that pastured cows cost more to feed - quite the opposite is true. The problem is that they each need an acre, so production for the same piece of land falls dramatically.

Re:Grass

[deraj123]

The problem is that they each need an acre, so production for the same piece of land falls dramatically.

So....they cost more to feed?

Re:Grass

[StayFrosty]

The grass is free, actually. The problem isn't that pastured cows cost more to feed - quite the opposite is true. The problem is that they each need an acre, so production for the same piece of land falls dramatically.

The grass really isn't free. At least here in the Dairy state (Wisconsin) there is a good third of the year that pasture is worthless as the grass is dead and covered with snow. Farmers need to make hay to feed grass in the winter. This would use more land and that cost alone would be enough to put most farmers deep in to the red. Then you have to consider the cost of fuel and labor required to make all of the extra hay.

The other thing that isn't mentioned anywhere is that a dairy cow's milk production is directly related to her diet. For a cow to produce acceptable amounts of high-quality milk she needs to have a diet high in protein (but not too high.) Grass/hay alone does not provide adequate amounts of protein to maintain good production. This would cause farmers to need to buy more cows (or watch his milk check dwindle to nothing.) Either situation would put almost every dairy farmer out of business.

Re:Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

The consumer will not tolerate paying $30-$50 a pound for beef. Beef is cheap and pletiful because corn is cheap and plentiful. There would be FAR fewer cows if they had to make do with gras, and the prices would reflect that.

Re:Grass

[ceoyoyo]

Not so radical. I've never seen a cow eat anything but grass. And I've herded the things and picked out the one I'd like to eat. You guys down south do some crazy things, and you really love your corn. Feeding it to your cows AND putting it in your pop!

Re:Grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of grass, can I sell the grass I have after I mow my lawn to farmers? I mean a garbage bag or two of grass should be worth a few dollars, right?

Ridiculous

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Just udderly ridiculous!

Less but...

[JimboFBX]

Just because they burp less doesn't necessarily mean they produce less methane... "We made a cow that burps less. However, it farts more."

Re:Less but...

[Zakabog]

Just because they burp less doesn't necessarily mean they produce less methane... "We made a cow that burps less. However, it farts more."

If you read the article it states that it's not that they just "burp less" it's that they actually produce less methane.

Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows... Stonyfield... anyone?

Re:Sounds familiar

[t0rkm3]

Stonyfield Farms makes a pretty decent, if high sugar, organic yogurt...

Other than that, I have no idea.

Eyes do funny things...

[DudeTheMath]

Did anyone else read that as taking "half a million cows ... off the road"? No? Just me, then.

Why doesn't this go away?

[NekSnappa]

I swear this is this most asinine thing around in the man made climate change circles. And yet it comes up again and again!

There are environmental issues with industrial livestock production. I just don't think this has a big enough impact on the environment to warrant the effort put into it.

As some one who lives in So. Maryland and enjoys kayaking in the Chesapeake Bay watershed I'm much more concerned with the nitrogen run-off from all of the poultry farms on the eastern shore. But Tyson, Purdue, etc. have such a large lobby (money wise at least) There won't be too much done about it.

Not to say that the Bay hasn't gotten healthier in the 25 years I've been living here. But between agricultural run-off and turning wetlands into housing developments it's not as good as it could be.

Re:Why doesn't this go away?

[Celeste R]

Sure, polluted run-off and the diminishing of wetlands are important matters. Eventually, people will be more mindful of those effects. Perhaps keeping the "remember the environment" ball rolling may eventually address those matters closer to your mind.

Every little bit matters, right?

Re:Why doesn't this go away?

[dkleinsc]

You know solving nitrogen run-off and cow methane production are not mutually exclusive, right? There's absolutely nothing preventing them from being done in parallel.

Re:Why doesn't this go away?

[jez9999]

I swear this is this most asinine thing around in the man made climate change circles.

I'd say it's more bovine.

Canadians fulfulling American political promises..

[devleopard]

Sorta. Well, they promised to reduce the bullshit, which we can't do, but here's the next best thing...

Will this really work?

[Celeste R]

A cow that burps less will fart more. Unless the methane coming out of the rear is less than the methane coming out of the front, this won't work.

Personally, I think it would be a lot more effective (and it makes more sense) to genetically engineer the methane-producing bacteria in their digestive tract, solving the problem at the root of the cause. Of course, you'd have to make bacteria that are more efficient than their natural counterparts; but this can be done faster and cheaper than raising generations of genetically engineered cattle would be.

Re:Will this really work?

[russotto]

A cow that burps less will fart more.

Sure, but then we just rig up a setup which lights them off, converting the methane to the lesser greenhouse gas CO2. And also giving the cow a useful way to kill annoying insects.

Re:Will this really work?

[Janeshat]

you need to learn cow biology and read the article before you post. you will sound less ignorant then.

Cows belch more than they fart because of their digestive system, so any gas will be belched more than farted.

Plus TFA is about lowing methane levels in the digestive system, not about making them fart or belch less.

Re:Will this really work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you just hang lighters off their rears, and burn any of the methane they produce?

Re:Will this really work?

[UncleTogie]

Personally, I think it would be a lot more effective (and it makes more sense) to genetically engineer the methane-producing bacteria in their digestive tract, solving the problem at the root of the cause.

I wonder if anyone has tried adding this {or something similar} to their feed yet...

I can't stand the stuff, personally. Produced an... interesting sensation as it worked.

Re:Will this really work?

[Protoslo]

The parent post is modded funny because of its sarcastic tone, but reading TFA, these were my only thoughts. The parent has a very good point: you cannot genetically engineer a cow to 'produce less methane' because cows produce no methane: the bacteria and protists colonizing their gut produce methane. Whether cows belch, fart, or exhale methane, it has to escape somehow. The only way to "lower methane levels in the digestive system" without modifying the bacteria would be to make the cow absorb and metabolize methane! That sounds a lot more difficult than changing the gut bacteria composition. I think it is likely that quite a bit was lost in the journey from research to newspaper article here.

Re:Will this really work?

[Protoslo]

Actually, I found a real article that describes this research, and the solution that is proposed is this: Moore will make the cows metabolize their food more efficiently, so that for a given weight of cow, it will have eaten less over its lifetime, and thus have produced less methane. The research actually sounds really boring. It would be much more exciting if he were changing the metabolism of a cow's cellulose-digesting symbiotes to replace methane entirely with some more desirable byproducts. Of course, the really exciting research would be if he were attempting to make cows able to directly digest cellulose, eliminating the methane-producing bacteria entirely.

Of course, Moore is probably funded by some lame greenhouse-gas grant, but it is entirely possible that if he succeeds there will be a market for cows that need to eat 20% less than their fellows on that merit alone.

Re:Will this really work?

[Anonymous Coward]

A cow that burps less will fart more.Unless the methane coming out of the rear is less than the methane coming out of the front, this won't work.

Do you think that the researchers might perhaps have thought of this? Oh wait, they did - the article talks about reducing the total amount of methane that they produce. The 'burping less' bit is just the spin that the headline puts on it - they're not simply redirecting the methane from burps to farts. Only an idiot would think of that.

If every US dairy farmer...

[frankxcid]

I so sick of these type of meaningless statistics that just serve to give good feelings without doing anything useful. They also serve to make things worse when some fool law maker reads this and creates a tax for those farmers who don't reduce their output. The law maker can claim he took half a million cars off the road and meat just costs more while methane will stay the same or increase.

Re:If every US dairy farmer...

[Janeshat]

and how exactly do they measure these farts and belches?
that is a science experiment I want to see.

Embargo!

[SoundGuyNoise]

Without methane, who will run Bartertown?

Use it

[edivad]

Just use the darn methane do power your farm. Problem solved!

Re:Use it

[selven]

I'm sure the cows will love whatever collection mechanism you're thinking of.

Bending evolution to suit us :)

[hh4m]

so it seems natural evolution of the cows ended a long time ago, now the are bein modified and wil eventually evolve with respect to their usability to us instead of the default survival if the fittest!

CotR

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow! With so many things taking more and more cars of the road (CotR), pretty soon it'll be like no one is driving at all. It's my favorite new unit of measurement. What's yours?

Already reducing the number of cattle in the US

[HockeyPuck]

It would seem that we've already greatly reduced the amount of cattle in the United States. From one estimate, there could have been upwards of 200million bison/buffalo: http://www.emporia.edu/cgps/tales/BISON.htm

Compare this with the 2002 Census of Cattle and Calves in 2002: http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/atlas02/Livestock/Cattle/Cattle%20and%20Calves/Cattle%20and%20Calves%20-%20Inventory.gif

I actually love seeing quotes like, "If every US dairy farmer reduced emissions by 12 per cent it would be equal to about half a million cars being taken off the road." Because it makes it seem like it would be easier to genetically breed "low emission cows" then it would be to take cars off the road. It almost implies that if we reduced enough greenhouse gasses from non-automotive sources we could go back to black smog belching cars/trucks/SUVs.

Re:Already reducing the number of cattle in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare this with the 2002 Census of Cattle and Calves in 2002: http://www.nass.usda.gov/research/atlas02/Livestock/Cattle/Cattle%20and%20Calves/Cattle%20and%20Calves%20-%20Inventory.gif

I for one am very glad you factually included when the 2002 Census of Cattle and Calves occured.

Re:Already reducing the number of cattle in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

or perhaps he is asking us to compare it back in the year 2002. Let me just hop in my time travel machine...

Meat Vats

[Sponge Bath]

Get rid of most of the cow/pig/chicken altogether. Use special meat vats that grow cloned tissue in a special nutrient. No more digestion means no more burps and farts. Place the meat factories in all cities to save on transport. In the long term you could even add infrastructure to pipe liquified meat product directly to restaurants and homes where it could be formed and flavored.

Welcome to the world of the future!

Re:Meat Vats

[ewenix]

mmmmm.....Soylent Green...

Re:Meat Vats

[russotto]

Use special meat vats that grow cloned tissue in a special nutrient.

OK, figure out how to do this with less energy input and at comparable cost to growing the meat on the cow. Oh, and figure out how to make the meat taste right while you're at it. And do the same for the milk.

A cow is a very complex machine which turns vegetable matter into meat. Doing the same thing artificially (even using actual bovine cells) is not likely to be easy, and doing it as efficiently as the cow does is going to be even harder.

Re:Meat Vats

[Janeshat]

actually Soylent Green is a good solution. the problem is too many people!

Stop having 8 children!

Re:Meat Vats

[Sponge Bath]

...figure out how to do this with less energy input

Nuclear powered meat vats!

...figure out how to make the meat taste right

Lots of ketchup and deep frying.

Re:Meat Vats

[twidarkling]

NASA's already done it.

Re:Meat Vats

[ewenix]

You seriously think liquifying human remains and feeding to humans is a good idea?
Beyond the yuck factor, perhaps you've heard of mad cow or scrapie?

Re:Meat Vats

[cyberchondriac]

Get rid of most of the cow/pig/chicken altogether. Use special meat vats that grow cloned tissue in a special nutrient. No more digestion means no more burps and farts. Place the meat factories in all cities to save on transport. In the long term you could even add infrastructure to pipe liquified meat product directly to restaurants and homes where it could be formed and flavored.

Welcome to the world of the future!

Y'know, that really is probably the answer and the future, but for some reason, the concept just grosses me out. As if slaughtering a living animal isn't gross, right? Go figure. I'm probably not alone in this thought though, I think there'd be quite a lot of public resistance to it, just on principal - especially with all the "organic" nuts around.
500 years from now though, things willl probably have turned around 180 degrees. People will be horrified and grossed out at the idea of actually eating the meat of a once-living, breathing, fully developed animal.

I wonder if they'll try to synthesize "real" cow's milk too? (Not a soy byproduct)

Re:Meat Vats

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... How about eating less meat?

Easier, does not require GMOs, and healthier.

Re:Meat Vats

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there'd be quite a lot of public resistance to it, just on principal - especially with all the "organic" nuts around.

When vat grown meat is released, it will cause cancer. Sure, some data might have to be fudged and some studies faked, but commercial vat grown meat will be accused of causing cancer/diabetes/arthritis/autism/AIDS/ect. I just read something the other day claiming genetically engineered crops are the real cause of the swine flu. Mark my words, the 'organic-natural' food lunatics will 'find' some dark disastrous secret that 'they' don't want you to know when vat grown meat gets big.

Re:Meat Vats

[jameskojiro]

By the time affordable vat meat can be grown they will be able to grow people new replacement bodies and then just do a brain transplant, hello immortality and screw you to all the health nuts.

Eat vat meat, get cancer, get a body swap, eat more vat meat, get cancer, get a body swap, get brain cancer, get screwed.

Hopefully along with growing replacement bodies they will be able to cure brain cancer too!

Re:Meat Vats

[Cross-Threaded]

Yeah, but they used the wrong units of measure.

Re:Meat Vats

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/21/us/21meat.html

PETA is offering...a, quite frankly, measly 1 mil for âoefirst person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.â

Some of the nuts say that's bad because they're "still eating animal tissue" but I always thought it was for the ethical treatment of animals, not the ethical treatment of...things that can't even be classified as dead things since they were never really alive.

Still, 1 mil is better than no mil. And if you pound together the meat in the right shape, hey no problem as long as it tastes the same.

"Hello-my-name-is-Marie gave Sable his MEALâ and told him to have a nice day.

He found a small plastic table, sat down in the plastic seat, and examined his food.

Artificial bread roll. Artificial burger. Fries that had never even seen potatoes. Foodless sauces. Even (and Sable was especially pleased with this) an artificial slice of dill pickle. He didn't bother to examine his milkshake. It had no actual food contents, but then again, neither did those sold by any of his rivals.

All around him people were eating their unfood with, if not actual evidence of enjoyment, then with no more actual disgust than was to be found in burger chains all over the planet."

-from Good Omens by Terry Pratchett

Re:Meat Vats

[Anonymous Coward]

This immediately made me think of the "hottie trees" in 2000 ad's Judge Dredd where the mega cities of the future had trees which grew hot dogs and burgers etc.

Most entertaining !

Re:Veganism

[4D6963]

Cue the counter-trolling backed by statistics about how producing vegetables is in countless ways polluting and harmful to the environment in 3, 2, 1...

Fix the consumers

[Camel Pilot]

Right, why not attack the heart of the problem.

Breed (or Engineer) humans that are predisposed towards the herbivore end of the omnivore scale. Such an attribute would also be better suited to space travel/living.

Re:Fix the consumers

[dzfoo]

Most humans are already predisposed towards the herbivore end, that's why we breed so many cows, rather than, say, bobcats.

        -dZ.

Re:Fix the consumers

[Camel Pilot]

Ha ha good reply. I suppose we don't raise other mammal carnivores for food... as perhaps a professional courtesy.

Re:Fix the consumers

[dzfoo]

Exactly. We don't want to compete with our fellow meativores, that's just rude.

As for veggiebores, pfffft! Eating grass is just asking for trouble.

        -dZ.

Re:Fix the consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

i suppose it may be due more to how its easier to breed and keep around pigs, sheep, and cows as opposed to packs of lions, tigers, or bears, oh my!

Re:Fix the consumers

[Chris Burke]

Most humans are already predisposed towards the herbivore end, that's why we breed so many cows, rather than, say, bobcats.

Well, as spokesperson for the National Bobcat Meat Council, all I can say is that you're missing out!

For the consumer, bobcat is a wonderful choice. Bobcat is delicious, naturally lean, high in vitamins and minerals, and, let's face it, a completely awesome thing to say you are eating. Imagine you're in your backyard at your grill, talking to your competitive neighbor Bill over the fence. "Hey Bill, how's it going?" you say. "Oh not bad, just grilling up some pork sausage on my new 80,000 btu propane grill. How bout you?" Bill says. "Oh, not bad, slumming it with my measly 20,000 btu grill... making bobcat burgers!" Bill is stunned. "Oh wow! You are my king! I worship you!" he says in one of those awkward vaguely homo-erotic moments that seem to happen around Bill a little too often. But he is right -- bobcat is the burger of kings.

And for the rancher, bobcat presents many exciting opportunities as well. For one, wolves and other predators will not fuck with your livestock. You can even put your pig or goat pens -- needed to feed the bobcats -- in the middle of the bobcat pens and provide the ultimate in protection for your herbivore stock as well! Also, if you're tired of complacent cows and the tedious and unexciting process of herding them for slaughter, well, you're in for a thrill! Any wannabe cowboy brand a cow, but come at a bobcat with a glowing red brand and get ready to prove your mandhood! Compare scars with other bobcatboys and see who really has what it takes! I had one rancher tell me that they were thinking of getting out of the business due to the lack of physical danger, until I took him on a tour of a bobcat ranch and one of the feisty rascals hiding in a dark corner nearly took his face off. Well I had him signed up that very day to start his own bobcat ranch!

Okay... I'm not going to lie. Bobcat ranching is hell. They're mean, ornery, antisocial, dangerous, and have no compunction about going for the junk. The only thing that rancher signed was the out-of-court settlement with the National Bobcat Meat Council for his injuries. But seriously, I need to push these bobcat ranches or I'm going to lose my job. We'll even start you out with a bunch of free livestock! We're up to our fucking necks in bobcats, come on take some off our hands. They aren't even that tasty but god damn cut me some slack I'm trying to move product here. Eat some fucking bobcat already!

- Chris Burke, spokesperson, National Bobcat Meat Council. NBMC says: "Eat some fucking bobcat already!"(tm)

Re:Fix the consumers

[dzfoo]

+50 Piss-my-pants funny!

      -dZ.

Re:Fix the consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never read anything so damn funny in all my years on slashdot. Thank you, sir, thank you!

Re:Fix the consumers

[Chris Burke]

Gotta give you props for the damn funny idea of raising bobcats. :)

Re:Fix the consumers

[ceoyoyo]

Most predators also eat herbivores. There are more of them, and they're easier to catch.

Personally I quite like predator meat.

Re:Fix the consumers

[dzfoo]

Ha, ha! Right. Well that was easy; for some reason I was thinking of this strip when I wrote it:
            http://www.xkcd.com/325/

Re:Fix the consumers

[Anonymous Coward]

Praise "Bob" ! and all his cats ;)

Re:Fix the consumers

[Chris Burke]

Heh, xkcd is the source of many awesome things.

Feed them what nature intended

[futuresheep]

Corn is not a natural food source for cows. It causes all sorts of issues by changing the ph balance of the cows stomachs, burping included. Feed them grass, alfalfa, and flax like one farmer did. There's no reason to genetically engineer them in this way. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,525590,00.html Not only did the burps get cut back, but the cows are healthier cutting vet costs down, and the milk and beef is more nutritious. Milk and beef will cost a bit more, but considering the environmental and nutritional benefits of raising our cattle this way I think it's a fair trade off.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[canajin56]

First, while nature didn't intend cows to eat corn, I doubt it intended them to eat high concentrations of flaxseeds either. (And I don't really think nature intends anything, not being a person). Second, if you would RTFA, you would see that your suggestion, which is a good idea by the way, is also one that TFA suggests! Third, who said genetically engineered? The article didn't, the summary didn't, and not even the headline did, which is well above par for Slashdot fearmongering! They're talking about selective breeding. And it sounds like the gene they're looking for makes cows produce less methane by virtue of converting more food energy into muscle, which means they'll have less food fermenting into methane in their stomachs over long periods. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine that would have a byproduct of making the beef leaner.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[futuresheep]

Flax may actually be beneficial beyond a normal grass diet.

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/sty/2002/flax_health080502.htm

You're right, I should have RTFA instead of just skimming it.

The gene may make more muscle, but unless the genetic change is combined with a change in diet and enviroment(letting the cows roam), all you get is even bigger cows with the same amount of fat. Don't think that feedlot breeders won't take advantage of that.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, the corn lobbies have done more harm than anything else. Corn ethanol takes more energy to produce than it gives back, high fructose corn syrup, poor feed for livestock, and it's not even all that nutritious for humans either. The energy return on corn is not that great (eg. food or burning, it's a poor energy source). Plus numerous other issues.

Screw the greedy corn lobbies that have abused their power to continue this for so long. Farmers need to replant with more useful crops.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[Obfuscant]

Third, who said genetically engineered? The article didn't, the summary didn't, and not even the headline did, which is well above par for Slashdot fearmongering! They're talking about selective breeding.

What do you think "selective breeding" is modifying, if not the genes? Selective breeding is the low-tech version of genetic engineering. "We want these properties, so we cross these ..."

In fact, this is why fainting at the mention of "genetic engineering" (or picketing, or boycotting...) is so silly. We were "genetic engineering" before Gregor Mendel figured out there were genes. Almost everything you eat today has been "genetically engineered" through selective breeding to be completely different than whatever it was that it started out as. It's just that today we can be a bit more specific about what we are doing.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[Anonymous Coward]

Just an FYI...there is nothing really natural about cows. If nature was left to take it's course, cows would not exist. Cows are one of the earliest forms of genetic engineering. Just done over the insanely long course of generations. Without human intervention, cows flatly would not exist. They have no form of defense, easily knocked over, etc. Once humans became their soul reason for existing, they stopped having much to do with how nature intended them to be.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[eison]

You only have the luxury of thinking that because you can afford it. If you were close enough to starving, you wouldn't think it a fair trade off anymore.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but as NekSnappa said "...I'm much more concerned with the nitrogen run-off from all of the poultry farms...", well, if you feed the farm animals what they are supposed to eat and fertilize the land the way nature intended it to be fertilized most of the man-made problems cause by industrializing the food industry go away.

Then we just have to figure out how to feed all these people.

Re:Feed them what nature intended

[futuresheep]

Ahh...the argument of the processed food industry. "we made food cheap now everyone can eat!"

unfortunately they're eating crap

People ate beef before the advent of feedlots and corn/soy/protein cocktails, they'd be able to eat it if we went back to raising our cattle the old fashioned way. It may be in smaller portions, and it may be a cheaper cut, but then again no one really needs a 30oz porterhouse from costco either do they? It's cheap though isn't it?

Worse than the cows

[Cro Magnon]

What really bugs me is the politicians. They produce far more methane than cows.

Re:Worse than the cows

[The Moof]

I think you're confusing methane with bullshit.

The gist of the problem

[mzs]

The amount of carbon produced by the cow in its lifetime plus decomposition after death is essentially the same as if the cow had never lived and all the corn and soy it would have eaten simply decomposed. The problem is that a cow produces not just carbon in one form, it tends to produce methane (the burps referred to) and methane has a much larger impact in global warming than CO2. The reason that the cows produce large amounts of methane is because the bacteria in their rumen (first stomach) is not right for the diets of mostly corn and soy that they are typically fed and this produces the methane burps. (Incidentally that is why there is relatively little methane in cow farts, almost all of the methane is produced in the rumen.)

So one option is to feed cows mostly grass, that is not sustainable in the large industrial scale used. Another option would be to genetically engineer bacteria that produces less methane and introduce it to the cow rumen. That actually makes more sense than engineering cows with a rumen more like a stomach. Another far fetched option would be to capture the methane, then sequester or burn it outright (the green house gases then are much less harmful).

If you have ever been near an industrial cattle or dairy farm, the stench is unimaginable. In a large cattle farm you can see the methane pockets causing the horizon to wiggle.

Re:The gist of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I live by many dairy farms. Sure, you can smell them, but I wouldn't call the stench "unimaginable". Try living beside chicken processing plants or hog farms....

Re:The gist of the problem

[mzs]

I lived pretty close to one, a huge one with tens of thousands of dairy cows. The stench was in fact unimaginable when driving by. I think you do not live near dairy farms of an industrial scale.

