White House looks to regulate cow flatulence as part of climate agenda!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I gave you a scholarly article that directly discussed the impact that cattle has on methane emissions from nearly 20 years ago. Within it are numerous pages discussing feed quality effects on methane emissions in cattle so that's part of the problem. We also tend to overfeed our cattle so that each one produces more meat or milk than what they would typically produce in a natural setting. This actually increases the methane loss (cow farts) from the cattle in question. As far as the population of cattle, it was 1.5 billion in 1995. It has since declined to 1.3 billion but largely due to changes in feed and the use of hormones that allow fewer cattle to produce more of that meat and milk. That doesn't necessarily equate to fewer methane emissions because you have to factor in that feed factor.

As far as "natural" cattle populations go, the American Bison is believed to have had a population of 60 million before 1492. The cattle population in the US alone for 2013 is close to 90 million and that number does not include natural foragers like the American Bison. So more of them plus having a sustained and well fed diet, which produces higher levels of methane loss (cow farts) that would not occur in a natural forager's diet. A natural forager is not the same thing as a domesticated and maintained animal. The two things just aren't equivalent.

reply to post by Phage

No. The underlying reason was the drought.

The underying reason is because of regulation like NAFTA, and others.

politicalcalculations.blogspot.com...-leur3s

Look at the purdy chart !

www.huffingtonpost.com...

Phage
reply to post by Libertygal

 

The government, read the taxbpayers, support the farming industry, especially grains, but recently cattle, in the US.

Somewhat so, yes. Because, you know, we sort of need them.

It was blamed on draught, but the underlying issues can be traced back to two causes, overregulation increasing farming costs, and ethanol production making grain prices nearly prohibitive for food for cattle.

No. The underlying reason was the drought.

Yep. This drought:



Courtesy of: droughtmonitor.unl.edu...

Mother Nature can be quite the b*tch.

reply to post by neo96

Yeah. Neat chart. Now compare it to GDP for the same period. I guess more regulation leads to more production.



NAFTA? A trade treaty? Not sure what that has to do with the topic.

reply to post by Phage

I meant the regulations about methane emissions from farms. You know, like your OP is talking about?

Why?

That article talked about quite a bit of things.

It’s not just the dairy industry that the Obama administration is clamping down on. The White House is looking to regulate methane emissions across the economy from agriculture to oil and gas operations — all this despite methane emissions falling 11 percent since 1990. Read more: dailycaller.com...

Phage
reply to post by neo96

 

Yeah. Neat chart. Now compare it to GDP for the same period. I guess more regulation leads to more production.



NAFTA? A trade treaty? Not sure what that has to do with the topic.

edit on 3/29/2014 by Phage because: (no reason given)

How about comparing it to the increases of welare, and food stamp usage, and umemployment ?

IF you read the article you would know what It has to do with the topic.

Such outcomes include a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada and the related loss of 1 million net U.S. jobs under NAFTA, growing income inequality, displacement of more than one million Mexican campesino farmers and a doubling of desperate immigration from Mexico, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after "investor-state" tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies.

Greenhouse gases are not only made in America.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Well, I'll say I've looked at this issue the last few times it's become the cause in fashion over the past 15 years or so. It's certainly no new issue, by any stretch, and I'm not taking it serious for far more than 1 story's information and 1 day's consideration. Far more like years of seeing the stories on and off and, again, looking into it a few times before today, to satisfy my general curiosity.

I don't take it as a serious threat to this planet's gas ratio for atmospheric balance. I cannot possibly put it more simply, and again, it's an educated opinion, not a random thought. Opinion it is though.

We also have a limited number of directions that effort or manpower can be directed to fix what we've so totally broken. Destroying another sector of our economy, while we're at the bottom and sucking dirt right now (literally in Texas and some other hard drought hit areas) will LIMIT those resources further, while never solving the problem entirely to justify the damage done in the process, in my opinion. Again..opinion, but with some reading done to have formed it.


Red Meat in general and Beef very specifically has also been under attack from several directions, for many years. Our economy does have a direct dependence on it...as does our food distribution in America. There are far more important things, as my final opinion to state, to devote our efforts to...than how many farts our food sources make before they hit our dinner plates.

Now I think I'll cook myself some hamburgers. All this talk of beef has me hungry.

reply to post by neo96

That article talked about quite a bit of things.

