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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[badfish99]

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

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

[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

[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

[Samah]

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

Damn.

Eat Mor Chikin?

[davidwr]

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

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.

Ridiculous

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Just udderly ridiculous!

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.

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!

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.

I don't get it...

[hargrand]

Why isn't this posted as "Idle"?

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)