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

Seems to me political figures these days just don’t know what’s best for the environment (or themselves and their public image for that matter). First Gordon Brown, and now another figure who’s popped up in the media for his ‘championing’ of environment issues, is ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair. Yes, he’s still around, but there’s a slight problem with what he’s garbling on about. In a Q&A session with The Independent readers, he admits that eating meat produces four times as many greenhouse gas emissions as the airline industry (and about forty percent more than all cars, lorries, and other forms of transport combined), but seems too addicted to his chicken dinners to be able to see reality.

Anyway, it went a little something like this:

Blair: “This is why I have called for G8 leaders to support efforts to reduce forest destruction and degradation … Minimising emissions from agricultural sources will be an important part of efforts to limit climate change.

Reader: “Will you (therefore) go vegetarian and lead by example?”

Blair replied: “This does not mean the world has to give up meat.”

Oh. Come. On! Tony, we know you can do better than that, all you need is a bit of guidance.

So we sent him a letter today asking him to go vegetarian. Among other things, it said:

“Combating deforestation is a fine goal, but unless we tackle the root of the problem – which isn’t razing trees but raising billions of animals for food – we won’t make a dent in this serious and deadly problem. Won’t you please consider adopting a vegetarian diet and promoting it as the most effective thing anyone can do to fight against global warming?”

Image: Guardian / CC