Is this cow preparing for a trip into space? Is it a fancy-dress costume? Or could this the newest way to travel? No, this cow is having her burps and farts collected.
Researchers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, are conducting a study to see just how much methane a cow produces – methane, of course, having a devastating impact on global warming. So these Argentine bods have strapped plastic tanks onto cows’ backs and stuck a tube down their throats, straight into their stomachs. According to The Telegraph, Argentina has 55 million grazing cows, and the country is one of the world’s biggest exporters of beef. So that’s a lot of methane.
Apparently, the answer to all of our concerns is to put cows on a better diet to stop them from parping and belching so much. Give me a break. When the world’s geniuses start to realise that the best thing to do in a situation (note BEST, not just ‘better’) is of much higher value than simply ‘making the best of a bad situation’, we might actually start making some progress.
Giving them clover and alfalfa will reduce their methane emissions by 25 percent. The equation needed to reach a much, much higher percentage than that piddly amount is staring everyone in the face – stop breeding tens of millions of cows and eating their flesh and milk. You could kick yourselves, right?
Thankfully the Japanese are on the right track, reporting yesterday that producing 2.2lb of beef generates as much greenhouse gas as driving a car non-stop for three hours. I wonder if Mr Blair is taking note?
Image author: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters
