Posted on 03/02/2007 10:22:04 AM PST by fanfan
The motto of all environmentalists should be "Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine."
The abuse heaped on the internal combustion engine by environmentalists was never justified. But a recent story on cow flatulence in the British newspaper, The Independent, makes the environmental benefits from gasoline-powered engines even more obvious. Based on a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Organization, The Independent reports that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together."
Research shows that livestock outdo planes, trains and cars in producing greenhouse gases. ItÕs more proof that the internal combustion engine, which drastically cut the need for working animals, has helped the environment.
Long before global warming became an environmental concern, however, the move from the power provided by animals to that provided by gasoline had greatly improved the environment. The emissions that came out of the tailpipes of horses were much more lethal pollutants that those now coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Horse emissions did more than make our town and cities stink; they spread fly-borne diseases and polluted water supplies that killed people at a far greater rate than the pollution from cars and trucks ever have.
Photochemical smog is clearly a health risk, but not nearly the health risk of cholera, diphtheria and tetanus that have been largely eliminated with the help of gasoline powered transportation.
Before the internal combustion engine it wasn't just cows, sheep and pigs emitting pollution down on the farm. Tractors and other types of gas-powered farm machinery eliminated the horses, mules and oxen that had provided most of the power necessary to grow and harvest our food and fiber. This not only reduced the problem that still exists from animal waste that environmentalists, with justification, still complain about. The internal combustion engine also eliminated the need to produce food to fuel millions upon millions of agricultural beasts of burden. It has been estimated that in 1900 it took about 93 million acres of land to grow the food for the farm animals that were replaced by current farm machinery. Most of that land has now gone back to woodlands, greatly increasing the number of trees that are reducing the problem of global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide.
The above consideration should have been enough to warrant an environmental shrine to the internal combustion engine. And now we find that by eliminating all those farm-yard animals, the internal combustion engine also eliminated vast amounts of methane-producing flatulence, which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide produce by burning gasoline.
Even though the internal combustion engine is less polluting than what it replaced, it is obviously not pollution-free. Efforts should, and will be made to make it even less polluting than it is, and some day internal combustion will be replaced by an even less polluting technology. But history will look kindly on the internal combustion engine as a major contributor to the steady progress toward a healthier environment that has been made over the centuries.
Ping!
Can you add me to your ping list please?
Somewhere, Al Gore is stuffing down another box of Twinkies because of this article...
Engines=good
Farts=bad
Sounds like good science to me. It's at least as credible as anything Algore has come up with.
Brilliant!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
...with the air conditioning running to cool the house down because of the heat from the fire in the fireplace...
Too bad for PETA - a story like this would get them screaming in the halls about livestock causing global warming....I don't think they'll touch it - would tick off algore...
like I have frequently stated: replace every car in the city with a horse, and you have one smelly mess! the entoire downtown would become uninhabitable and a hazmat situation.
Then because many cars would be carrying more people than can ride a horse, you have to significantly increase the number of horses...
since many liberal elites live in the city, this is certainly worth an attempt.;-)
PETA still trying to determine if a worm feels pain when being put on a fish hook...and avoiding the question if it feels pain when the fish eats it!
Algore pays himself a grand in 'offsets' every time he farts...
Sometimes they do it directly. In the 90s Saab developed a very clean-burning engine. They drove it around London and found that the pollution at the tail pipe was less than at the air intake.
I'm not seeing it. When did enviro nuts start paying any attention to facts?
THis is what the enviros want. They want all but a few caretakers of mother earth DEAD. And guess who the caretakers will be.
Do you have any kind of a link for that?
If not, I'll research it.
Thanks!
Great stuff!
No, I read it in a car magazine in the 90s. You'll know the car if you find the link because it had a bunch of test equipment attached to the hood and tailpipe.
OK, I'll check it.
Thanks.
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