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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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."

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.

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: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: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.

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.