The Action Plan does talk about proposed changes in the standards for landfills and about targeted regulation for the oil and gas industry.

The article lies about any regulation of the dairy industry being on the table, much less anything about cow farts.

reply to post by Phage

The Action Plan does talk about proposed changes in the standards for landfills and about targeted regulation for the oil and gas industry.

Yeah and it will happen, and it will increase the cost of goods across the boards.

And put more people out of work.

Which is what I said in the op.

Until this thread started getting trolled.

Because 'regulation' is good !

And it isn't.

reply to post by Phage


As I said, overregulation, and draught were the underlying causes. It was a combination of both. Overregulation increased farming expenses, giving them less spendable income in times of emergency. Governent funding and beaurocratic red tape and flat out denial of help from the government left farmers with starving and thirsty, dying cattle, no choice but to slaughter them.

I can, and will, back up my claims.

m.westernfarmpress.com...

In just the last three years, the Environmental Protection Agency has set in motion a significant number of new regulations that will significantly change the face of agriculture.
The coming changes threaten the continued
operation of family farms and ranches,
according to the American Farm Bureau
Federation.

m.huffpost.com...

Will Feds Bankrupt
Small Farms With Food
Safety Rules?

faces an imminent
threat from an unexpected source:
new food safety regulations, written
by the federal government, that if
left unchanged would overburden
some family farmers to the point
that they may go under.

articles.latimes.com...

Planned food safety rules rile
organic farmers.

www.foxnews.com...

www.thesunchronicle.com... l

Small farm owners fear new food
safety rules could put them out
of business

m.ft.com...

Growth Energy, an ethanol lobby group,
warned last month that the EPA’s proposal
will have a “significant adverse impact” on
the industry, forcing plants to close,
thousands to be sacked and billions of
dollars in revenues to disappear.

www.cbn.com...

Feds Deny Water to CA Farmers

m.us.wsj.com...

Thanks to environmental regulations
designed to protect the likes of the three-inch long delta smelt, one of America's premier agricultural regions is suffering in a drought made worse by federal regulations.

Need more? It is/was, a combination of both.

Overregulation, and drought, and the government actually caused the drought in some areas. Then, refuse to help the farmers.

For the record this chart is not 'neat'.



It's a sad state of the union over 80,000 pages of regulations.

Regulation is neither good nor bad. It depends on what is being regulated. If regulating cow farts will result in a healthier planet, then I'm going to support it. If you're talking about regulation of people's personal choices (who they sleep with or marry, and whether or not we have the choice to breed) I'm going to be against it.

As far as whether the OP misrepresents the facts of the article. well, that happens every day, many times per day here. It's all about how "sensational" one can make the story appear. How can we insult and criticize the current administration about this? How can we make them seem crazy? It's a desperate measure, IMO, but one that seems to work with those who don't think for themselves.

reply to post by neo96

How about comparing it to the increases of welare, and food stamp usage, and umemployment ?

Unemployment? That one bounces around a bit.
1930: 8.7%
2007 (before that banking thing): 4.6%
2010 (after that banking thing): 9.6%
www.infoplease.com...


Food stamps?
Yeah, there's that banking thing again:
www.theblaze.com...


Welfare? You mean this?
www.cbpp.org...

IF you read the article you would know what It has to do with the topic.

I read it. I just don't understand how it applies to the topic.

reply to post by neo96

Because 'regulation' is good !

And it isn't.

Sure. No regulation is the only way to go.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

Regulation is neither good nor bad. It depends on what is being regulated. If regulating cow farts will result in a healthier planet, then I'm going to support it. If you're talking about regulation of people's personal choices (who they sleep with or marry, and whether or not we have the choice to breed) I'm going to be against it.

That is called trying to have it both ways.

As far as whether the OP misrepresents the facts of the article. well, that happens every day, many times per day here

That is a lie.

What was done was an article was linked for discussion, an opinion followed.

Just like every other thread on ATS.

I expect better.

Phage
reply to post by neo96

 

That article talked about quite a bit of things.

The article lies about any regulation of the dairy industry being on the table, much less anything about cow farts.

Bingo. From the linked source embedded within the dailycaller article itself:

In June, in partnership with the dairy industry, the USDA, EPA and DOE will jointly release a “Biogas Roadmap” outlining voluntary strategies to accelerate adoption of methane digesters and other cost-effective technologies to reduce U.S. dairy sector greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

www.whitehouse.gov...

"Voluntary strategies" is not "clamping down on the dairy industry". Usually what the government does to encourage a specific voluntary behavior is by offering some incentive in exchange--most frequently used is a tax incentive/credit. Providing incentives that encourage a specific behavior is a kind of soft touch approach that is often used in lieu of regulation. It's kind of like buying a lotto ticket. Technically, when one buys a state lotto ticket, they are essentially paying a voluntary tax in exchange for the oft chance of becoming a winner. One isn't forced to buy the ticket and freely elects how much they want to pay. It's done for that incentive in the possibility of becoming a millionaire and, in exchange, the government gets more money into it.

reply to post by Libertygal

Overregulation increased farming expenses, giving them less spendable income in times of emergency.

I haven't said regulation does not increase costs. I said that the drought was the reason that herds were culled.

Governent funding and beaurocratic red tape and flat out denial of help from the government left farmers with starving and thirsty, dying cattle, no choice but to slaughter them.

Weren't you complaining about government subsidies for farming a minute ago?

reply to post by Phage

Unemployment? That one bounces around a bit.

Because of government creative accounting. That stops counting people.

The real deal:

The 102.159 million Americans not working in December is not the all-time record of Americans not working. That all-time record was set in October, 2013, at 102.896 million. The employment-population ratio that month was an even more pitiful 58.2%.

www.forbes.com...

Food stamps?

There's a fairly basic question at the core of the current food-stamp debate in Congress. Why has the program grown so rapidly over the past few years — to the point where 47 million Americans, one-sixth of the country, now receive food stamps?

www.washingtonpost.com...

Apparently people love them 'evil bankers'.

You might think that if you’re on food stamps, big banks won’t be very interested in you. What could they possibly want with someone who’s struggling just to put food on the table? But it turns out that you’re actually part of a profitable business for big bank JPMorgan. While the money to pay for the stamps comes from the government, the technology to access it lies in private hands. Food stamps used to be literally stamps — that is, pieces of paper — but in this day and age paper is so old fashioned. Now you get your food stamps with a debit card, and JPMorgan knows all about creating plastic credit products.

www.rooseveltinstitute.org...

The JP Morgans and food retailers thank the food stamp supporters.

They guarantee them income.

I read it. I just don't understand how it applies to the topic.

Yeah regulation like Nafta doesn't 'isn't' related to the topic.

Or those who act like the US is the only country in the world has nothing to do with it either.

Benevolent Heretic
Regulation is neither good nor bad. It depends on what is being regulated. If regulating cow farts will result in a healthier planet, then I'm going to support it. If you're talking about regulation of people's personal choices (who they sleep with or marry, and whether or not we have the choice to breed) I'm going to be against it.

As far as whether the OP misrepresents the facts of the article. well, that happens every day, many times per day here. It's all about how "sensational" one can make the story appear. How can we insult and criticize the current administration about this? How can we make them seem crazy? It's a desperate measure, IMO, but one that seems to work with those who don't think for themselves.

What if the regulation includes putting more crap into the already horrendous feeding habits of large scale beefing operations?

We pump our animals with all sorts of stuff to produce more meat, antibodies etc etc etc....

We know all this stuff were putting in our farm raised food stuffs is KILLING people, causing all sorts of ailments....

And people are ok with letting the gov experiment and put MORE crap into the feed were giving these animals?

Anyone else not see the hypocrisy in the fact that so many "Save the Earth" people are for this, yet fail to see how this will be worse for not only the animals but the humans eating them?


Again, like has been stated before to the point of lunacy.....you cant regulate the rest of the world.....

And ive lived in farming and ranching communities my whole life......ive never had issues because of their farts, like people in cities do with their air quality.....


this is why i buy and butcher my own meat..........


YAAAAAAAAAAAAY regulations! that could NEVER go wrong right? Right?

reply to post by neo96


It's only neat if you are liberal, and love bloated government, and need someone to coddle you from cradle to grave.

dailycaller.com...

Happy New Year! Feds list 141 new regulations in only three days

dailycaller.com...

...including 134 regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency alone.


That was the fall of 2013.

2014 brought more fun.