How far towards stupid can scientists get?

Cows that burp less seen helping in climate fight

LONDON (Reuters) - Manners aside, getting cows to burp less can help reduce global warming.

Using modern plant-breeding methods to find new diets for cows that make them belch less is a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Monday.

This is getting way past stupid if you ask me...

Mod Edit: changed unnecessarily confrontational title to something more accurate

[edit on 7/14/2007 by Gools]

Maybe you are being over the top here, Stupid tree huggers?

I would like to point out, "scientists said on Monday".

I am not sure I can make the connection, care to help?

Personally, I'm sure those scientists are right, but I believe the plan a little out there. What I mean is cows only only account of small population of living creature on earth. Whether or not they burp more or less, overall wouldn't make that much of a difference.

Heck if we all stop defecating for one day and breathing (exhalling) for one second, imagine how much carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and methane we can prevent from being released in the air. Or we can change OUR diets, and produce less of those gases.

Haha..I remember I found a site that tells us how CO2 a person produce from exhaling each year, sorry guys!! I'll find it when I have the free time.

It would be great if the scientist can genetically modified a particular plant or tree that can absorb more CO2 and produce more O2 per ratio. Unfortunately, plants will always release some CO2 back into the air, and once they die, they pretty release most of their CO2 in the air, while the other go through carbon sinking in the ground.

I don't know exactly what percentage of greenhouse gasses are caused by cattle and I cannot find any hard figures on exact number, but cattle flatulence does contribute to the general amount of methane in the atmosphere. Current beliefs are that around 17% (if I remember correctly) of Global Warming trends are contributed by the release of methane into the air. As the human population grows, so does our consumption of beef and milk, and the huge prevalance of mass production has led to corporate feed yards and cattle processing plants to meet the demand. Here in Kansas there are feed yards in parts of the state that stretch for as far as the eye can see in some places. Multiply that by the number of cattle on their feed yard plus the average ratio of methane emitted per cow and you can come up with a pretty good estimate for the worldwide contribution to global warming by cattle flatulence or "belches". There are some estimates that the cattle population worldwide has soared to over 1.5 Billion head...think about that for a second...1,500,000,000 head of cattle ranging anywhere from standard breeds of American cattle to Yaks to Bison to Banteng cattle. The human population is currently estimated to be at 6.7 Billion. Cattle consume and eat much more than a human and release much more gas into the atmosphere.

I don't see the far reaching aspects of this that some environmentalists see, but I do believe that a reduction in known greenhouse gases such as methane is long overdue. I would love to see some actual scientific figures on just how much the business of mass cattle production lines are contributing. It would be much easier to determine if this was a route worthy of further investigation if we had some hard facts to look at.

[edit on 12-7-2007 by Jazzerman]

Originally posted by theindependentjournal

How far towards stupid can the tree huggers get? Don't you mean...

How stupid and pointless can thread titles get?

Seriously do you know what a title is? How about a subject? Could you not have seperated your opinion from the title of the thread?

"New diet for cows to lower Co2 emissions" or something to that affect?

This is getting way past stupid if you ask me...

Okay. I am asking you: how is this getting way past stupid?

Also not sure if I understand the connection between tree hugging and this article? Are you suggesting scientists that are concerned about climate change are stupid tree huggers? I think you are a little out of the loop as far as how serious climate change is being taken within the science community.

And I think you need to hug more trees.

Sincerely,
STH

...Pretty soon every living animal and person is going to be walking around with a "CO2/methane system alarm" attached to their behinds.... If anyone exhales too much CO2, or farts too many times, you are going to be taken by the "greenparty gestapo" to the nearest "rehabilitation center to teach you to fart less and exhale less", your animals fart too much, you will be fined for "polluting the atmosphere"...





[edit on 14-7-2007 by Muaddib]

Jazzerman I don't have numbers to give but I can assure you the numbers will astonish most. This can be attributed to factory farming. If anyone does have some numbers to share, that would be really cool

Muaddib that was pretty damn funny :p However, I can actually see something like that coming into play eventually. Scary.

If it does, I wonder how the world will start to feel about all the great deep breathing techniques taught by various spiritual systems

BTW does your name come from the Dune books? I love those books!

Originally posted by theindependentjournal
This is getting way past stupid if you ask me...

