Garlic-fed cows combat global warming (!)

EurActiv ^ | 04 August 2011

[Olog-hai]

Reducing farm animals’ wind by adding garlic to feed could substantially reduce greenhouse emissions, according to research by West Wales’ scientists featured by Euronews.

An organosulfur compound obtained from garlic kills off methane-producing bacteria in the digestive system of cows, according to Professor Jamie Newbold, who heads up a €5-million ($7.2-million) research program at Aberystwyth University. Cows eating feed enriched with the garlic compound — called Allicin – release 40% less gas without interference to their normal digestive fermentation, according to the research.

Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and agricultural emissions constitute approximately 18% of global greenhouse gas production, Kenton Hart of Aberystwyth University told Euronews. The scientists said cutting methane emissions by cows by 40% would substantially curtail global warming.…

[Olog-hai]

How about cutting off the "wind" from politicians and the pseudoscientists who lap up this funding to write reports that say what the politicians want them to say? Methane has no effect on "warming", just like CO₂. The only "greenhouse gas" is water vapor, and that's what science tells us.

[Average Al]

So kids and adults that drink milk will smell like garlic all the time? ;-)

[rintense]

Saves me from rubbing roasted garlic on a nice piece of tenderloin!

[Olog-hai]

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So kids and adults that drink milk will smell like garlic all the time? ;-)

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If they can get past the garlic taste and smell of the milk, then yup . . . garlic butter and cheese will be easier to make, though.

The only negative is that Allicin appears to taint the taste of milk and other dairy products. So the researchers – who are also experimenting with sheep and other livestock – are looking at other kinds of garlic metabolites which would achieve the same effect, without the downside.

[ETL]

We need to feed garlic to gas bags like algore then.

[ETL]

While we're on the subject of Gore Bull warming...

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [historically] is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause [historically -etl]. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html
_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds [clouds of course aren't gas, but high level ones do act to trap heat from escaping, while low-lying cumulus clouds tend to reflect sunlight and thereby help cool the planet -etl]. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Confirmed As Major Player In Climate Change

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Water vapor is known to be Earth's most abundant greenhouse gas, but the extent of its contribution to global warming has been debated. Using recent NASA satellite data, researchers have estimated more precisely than ever the heat-trapping effect of water in the air, validating the role of the gas as a critical component of climate change.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081117193013.htm

[Average Al]

I suppose the milk will reduce the flatulence in people as well.

[TYVets]

...according to Professor Jamie Newbold, who heads up a €5-million ($7.2-million) research program at Aberystwyth University.

Got to grab a headline or two the grant money is about to run out.

[ETL]

The scientists said cutting methane emissions by cows by 40% would substantially curtail global warming

Yet all together the supposed warming (from all other greenhouse gases, naturally occurring or otherwise -- 90-95% of the greenhouse effect is caused by water vapor) is only about 1 degree. So how could easing methane emissions in this one area "substantially" effect anything? They are so full of male cow manure.

[equaviator]

A clove a day keeps the vampire bats away!

[muir_redwoods]

I’ve often wondered if feeding garlic and onions to dairy cattle would produce a tastier cheese. Could be a win/win

[aruanan]

I’ve often wondered if feeding garlic and onions to dairy cattle would produce a tastier cheese. Could be a win/win

It'll make their milk taste like crap. My uncle had to work hard in the spring on his dairy farm to keep his cows away from the wild garlic (which tasted good on steaks) or he'd have to throw away the milk.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[LibLieSlayer]

Since NASA has proved that we are shedding heat into space in far greater amounts than any of their "biased computer models" show... and that the greenhouse theory is all bovine poop... maybe we need cows to fart more before we all face another ice age. Feed them baked beans and onions instead!

LLS

[sforkjoe57]

Imagine how bad the methane problem would be if we hadn’t killed off most of the buffaloes and whales.

[tiki]

If I remember correctly, garlic takes two years to grow, so we’re supposed to use good arable farm land to feed cattle while we use fossil fuels to grow, process and transport the garlic............stupid.

[RoadTest]

Will the farmers be able to tolerate the cows’ breath?

[6SJ7]

$7.2 million in tax payer dollars blown, so to speak, on studying cow farts.

[Venturer]

Around here we don’t have much Garlic, but Wild Onions are abundent, and they sure do ruin the taste of the milk.

We have to remember though thet by the time we get the processed milk it has been pasteurised, homogenised, skimmed, and all the butter fat taken out, so maybe it won’t hurt the processed milk.

[MARTIAL MONK]

Feed ‘em perfume and the world will smell of lilacs and daffodils.