Re:The gist of the problem

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>If you have ever been near an industrial cattle or dairy farm, the stench is unimaginable. In a large cattle farm you can see the methane pockets causing the horizon to wiggle.

This being slashdot, I must assume that your sentence simply came out wrong and that you know that methane itself is colorless and odorless.

-b

Re:The gist of the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the methane will not remain in the atmosphere as long as CO2, Methane has an average "lifespan" of about 10 years as opposed to 100 years of Cars. The Greenhouse contribution of cows cannot be compared to "number of cars on the road" in the normal sense. A cow is more like an Ethanol or Bio-Diesel car, as it lets out greenhouse gasses, but that carbon involved is already in the system. Oil that is brought up from the bottom of the ocean adds to the total in a completely different way.

C02(greenhouse effect(GE) =1) -> Grass(GE=0) -> Cow(GE=0) -> Methane (GE=10) ->
Grass (GE=0) -> Cow(GE=0) -> Methane (GE=10) ->
Grass (GE=0) -> Cow(GE=0) -> Methane (GE=10) ->
-> and so on, it's a cycle.

Oil (GE=0) -> Gasoline (GE=0) -> CO2 (GE=1)
Oil (GE=0) -> Gasoline (GE=0) -> CO2 (GE=1+1)
Oil (GE=0) -> Gasoline (GE=0) -> CO2 (GE=1+1+1)
-> It's NOT a cycle

Soylent green!

[dzfoo]

It's... its'... peeeeople!

      -dZ.

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe so many of you are actually attempting sensible replies where a simple "LOL" would suffice. If restricting or reducing naturally produced animal gases is the key to the future, we might as well just give up now. Seriously, some scientists are actually getting paid for this? Cut down on energy usage and convert to clean power and leave the poor cows alone.

I can already see this coming in a future South Park with a flip-top scientist....

I for one.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could have cows eat grass which does the same thing, and has nutritional benefits for the consumer. I know, it's radical.

as a representative of the corn lobby would like to be the first to say.......HERETIC!

I don't get it...

[hargrand]

Why isn't this posted as "Idle"?

Re:I don't get it...

[Anonymous Coward]

This got modded +1 Funny? It's down right insightful if you ask me (out of mod points).

the numbers game

[dannys42]

I'm not sure I understand their numbers. But if reducing all cow emissions by 12% is equivalent to half a million cars, and there are 250 million cars on the road[1], couldn't you do more by reducing emissions from all cars by even 1% ? (Someone whose still in school want to do the math for me?)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States

Re:the numbers game

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I understand their numbers. But if reducing all cow emissions by 12% is equivalent to half a million cars, and there are 250 million cars on the road[1], couldn't you do more by reducing emissions from all cars by even 1% ? (Someone whose still in school want to do the math for me?)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_vehicles_in_the_United_States

Reducing the emmisions from all cars by 1%, based on your numbers, would be equivalent to 2.5 million cars off the road, or 5 times better than all this bull... I mean cow stuff.

Re:the numbers game

[twidarkling]

Sure. Now, go get every car made before 1990 off the roads.

Oh, and make sure to tell the people who can't afford a new car that "it's to save the environment." New cars are much better than older cars, but there's millions of old cars on the road, simply because people can't dish out a few grand just to have a car that doesn't pollute as much. They kinda need that money to not be homeless and starving. Reducing emissions from new cars isn't the issue. New cars are a small part of the problem. It's old cars still hanging around, and more people overall driving that is the issue with trying to fix emissions from vehicles.

Re:the numbers game

[dannys42]

You make a good point. But you don't necessarily have to get the old cars off the road. Perhaps regulation to refit them to current emissions standards (don't they already do that?)... (btw, by "current emission standards" I mean whatever makes sense -- so if the old vehicles can't be as clean as current vehicles, even if they could meet half-way would be better than leaving them where they are).

I am also assuming (perhaps incorrectly?) that the homeless and such who can't afford to legally operate a car is a small percentage.

Junk science behind the grass

[bzzfzz]

The science behind such a change is unconvincing as far as greenhouse gasses are concerned. Dairy cattle on a grass diet produce less milk over their lifetime; I know, I had a neighbor who ran a grazing herd for a while, so that has to be considered. And the indirect measures for methane emissions they use are weakly correlated. Measuring the actual methane output from a cow in a typical farm setting is not technologically feasible.

To be sure, there are other environmental benefits, chiefly involving soil conservation.

Re:Junk science behind the grass

[Anonymous Coward]

Measuring the actual methane output from a cow in a typical farm setting is not technologically feasible.

1) get cow

2) get box (a stall with a roof)

3) put cow in box

4) add air filtration system

5) add methane sensors

6) .....

7) profit.

Looks feasible to me.

Re:Junk science behind the grass

[Hurricane78]

Yes. Less milk. But at least it IS still milk. And not that strange stuff tasting like hay and barns.
I know, because I can always detect when something is wrong with the milk I'm drinking.
Grass milk tastes much better, and is more full (also of vitamins). Skimmed milk also tastes bad. Like a protein shake or something strangely chemical.
And UHT-milk is the worst. Chemically, it is no milk anymore at all. It literally is a shake of water and completely destroyed molecules that once were proteins and vitamins.
The worst scam is the new "longer fresh" milk. It's essentially re-labeled UHT milk, heated with a new method. It still tastes like crap, but they can sell it at the price of fresh milk. (Who should be cheaper, because it does not need to be processed that much.)

So by selling hay milk of those extreme milk machines who should not called "cows" anymore, they are essentially scamming people in a criminal way, and should be thrown into prison, for endangering the health of millions, and cheating them out of their hard earned money, bug selling them the equivalent of glass pearls.

Re:Veganism

[Anonymous Coward]

It's extremely difficult to be a strict vegan and still have a healthy diet.

Humans are omnivores. That is not a philosophical decision, but a natural fact.

I'm very tired of global warming

[realcoolguy425]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Atmosphere_gas_proportions.svg/180px-Atmosphere_gas_proportions.svg.png and of the greenhouse gases... http://theglobalhoax.com/science/greenhousegassource.gif [decidedly biases source... but you get the idea] Either way, I'm tired of all this global warming... nonsensical, non-scientific, love-fest. Greenhouse gases are not an issue. At least not one we can control beyond the .035% of .03%. Either way, the amount of influence we have on greenhouse gases is likely within the margin of error for test equipment anyway! Lets worry about particulate matter, smog, or at least something that is actual a problem we experience. I feel a little sick whenever I think about how much money has been spent on 'global warming' that could have been spent on so many other environmental pursuits that would actually benefit us. I guess I'll see if Al Gore has modpoints or not today!

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[whistlingtony]

Clean air, clean water, clean earth.... Yeah, that sounds nice. What were you complaining about again?

The same folks that rail against global warming are usually the ones that are railing against letting companies dump pollutants in our water, air, etc.

And lets not forget that the largest polluter is just ordinary poeple making trash, eating food, and dumping their waste back into the water. But again, it's the greenies that tend to make the most effort to reduce their own waste.

So, really, what are you complaining about again?

-T

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[realcoolguy425]

My complaint is we are spending TAX DOLLARS on something that is not an issue. We are indoctrinating children into believing that greenhouse gases causes global warming... errr wait, we updated those textbooks to say climate change now. Either way, what I'm saying is that I don't care if you waste your time, your money, your efforts on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but don't involve public money in it. My complaint is the vast sums of money we are sinking into our 'green' ambitions. Not only that, but we're discouraging the most cost effective sources of energy [or at least we're about to with the cap and trade bogus law] which takes money from successful utility companies who have generated energy reliably for us, and gives it to these green wind farms which will have to built elaborate wires to transmit large amounts of energy long distances to where it's needed. I have many many many complaints regarding global warming and greenhouse gases, most of which come down to wasted money, and bad policies.
Cap and trade, United States fiscal policy, "Man made greenhouse gasses", energy subsidies, international treaties. Pick a topic, I could go all day.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

No electricity, no industry progress, high cost of living...

You're right, that does sound nice.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[dkleinsc]

Ahh, the old "Global Warming is not caused by humans, or not happening" theory.

Perhaps you'd like to explain why not one scientific organization has produced a convincing argument against the existence of global warming, while many other scientific studies have. The only possibilities I can think of that make your argument reasonable are some combination of:
  1. A vast conspiracy of climatologists made the whole thing up.
  2. Al Gore and some environmentalists cajoled and bullied the vast majority of climatologists into making the whole thing up.
  3. realcoolguy425 knows more about how the Earth's climate works than the vast majority of climatologists.
  4. There's some built-in bias that means that all climatologists are predisposed to seeing evidence of global warming when there isn't any.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[jameskojiro]

There is a big difference between dumping cyanide (gold refining) into streams, heavy metals into the ocean, overuse of industrial fertilizer, or dumping CO2 (which we all exhale) into the atmosphere.

How many animals do you know of that piss cyanide, crap ammonium sulfide and exhale Sulfur Dioxide?

Big difference between CO2 and the stuff that was rightly regulated in the 1970's via the clean air act and the EPA.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[jameskojiro]

"How many animals do you know of that piss cyanide, crap ammonium sulfide and exhale Sulfur Dioxide? "

Other than Master Chief....

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I've always loved this argument:

Global Warming isn't happening.
        and if it IS happening, its not because of us, it just a natural cycle.
                and if it IS because of us, there's nothing we can do about it.
                        and if there IS something we can do about it, there's not enough time.
                                and if there IS enough time...aww, never mind, I have to go rig an election.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[KudyardRipling]

Clean air, clean water, clean earth, clean wallets.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[Cross-Threaded]

I just had a thought about this whole global warming thing. (Yes, it hurt my head.)

I'm willing to accept the alleged fact that the earth is getting warmer on the whole. But, I haven't heard anyone bring this tidbit up yet:

Could it be that the earth is becoming warmer because the number of heat engines that populate the planet has continued to increase significantly.

Perhaps that there are so many more heat producing humans on the planet than previously existed might have something to do with it? I can't imagine that this wouldn't at least be a contributing factor.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[DuBois]

Perhaps you'd like to explain why not one scientific organization has produced a convincing argument against the existence of global warming, while many other scientific studies have.

Hmmm.... Here's a scientific organization that doesn't take money coerced from taxpayers, and it actually uses scientific evidence in its conclusions: Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change.

And if that's not enough for you, how about a scientist, journalist, and educator who actually thinks that science should be based on evidence, not psychic prognostications of computer programs and scientific "consensus": Joanne Nova.

And yes, the "built-in bias" is billions of dollars of money coerced out of the pockets of impoverished taxpayers. When a "scientist's" job depends on continued political support, he'll ignore and distort data in order to produce the result his political handlers are looking for. Those political handlers want a result that allows them to control ever more of the world's economy to their own benefit and the impoverishment of everyone else.

Re:I'm very tired of global warming

[Anonymous Coward]

You are -really- overstating the case. There are some very respectable scientists that have serious doubts that 'man caused' climate change is happening. I don't doubt that the climate -is- changing, but the debate is far from over as to why

If these guys are so worried

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they stop breeding, and leave more resources for the rest of us, oh wait they want power and control, not a better world.

I'm ok with it...

[jimbot76]

...As long as they don't use the same methods this guy did.

Why breed cows?

[bluefoxlucid]

I fixed my lactose intolerance by introducing a micro-organism into my body (lactobacillus delbrueckii, to replace l. acidophilus, which had failed for some reason). Same can be done with cows, find something that breaks down methane.

Bad Logic

[ewenix]

There are only 94.5 million cattle in the U.S. now versus 60 to 100 million bison in the 19th century.
That's pretty much a wash, so blaming any alleged global warming (or climate change or whatever you dopes are calling it these days) on cows just doesn't fly.

Why not USE the methane?

[SuperCharlie]

We could hook the cows up up Matrix style, a tube in both ends, capture the methane and run our little contraptions. It's not like we're that far away anyways with Confined Feeding Operations. When they stop putting out, we flush them into the grinder for hamburger. SOLVED. Yes this is sarcastic.. Or is it..

Re:Why not USE the methane?

[Radtastic]

But we can: http://www.strausfamilycreamery.com/?title=greenhouse%20gases

(Technically though, they're using methane from the manure, not the burps. So no mouth & butt tubes are involved.)

Cow-goroos?

[wowbagger]

Kangaroos have a different microbe in their gut that captures the methane and makes that energy available to the 'roo. There had been talk of trying to get this microbe into cattle, which would not only reduce the methane output from the cattle but would also make more food energy available to the cow. What ever happened to that?

Re:Cow-goroos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we just eat the kangaroos?

Re:Cow-goroos?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first iteration of genetically crossbred kanga-cows were essentially jumping cows weighing two metric tonnes. When they reached maturity all hell broke and the project was terminated.

Re:Cow-goroos?

[aphelion_rock]

In Australia we eat kangaroos, in fact, we eat both animals featured on our coat of arms (nice aren't we?). The Kangaroo meat is leaner and healthier that meat from cows. Kangaroos don't require any medical upkeep (don't need to be dipped etc) as they have no real diseases that affect them. They run wild, and are harvested when there is sufficient stocks. Ditch the cow and replace them with kangaroos.

Re:Cow-goroos?

[ceoyoyo]

Kangaroos are delicious. At the same time, in civilized places we raise cows in much the same way - toss them out in a field, wait until they get big enough, then throw a BBQ/wedding/whatever. Same for bison and elk. All delicious.

Re:Cow-goroos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not cut out a step, and eat the kangaroos? They're tasty, healthy, and cheaper than beef - at least, here in Australia.

Re:Cow-goroos?

[pandrijeczko]

Customer: Waiter, do you have kangaroo legs?

Waiter: Yes sir, we do.

Customer: Well hop off to the kitchen and get me a cheeseburger then.

Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows do not produce 75% of total methane emissions. It goes
1. Wetlands
2. Rice fields
3. Ruminants

You don't here a lot about altering or doing away with 1 or 2. The oceans are also major contributors. Lets keep those too.

A major point that is never mentioned in these articles is that all of the methane generated by ruminants is from carbon that is already in the carbon cycle. The half a million cars that are "displaced" are generating their methane from carbon previously sequestered in fossil fuels. Additionally the current American cattle herd is around 100 million and declining. About were some estimates put the bison herd in the 1800s.

There is plenty wrong with our current system of agriculture. The environmental aspect of it can be dealt with by more informed farmers and consumers. We need to move away from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and corn culture and towards sustainable local farms. The article states that animals should be fed a higher energy diet (i.e. corn). The energy costs of producing that diet are astronomical as compared to a grass fed diet. The number one energy cost in producing a lb of corn is the Natural gas it takes to make the synthetic fertilizer. Guess what, the extraction of natural gas is an major methane contributor.

Lets put our focus on producing our food in a more sensible manner. People intuitively know that cows as a methane source is ridiculous hence the jokes. There are so many bigger environmental and ethical problems that we need to tackle in our food industry. Its these half truths get people side tracked away from the real issues. Go meet your farmer and make sure he's raising your food in a manner that you deem acceptable.

Why not take half a million cars out of the road?

[menkhaura]

Why not take half a million cars out of the road? In Brasilia (Brazil's capital, and not the largest city by a long shot), we have more than a million cars for a population of just over two million people. Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city and one of the largest in the world, had a fleet of more than 4 million automobiles in 2003; the whole country had 37 million automobiles in 2003. USA, being the strongest economy, must dwarf this number. Surely the world could live with half a million automobiles fewer in each city that has a fleet of, say, more than a million, and just leave the poor ruminants alone.

Missing the point

[jmorris42]

Listen up numbskulls, cows belching/farting aren't a problem.

Even if you buy the CO2 == Global Warming theory, and the debate on that that is far from decided, cows aren't a problem. The whole carbon theory rests on the release of long sequestered carbon in the form of fossil fuels increasing the CO2 in the atmosphere. And that much has both science and common sense to back it, extracting and burning billions of tons of hydrocarbons has increased the CO2 level in the atmosphere.

