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Want To Fight Climate Change? Stop Cows From Burping
sciencehabit writes: A simple supplement to a cow's feed could substantially decrease a major source of methane, a planet-warming greenhouse gas, a new study suggests. Each year worldwide, the methane produced by cud-chewing livestock warms Earth's climate by the same amount as 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide, a little more than 4% of the greenhouse gas emissions related to human activity. That makes cows tempting targets for methane reduction efforts. In a new study, researchers added the chemical 3-nitrooxypropanol, also known as 3NOP, to the corn-and-alfalfa-based feed of 84 milk-producing Holsteins and monitored their methane production for 12 weeks—the largest and longest such trial of its type in lactating cows, the scientists say. For cows whose feed included 3NOP, methane emissions dropped, on average, by 30%.
This chemical makes the feed more effective, and more of the nutrients gets digested by the cows. Why would farmers not want a more effective feed? How is that naive?
All the complaints here are predicated on the idea that this will cost a lot of money and that farmers will not be willing to pay for it so the it will have to be mandated by a government decree. Nobody has provided any evidence of these claims.
The scientists say that more studies need to be done on this subject, and that they still don't have all the answers. I don't claim to have all the answers. But the people who are against the idea seem to have all the answers; enough to judge this idea as unworkable and call anyone who wants them to justify their claims as naive, irrational, thoughtless and have no business commenting.
What bothers me, however, is that the article is talking about burps, while the problem is cow emissions. Not all cow methane emissions are burps.
The majority of the methane a cow produces is burped up rather than coming out the other end. That is from the microbial fermentation that takes place in the cows rumen.
The uppermost area of the rumen, the headspace, is filled with gases (such as methane, carbon dioxide, and, to a much lower degree, hydrogen) released from fermentation and anaerobic respiration of food. These gases are regularly expelled from the reticulorumen through the mouth, in a process called eructation.
I'm not particularly concerned about the methane released by cows and other ruminants because that is carbon from plants they eat that originally drew it from the air in the first place. So it doesn't add to the total carbon in the active carbon cycle like burning fossil fuels does which is the real problem. If all we were getting was some increased methane from raising more livestock it would be a minor problem that would hardly be worth worrying about if CO2 levels were still around 280 ppm. Far more concerning to me is the methane being released from organic matter in the permafrost and methane ices under the sea that's been sequestered from the active carbon cycle for a long time.