Dairy Cows are Bad for the Atmosphere

Now that Senator Shumlin, incoming Senate President, has proclaimed global warming/climate change as one of the top items on his legislative agenda, he'll have conflicting goals if he also wants to save Vermont's dairy industry. Perhaps he has a plan for fart-free cows.

Or perhaps it's bovine belches he wants to manage (Perhaps farts affect climate change less than belches.). Anyway, here's a device patented earlier this year to do just that. Requirements for this apparatus cannot be far away in regulation-happy Vermont. One more expense added to the beleaguered dairy farmer. Or, as I think about it, this will have to be a federal requirement so that one state will not have an unfair advantage over another in milk pricing.

Excerpt from James Dwinell's Political Report (12/22/06):

"The United Nations has recently published "Livestock's Long Shadow," a
scientific treatise on "human induced greenhouse gas emissions." The media's
man-self-hating-man reporter did not call this study to our attention. According to the report,
livestock accounts for "nine percent of all human induced carbon dioxide
emissions, thirty-five to forty percent of all methane emissions, sixty-five
percent of all nitrous oxide emissions, and fully sixty-six percent of all
ammonia emissions." These gases help
trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing mightily to global warming. The report
concludes that "cattle-rearing generates more global warming
greenhouse gases, as measured in CO2 equivalent, than
transportation,""

To be fair, cow farts and belches are only part of the problem. It seems that deforestation and poor management of pastures and grazing land also contributes to the problem by reducing the vegetation available to reduce CO2 via photosynthesis.

More on the earth's carbon cycle can be found here. Man's influence, if any, is less than 5%, based on the table included at the KSU site.

And the New York Times has weighed in with an editorial but little helpful advice.