Cows are eating plant (and other stuff you really don't want to know about) matter which fixed carbon out of the environment recently. They belch/fart/poop most of it right back into the circle of life where it goes round and round. Not a problem except to the extent fossil fuels are powering much of the cycle in the form of fertilizer to grow feed, move the cows/meat around, etc. but those are general problems with dependency on hydrocarbons that have been buried for millions of years.

Some enviro whack jobs say the methane is a 'greenhouse gas' but that is hard to buy since it is less than two parts per million currently. Even if we take the "twenty times the greenhouse effect as CO2" at face value that works out to rounding error compared to all of the other factors that influence the global environment.

So go have some cow and don't let the greens lay yet another guilt trip on you. Beef: It's what's for dinner!

Re:Missing the point

[canajin56]

Some enviro whack jobs say the methane is a 'greenhouse gas' but that is hard to buy since it is less than two parts per million currently. Even if we take the "twenty times the greenhouse effect as CO2" at face value that works out to rounding error compared to all of the other factors that influence the global environment.

The greenhouse effect is not made up, it actually happens. What's being debated is if its enough to cause global warming, or if other systems will balance it, not whether certain gases can absorb and reflect infrared radiation. Scientists can point lasers at methane and observe its infrared absorption and reflection levels. And it's contribution as a greenhouse gas is, in fact, 20 times that of CO2 for a given amount. They can even do it for gases that aren't even in the atmosphere beyond parts per quadrillion, too. It certainly contributes a lot less than CO2 does, but it's not negligible, either. There's also no harm in feeding cows healthier diets, and breeding them to digest more completely so they produce less methane. If they reduced it by 10%, like TFA is suggesting, that would be enough to balance methane emissions with the natural methane sinks, then everybody will shut up about it and you and I can both enjoy our steaks. And if they're feeding them more flax, maybe we'll be healthier for it. You can get the same effect by paving over landfills and building methane turbines to burn all that garbage gas and turn it into electricity, though you'd have to get at least 50% of all landfills to balance things out. And, why not do both? The imbalance between methane production and sequestration/destruction is certainly not the most pressing issue with regards to gas emissions, but it's not like these farmers would otherwise be making more efficient car engines, but can't because they've got to worry about feeding more flax to their cows...

Re:Missing the point

[jmorris42]

> What's being debated is if its enough to cause global warming...

Exactly. Because while you can measure an effect in the lab it really doesn't matter much in the real world where CO2 is in parts per million and CH4 is in parts per billion. So many other factors operate on scales so much larger than any warming effect those trace gasses will cause as to not matter much. A few clouds more or less totally swamps greenhouse warming. A little more or less solar output totally swamps the greenhouse effect. And so on.

> There's also no harm in feeding cows healthier diets, and breeding them to digest more completely so they produce less methane.

Not at all. But any such change should be based on sound science, economics and consumer preferences not manufactured scare campaigns with hidden agendas.

> would be enough to balance methane emissions with the natural methane sinks..

Who cares? The biggest 'sink' is it's seven year half life in the atmosphere. That means that since we have been maintaining huge populations of cows for several times the half life of their belches/farts the level is pretty much as high as it will ever be unless we add some new high volume source. Meaning we ARE in balance, Methane levels aren't likely to rise from where they are now.

> You can get the same effect by paving over landfills and building methane turbines to
> burn all that garbage gas and turn it into electricity, though you'd have to get at
> least 50% of all landfills to balance things out. And, why not do both?

And I'd like a pony while you are at it. If electricity could be produced at a profit by burning methane from garbage someone would probably be doing it. So I am to assume you are either clueless on economics or you do understand that you are proposing a government subsidy to produce energy at a loss to let greens feel good about how much they care about the environment.... when they are spending other people's money. So which is it? Ignorant or Evil?

Because make no mistake, taking random people's money and wasting it to give a few greens an egoboo is evil. It is a waste because if left in the rightful owner's possession that money would create economic growth instead of being lost on a feel good project that produces a net negative economic effect. In case you haven't noticed we have a major recession going on right now, wasting money only prolongs the pain.

Re:Veganism

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't force your ideology on me and I won't force a steak down your throat. There will never be a compelling reason for me to become a vegan. A few miserable years tacked on to the end of my life or humanities existence is no reason to give up some of the few enjoyable things in life.

Re:Veganism

[twidarkling]

You probably wondered why your cat died on that vegan diet, too, didn't you?

So what's the true carbon net effect here?

[Radtastic]

Does this mean the cow's net energy intake changes? If so, what's the effect on (usable) energy output?

If the energy that was previously exhausted as methane is now converted into edible calories, then I see benefit.

If the cow needs less energy input (eats less) for the same caloric output, great.

If the cow needs the same (or higher) energy input for the same usable output, it stands to reason if there's less methane output, then there has to be some waste-output going on. So what's the ecological impact of that added waste?

I'm no expert here, I'd love to hear from a biologist or someone more versed in the carbon cycle.

Re:So what's the true carbon net effect here?

[greyhueofdoubt]

Excluding all of the oil products used in the feeding and transportation of cows/cow products, yes they are carbon neutral. The problem with cows is that they are emitting their carbon in large part in the form of methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

-b

Cow Tech

[uvajed_ekil]

Oh, great. Next it will be OBD computers and catalytic converters, and soon cows will be too difficult for the average person to maintain.

Re:FUCK

[twidarkling]

STOP IT

this is now WAY beyond nonsense

The green movement is now nothing but grifters and snake oil men chasing after obama bucks

Are you stupid, or did you just not read the summary? Alberta is in Canada. They don't get any money from your President. In fact, no tax money is being spent on it at all. I actually work at the University of Alberta, and no government money goes to research, unless it's specifically ordered by the government. It's all endowments from Councils and Boards that disburse money based on relative merits, and that money comes from companies in the related industries.

Re:Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[twidarkling]

Yep, appeal to ridicule isn't a logical fallacy at all, so of course any subject that people joke about isn't worthy of exploration at all. This is a research project done by a relatively small team, and not taking any resources away from other endeavours. What is such a bad idea about making cows slightly more efficient? The only reason they even exist anymore is because they're used as a food source. They're walking meat refrigerators. Since they only exist because we keep them around, we might as well tweak them.

I have a fever...

[Anonymous Coward]

and the only prescription is less cow belch.

Re:Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[smallshot]

I believe the "75%" is supposed to refer to the cow's percentage of the total methane produced by dairy farmers alone. Another article (posted by someone else above) says dairy cows produce 2% of the worlds methane emissions, but cows are the largest methane source for dairy farmers.

Just another reason not to trust any "facts" the media gives us without further investigation.

Sure, also you could..

[4D6963]

Raise cows in airtight spaces, burn the methane.

United States asked to bear the burden

[pkbarbiedoll]

of global Co2 emissions. Not one word of the growing problem of Co2 belching factories in India, China and other parts of the third world. How many millions of cars would be "taken off the road" if just one of these colossal polluters were dismantled and moved to countries with strong environmental laws which require scrubbers among other things.

Re:United States asked to bear the burden

[Tablizer]

of global Co2 emissions. Not one word of the growing problem of Co2 belching factories in India, China and other parts of the third world. How many millions of cars would be "taken off the road" if just one of these colossal polluters were dismantled and moved to countries with strong environmental laws which require scrubbers among other things.

Dammit, I have a God-given right to $2.00 imported plastic lawn chairs!
     

Re:United States asked to bear the burden

[mattwarden]

That's because environmentalism is a luxury good. When your decision is between saving a rainforest or cutting down the trees to feed your family, you do the latter. When you're spending $8 on a latte, you have room to crusade for saving the environment.

Re:United States asked to bear the burden

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero millions of cars. Scrubbers remove particulate matter and certain non-CO2 gasses , not CO2.