Thankfully, nobody is asking you.

Actually, methane is 27 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Cattle, particularly the millions in South America that go to feed America, contribute more to climate change than you think, according to DEFRA, a UK Gov. dept.:

The FAO report that the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions than transport, and over 30% of European GHG come from the food and drink sector, according to a recent European Study (EIPRO – EU Environmental Impacts of Products study).

source:www.defra.gov.uk...

The above is from a speech given by David Milliband, a UK Gov. Minister. The BBC quoted global figures for the percentage of greenhouse gases generated by cattle, but I'm having trouble tracking those down on-line. Its similar, if not worse, as the UK has far less cattle, proportionally, than the US and South America.

Can the Mods not change this thread's title, it's misleading, innacurate, opinionated and insulting. Other than that, gwate work!

Originally posted by theindependentjournalThis is getting way past stupid if you ask me...

I take it from your comments that you haven't been reading any news articles on factory farms and the amount of pollution (including cow manure) they produce.

As was said, cows on a large property aren't a problem. But we're breeding and raising millions of cows in a small area and it becomes a rather huge problem. We feed our dogs and cats low residue diets in order to reduce their poop (because if there's less fecal material to clean out of your yard, things are happier).

Why is it so absurd to feed cows in a small area a lower residue diet so that they reduce the amount of methane and reduce manure?

And how did you manage to relate "tree huggers" to scientists? The article didn't say whether they were environmentalist activists or simply feed lot scientists.


By the way, it has been suggested (for many years) that the methane output from these factory farms could be collected for fuel.

Originally posted by Byrd
Why is it so absurd to feed cows in a small area a lower residue diet so that they reduce the amount of methane and reduce manure?

Because they are not the ones who are destroying the environment. How would you feel being told to act differently, to "save the world" (which isn't even the truth in this case), for another species!

This shows how selfish and arrogant science is right now, where they are willing to suggest such measures, rather than take the most logical and realisitc solution, which is changing the way we live!

You can not fight against nature/balance forever. If you do, you will destroy yourself, and the environment you live in. Simple.

The ONLY solution is working in harmony with nature..

And this idea is not working in harmony with nature.

I see many of you don't like my thread title... I am sorry but what should I have called it, think about it. there are so called SCIENTISTS saying if we don't stop "COWS FROM BURPING" were all doomed.

GIVE ME A BREAK!!! They go to the umpteen extreme in everything they do and its pure sillyness. They are talking about devising burp free food for cows, what about grass how do they get the burp out of that. And hey who don't want genetically modified beef and milk??? Well besides ME?

Man can not save or kill this planet, sorry to burst the bubbles of the so called scientists, but I must say you have a hell of an EGO!

this just in...


Coke and Pepsi declared Terrorists!



if you drink fizzy sodas... Al-Queda wins!


OH THE HORRORS!!!

my proposal:

eat less beef and more plants instead, would spare many natural habitats, too.

many proposals are much more dangerous than a comical request for low-flatulence cattle breeds, which btw, probably does not have much to do with the cows themselves, since it's symbiotic bacteria which generate the methane.

edit: take www.abovetopsecret.com... for example

[edit on 14.7.2007 by Long Lance]

What about Whale farts? can we change their diet also? And lest we forget the sheep, I mean its like they eat nothing but re-fried beans!

Epitaph ;
There once was a civilization that did great things and yet they ignored the signs and ceased to be........succumbed to the processes began by whale, cow, and sheep farts.
"Death by Fart"

Originally posted by theindependentjournal
How far towards stupid can scientists get?

Not that far, there's a lot of people blocking the way

Pork barrel spending... This is much of a political issue as an environmental one. They have been monitoring the amount of gas cows pass when they fart for the last ten years, I know.

Instead of spending all of this money to do experiments about how much CO2 cows are passing, maybe the money could be better spent building housing for the homeless.

Why an idea that is bovine!

I wonder how much has been spent studying cow farts?

I wonder how many jobs are tied to global warming.

Originally posted by edsinger

I wonder how much has been spent studying cow farts?

Probably much less than was given to denialist think-tanks by Exxon in the last 5 years.

I wonder how many jobs are tied to global warming.

Not as many as are tied to maintaining the status quo.