Re:United States asked to bear the burden

[Anonymous Coward]

First-world countries have already been through the industrialization phase of growth and benefited from it. Would it really be fair to say to the the now-developing countries that they can't do what we did without giving them a viable alternative? Because of this, we (not just the US, but all developed countries) need to develop viable alternatives and implement them if we expect developing countries to do the same, we can't just say "don't do what we did because it's bad" without giving up the benefits we have accrued in the process without being hypocrites. If we just tell them that, they'll just say "fuck off, we'll do it anyway", if we instead lead by example, hopefully they'll follow our example, and we'll be in a better position from which to ask them to improve their environmental policies.

Neigh

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the reasons why I prefer horse meat (plus it's yummy and extremely lean).
I'm not opposed to eating cow, pig or chicken, but mass-producing (essentially) only two or three kinds of animal on the scale that we currently are doing just doesn't seem like a very good idea.

Look! Ponies!!

[pkbarbiedoll]

We're not allowed to point fingers at non-American countries with significant or greater Co2 emissions problems. America must pay the price for third world development.

Re:Look! Ponies!!

[jameskojiro]

China is so great isn't it, I love china and the greens, we would do more good for the planet moving manufacturing jobs back tot he USA where the factories have to watch and limit the waste they produce. But no the greenpeace people waste a perfect opportunity to work with the unions to improve things.

If we made all the crap we get from china here in the US, the worldwide amount of pollution would go DOWN.

You can't stop people from buying crap so this is the best solution, I told a greenpeace puke that once and he stood there kinda stunned like it hadn't occurred to his pot riddled brain.

Mikey Will Eat Anything!

[tunapez]

Let him eat it first.

Genetic mod's make me think of unintended consequences, I'm sure I'm just being paranoid and will stay that way. TFA doesn't state how to accelerate growth(even more hormones? time machine? magic?) They do state higher quality feed would help, but what goes into growing this premium feed and it's effects on the environment? More nutrients drawn from the dirt, more fertilizers required(how will the methane-free fertilizer work?). Lotsa questions need to be answered before I'll take a bite of a gen-mod burger.

Oh, and all this to reduce emmissions = 500K cars? Wow, quick fact check found 600 million cars on the world's roads back in '97, I'm sure all the additional costs that will make their way to the consumer will all be worth it in the end. Get it:, end... rear...?

Re:Mikey Will Eat Anything!

[crmarvin42]

You are incredibly paranoid. At least you are aware of the possiblity, so please take this in the positive and friendly way it is intended. Take off the tinfoil hat and just breathe.

Long before the green brigade hit the scene nutritionists and producers have been trying to increase the efficiency of feed utilization (Less Methane produced means more VFA's produced, and VFA's are the main energy unit in cattle). This has been managed by modifying which ingredients are included (some promote methane producing bacteria more than others), feeding bacteria (to out compete the methane producing bacteria), and feeding various antimicrobials (to kill the methane producing bacteria). None of this requires doing anthing that will endanger the environment, it's just finding the optimal conditions for efficient feed utilization.

Now, I never read the article, so I have no idea if they are planning on using GM cows, or simply finding out which cows are the most efficent utilizers of their food, and then breeding them to each other. But based on my understanding of animal genetics and breeding, the latter is far easier than creating a GM cow that no one will want to eat.

Re:Mikey Will Eat Anything!

[tunapez]

You are incredibly paranoid.

Incredibly paranoid? I've been deluding myself into believing it was an inherent distrust of "social scientists" and my propensity to not eat from my chemistry set ... mixed in with a little paranoia.

I realize there is a lack of prosody when posting to /., next time I will use the /sarcasm or ask the direct question: At what cost to the consumers for such an insignificant "benefit" and who stands to profit from it?

Re:Mikey Will Eat Anything!

[crmarvin42]

The researcher stands to profit, because more efficient cows are worth more money to farmers.

Farmers will benefit because more efficient cows will require less feed per cow (feed constituting >80% of the input costs of animal agriculture)

Consumers will benefit because increasing efficiency means slower increases in food costs (the price of food has not kept up with inflation over the last 50-100 years largely as a result of improvements in production efficiency).

If he's breeding the cows, instead of using molecular GM techniques, then it should only cost the university's research farm the extra labor associated with data collection, which should be paid for by the research grants that the professor applies for.

If he is using molecular GM techniques then he's pissing the money away. Most consumers don't like the concept of GM food, no matter how much data there is indicating that it's no different from the Non-GM food. Your paranoia only applies if he's using molecular GM techniques and is still over blown, because he'll need to get USDA approval before allowing anyone (himself included) to taste fruit of his labors.

Ok, but how do they taste?

[2obvious4u]

Cows that burp less sounds good to me. My only question is how do they taste?

Recuperate methane?

[superluminique]

I know it's probably a silly idea but since a lot of cows (at least milk cows) spend most of their time inside, wouldn't there be a way to have the air circulation system go through some kind of filter that would recuperate methane? Instead of just wasting it in the atmosphere farmers could at least use it as an energy source that would allows them to save electricity, which comes -- at least partly -- from fossil fuel?

BTW what's the status of methane recuperation from the big stacks of stinky manure sitting outside barns?

Re:Recuperate methane?

[crmarvin42]

No cattle spend the majority of their day inside unless it's winter and even then they prefer it colder than we do (much lower thermal neutral zone). They may be under a roof most of the day, but there are usually at least 3 open walls and a large opening running the length of the barn so that the warm stale air isn't trapped. Swine and poultry are routinely housed indoors, but not cattle. Dairy or otherwise.

Uh-oh

[Utopia Tree]

If it doesn't come out the front end...

Citation Needed!!

[crmarvin42]

Cows are responsible for almost 75% of total methane emissions, mostly coming from burps.

Citation needed.

I find that number very hard to believe. I've worked with a lot of livestock, and don't doubt that a lot of methane is coming from cattle, but I can't believe that they make up such a large percentage of global methane production. Maybe I could believe 75% of methane produced by agriculture, but I would expect agriculture to not contribute more than say 25% tops. Or alternatively, that methane is 75% of the greenhouse gasses emitted by cattle.

Re:Citation Needed!!

[Forbman]

Don't forget all the methane that comes off of feed lots and dairy ponds.

At least as far as dairy cows in the US, if milk prices don't get better soon, then "market conditions" will take care of the dairy cow head count soon enough. As in, USDA will establish a herd buy-out program (funny, they don't do that for sheep, pigs or beef cows...).

Re:Citation Needed!!

[crmarvin42]

I'm not forgetting it, but the summary claims that most of the methane comes from burps, not the slurry ponds. Even including the pond, I still can't believe that the methane from the worlds cattle out weighs all the methane from other sources such as human industrial activities, other animal production facilities (swine & poultry), or just the gas coming from human farts/burps (who burp and fart an awful lot and have the cows outnumbered by a fair margin).

I've not been paying much attention to milk prices recently. Left the dairy industry ~7 years ago for the swine and poultry sector. Are we gearing up for more small farm losses and consolidations?

Breaking: Cows Detonating All Over Canada!

[leftie]

"They can't burp or fart. There's flash and a big beefy explosion that smells like barbeque, eh."

Re:Breaking: Cows Detonating All Over Canada!

[Anonymous Coward]

"They can't burp or fart. There's flash and a big beefy explosion that smells like barbeque, eh."

mmmmmm Natural BBQ. Nom nom nom nom.

Now all we need is some BBQ producing Bacteria...

Problem already solved

[w0mprat]

Feeding cattle different grass, ie something similar to what they evolved to eat, solves the methane problem.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/06/08/omega-3s-in-a-cows-diet-provide-a-health-boost%E2%80%94to-the-atmosphere/

So other than making lots of money from selling a low-methane breed, I really don't see the point, we already have the solution to the methane problem, we were just feeding them wrong.

Re:Problem already solved

[rgviza]

we were just feeding them wrong

There is nothing like Occam's razor to highlight obvious stupidity ; )

Methane = Fuel, No?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hold on a minute. They want to genetically engineer cows to produce less methane at the same time as we look for alternative fuel sources? Maybe I am overlooking something because of my ignorance, but why can't we harness the methane and use it as fuel?

Re:Methane = Fuel, No?

[Cross-Threaded]

Have you ever driven by a feed lot, and seen those great big long piles of manure with airtight coverings on them?

That's exactly what they are doing.

This is "insightful"?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding, our world is changing. News at 11. However, the implication here is that the methane is causing "global warming", hence, the change.

Fact: while CO2 and methane have been increasing, global temperatures have been dropping for the last 9 years.

How is that possible? Easy. Global warming is not caused by humans. It's caused by that gigantic thermonuclear ball of fire in the sky. Read up on "cloud chambers" and the sun's magnetic field and what that has been doing for the last decade.

Re:Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[jameskojiro]

I thought draining wetlands was a bad thing, turns out it could save the planet and rid of us those pesky mosquitoes!

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

The only cows I'm eatin' are the burpin' and fartin' kind. Just ain't right that an animule don't be makin' a stink.

But really people what kind of insane race are we. Do we really want to be the only species left on the planet makin' a stink. How udderly embarrassing!

Burpless cows?

[pitterpatter]

TFA seems to me almost to have been written by an illiterate, except of course that by definition illiterates can't write.

First of all, the first sentence sounds like complete bullshit, unless of course it's followed by a second sentence something like: "Bulls and steers and grandparents are responsible for the rest," which would make it clear that we're talking about some restricted subset of all methane generated and/or released throughout the world.

Also, I have compelling reason to believe that none of the methane on Titan was generated by cows.

I call FUD on the whole article.

Re:Why not take half a million cars out of the roa

[jameskojiro]

I have two vehicles, one is a car that I carpool to work with two other people in my building, the other is a real pickup truck. I only use the pickup truck when I need to haul big things or when my car busts down.

My car gets really good mileage as well. Now I could trade my car and pickup in for an SUV(so i can still haul big stuff), but I would burn more fuel each day as I do currently. For me having two vehicles gives me added flexibility and improves my overall efficiency. I only use my pickup once a month and it is emission compliant. So for some peopel who are smart, having two vehicles helps save the planet.

Or should I get myself and SUV instead of two vehicles?

AHHHH! Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut UP!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares? WTF? I am getting tired of selfrightous morons telling me what to eat or not to eat, what to drive or not drive, where to live, how to live, how long to live.

So just shut the fuck up. All of you.

Persnicket alert ... it's not the burping

[quixote9]

Cows fart methane much more than they burp it. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for Slashdot maintaining a genteel tone in its titles. So, herewith, the improved version: "Cows that let out less methane to be cabbage patched."

Re:Persnicket alert ... it's not the burping

[ceoyoyo]

Actually, you're wrong.

Re:Persnicket alert ... it's not the burping

[quixote9]

I know. I know. They really come out of the turnip patch.

Forgetting feedlots?

[proselyte_heretic]

High methane from cows is a symptom of the problem, which is that most beef is from feedlots. Not only is the huge amount of waste produced by the feedlots a large methane source, but also the fields that are used to grow the feed (mostly corn). This article (print version: http://www.motherearthnews.com/print-article.aspx?id=150244) explains that conventional feedlot agriculture emits carbon dioxide and methane both on the fields and the feedlots, while rotational intensive grazing sequesters carbon and emits much less methane.

Hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that this got moded up as Interesting rather than Funny.

Re:Hilarious

[justinlee37]

How is this funny? It's insightful.

Yes but...

[PolishPimpin]

will they be less delicious? :(

Would a veggie eat "shedded" meat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent to Infinity.

Things change, things always change.
It is those animals that go out and dare that end up carrying the rest of the species future behind it.
If no animals dared to go beyond the norms of society, the human race wouldn't exist the way it does now, nor would most species actually.

One thing i would really love to see in the future is animals that grow meat that is released from their body after a period.
How much better would it be to have an animal just "poop" out some meat, or shed meat like a snake?
Yes, someone should engineer snakes that shed meaty nutritious skin! It'll make billions!
I, for one, welcome our genetically engineered food poopers.

So, yes, title is an actual question, would any veggies eat meat that an animal sheds? Technically the animal wasn't harmed, and if the animal was treated decently, would it really bad a "sin"?

It's the beer.

[Drone69]

Get rid of Canada's beer, the cows will sober up and burp less.

Not just the vegetarian movement

[WiiVault]

You make a great point about vegetarians. Just like most "movements" the zelolots take it over and instead of helping promote their cause they simply polarize the issue. Look at anti-smoking groups or MADD as other great examples. Sadly most of the "members" of these movements are actually quite levelheaded people. Most of my friends who don't eat meat still believe it can be part of a healthy diet. They simply choose not to eat it and believe that they can find suitable replacements. This is the same reason I, as an anti-smoker try not to fall for all the BS anti-smoking propaganda. The hardliners always make us all look like assholes.

Can Anything Digest Corn?

[WiiVault]

I know I sure can't.

Another way to deal with the methane problem

[FishTankX]

If we wanted to cut down on the amount of methane that cows emit, couldn't we just put pilot lights on their mouths? Then we'd have firebreathing cows.

Pastured Is Better

[pubwvj]

Pastured livestock don't burp and toot as much methane. In any case it is not actually as significant as some people are saying. The numbers are being distorted and exaggerated for political purposes. Still, buy locally pastured meat. It's a better choice and uses resources, pasture land, that you can't eat rather than grain.

Easier, sure ...

[justinlee37]

Easier? EASIER!? You insensitive clod!

Seriously, getting us to stop eating meat will be like trying to get smokers to stop puffing on cancer sticks. I'm not ready to give up my meat. So I think you'd better just bite the bullet and at least be thankful we're willing to eat meat out of a vat in order to conserve resources.

Prior art?

[Anonymous Coward]

put cow in box

You might be in for some legal troubles if you try to profit from it. Are you certain that putting a Cow in a box isn't patented?

I'm not sure how you would fit it into there and keep it alive anyway. Plus, the cow would certainly get disoriented after a while.

The insanity of reducing "greenhouse gases"

[DuBois]

When someone tells you that greenhouse gases "must be reduced" ask the following question: "What evidence is there that methane and CO2 control anything, let alone the temperature at the earth's surface?"

Until someone can come up with a measurable, falsifiable method for pointing directly at methane and CO2 as the drivers of the planet's temperature, it is insane to try to change our output of these gases

Instead of breeding cows that produce more milk, we invest money in attempting to reduce their very natural output of methane. Doing so will eventually bankrupt the West, allowing the East to triumph both culturally and economically.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is literally suicidal. If your ultimate concern is the reduction of greenhouse gases, please consider a large 10 gallon plastic bag over your head, with a good bit of duct tape to prevent your personal emissions from escaping. You will very quickly cease to "pollute" the atmosphere with that plant-vital gas, CO2.

You may also thereby contribute to the coming ice age, directly attributable to the current lack of sunspots.

Re:Bad article. This entire subject is FUD.

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>Guess what, the extraction of natural gas is an major methane contributor.

You do know that natural gas IS methane, right?

-b

Capture and use as energy?

[trawg]

I've always wondered, if cows produce so much methane, is there a way to capture it and use it as an energy source?

I guess capturing methane from cows is a non-trivial exercise, but it sure sounds fun. I want to drive around and see cows wearing crazy helmets with gas tanks on their back like bovine scuba divers doing it wrong.

Pinch me...

[TapeCutter]

...because I can't believe I'm in full agreement with one of your posts on GHG's.

PS

[TapeCutter]

Here is one of my sources, note that Keppler et al's plant idea has been debunked since that article, meaning that peat is the main source of methane.

RC's opinion on cows is almost an after thought: "Agricultural emission, from rice farming and ruminant animals, is not so easy to quantify either, but we'll leave a description of that to the reader's imagination."

Re:Veganism

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, there's got to be a solution other than giving up all the food that tastes good. Bacon, man! How do you expect me to live without Bacon!

We could...

[hesaigo999ca]

We could attach a cow to each car, and have a converter that takes this methane and uses it as energy source for the vehicle...imagine that...free gas!

or you could just change the feed...

[Anonymous Coward]

13% to 18% reduction