How kangaroo burgers could save the planet (Are the family pets next?)

New Scientist ^ | 12/25/08 | Bijal Trivedi

[Libloather]

How kangaroo burgers could save the planet
25 December 2008 by Bijal Trivedi

COWS, sheep and goats may seem like innocent victims of humanity's appetite for meat, but when it comes to climate change they have a dark secret. Forget cars, planes or even power stations, some of the world's worst greenhouse gas emitters wander idly across rolling pastures chewing the cud, oblivious to the fact that their continuous belching (and to a lesser degree, farting) is warming the planet.

Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country's greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. Worldwide, livestock burps are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions - more than produced from all forms of transport combined. Methane accounts for the bulk of ruminant green house gas emissions, one tonne of the gas has 25 times the global warming potential of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

Rising populations and incomes are expected to double the global demand for meat and milk from 229 to 465 million tonnes and 580 to 1043 million tonnes, respectively, by 2050. This will almost double the amount of greenhouse gases produced by livestock, dwarfing attempts to cut emissions elsewhere. Apart from all of us turning to a vegetarian diet, can anything be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from livestock?

Several ideas have been proposed to raise animals that are kinder to the environment. In New Zealand, researchers are testing different diets, food additives, vaccines and drug therapies, as well as breeding low-methane animals. One Australian team has even suggested we wean ourselves from cattle and sheep altogether and eat kangaroo instead - they do not emit methane.

[Libloather]

A cow called Metana is the center of an experiment led by Argentine Institute of Farmer Technology to reduce the methane released by cow flatulence. Methane adds to the greenhouse effect, which causes global warming (Image: Redux/Eyevine)

Just wondering - how much CO2 do dogs and cats expel?

[FormerLib]

Soylent Green is next, actually.

[reg45]

Tried one once, but it made me jumpy!

[steelyourfaith]

Flatulence Alternative Reality Taz

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[FlingWingFlyer]

A lot of us are trying to “save” the damn planet by eating cows as fast as we can. A person can only do so much!!! The loonies need to stop their whining!

[maine-iac7]

Hey! Could we use these as our own home power plants?

[Emperor Palpatine]

Well, they couldn't call it Skippy. That name's already taken as a brand name.....

[elcid1970]

Skippyburgers!

[Pylon]

What about termites? They release a lot of methane. Everyone should start eating termites. ☺

[KoRn]

During the 90s we were, as a society, ready to send ourselves to hell “for the children”.

Now, we are ready to send ourselves to hell for “climate change”. A few animals matter not....

[Fred]

Thems fightin words to a Joey

[Brad's Gramma]

SKIPPY!!!!!!!

[Fred]

breeding low-methane animals????

Do not allow the release of any carbon from Capitol Hill, that alone will eliminate 90% of the methane.

[Tennessee Nana]

Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide.
_____________________________________________

New Zealand...where they’re having one of the coldest summers on record...????????

Get to work, you sheep...

[Dean Wormer]

Anyone know what dems taste like?

[Woebama]

Did you notice in the article that they are trying to bioengineer cows that don’t fart? What a freaking waste of time and money! We will probably end up with the toxins that cattle fart out in their meat instead and then we’ll all have flatulence getting rid of the toxins. Yet it will be declared a scientific miracle that cow flatulence has ended in an article written by a man that no longer eats beef because it gives him gas.

[Betty Jane]

When I was a kid we used to eat some hot dogs that were cheap and tasty until it was learned they were kangaroo and were pulled off the market. Boy, were they good.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>>Pets next?

Come over for dinner right after I wok the dog.

[Steamburg]

“Science” for people too stupid to realize that the earth receives its energy from the sun and that CO2 is what keeps the planet green.
Fake science just plain sucks as do the criminals that promote it.

[umgud]

Forced Tofu diets on the horizon.

BTW, if we’d never populated the US, would all the buffalo have brought global warming sooner?

[wombtotomb]

LOL, your logic makes perfect sense to me. Does that make me a thinker or a libtard ROFL! Funny stuff right there! Thanx for the giggle :)

[TWohlford]

Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide.

Tha's because there are only 10 people and fifteen cars on the island. By definition, those animals would account for those percentages. It doesn't mean that there is a problem.

[ReformedBeckite]

PETA
People for the eating of Tasty Animals

[EGPWS]

How kangaroo burgers could save the planet (Are the family pets next?)

Better yet, how politics and promotion of financial transfer via lack of thought by the majority of "freedom loving" people can destroy the planet via disdain for human promotion.

[elcid1970]

IIRC, urban Australians (the majority) are sentimentally opposed to the commercial processing of ‘roo meat.

The generations which grew up watching Skippy on the telly.

[Tennessee Nana]

Tha’s because there are only 10 people and fifteen cars on the island
_______________________________________

Actually New Zealand has about 5,000,000 people and thousands of cars and is made up of several islands...

Are you sure you know what and where New Zealand is ????

Its part of polynesia

About 2,000 miles east of Australia...

There’s the North Island the South island, Stewart Island, the Hen and Chicken islands, the Chatham Islands etc...

Figi and the Cook Islands used to be part of New Zealand...

And then there’s the West Island...

Sometimes called Australia...

[Tennessee Nana]

Figi = Fiji

[rightwinggoth]

I ate roo meat and liked it. Don’t see the issue.

[Marie2]

Skippyburgers, yes, I want in on that franchise.

[Eagle Eye]

I’ve eaten kangaroo. It wasn’t good.

[Eagle Eye]

Not good. BTDT and didn’t bother with the t shirt.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Joey to the world. Until now, I mistakenly thought that 'hops' were part of beer, not part of a sandwich.






Pun for All and All for Pun....
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If you want either on or off
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Let me know of any appropriate candidate threads.
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Unrelated, seriously worthwhile 6 minute audio/video item

The Gospel in 6 Minutes

[RayChuang88]

The idea of using kangaroo meat for human food is not such a ridiculous idea. We're forgetting that marsupials can breed at an AMAZING rate. This results in much of Australia where the largest kangaroos (especially the red kangaroo) has literally overrun much of the interior of the country, causing serious environmental damage from overpopulation (notably overgrazing of grassland and crowding out smaller marsupials--it's the same problem with uncontrolled deer populations here in the USA).

[Larry Lucido]

Wait, I used to manage a Wendy’s. How is this anything new?

j/k

[count-your-change]

The ‘roo burgers jump around in the stomach.

[tbw2]

Is that real?

[Redcitizen]

They taste like rats!

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Was your store dine-in only, or did it have...

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scroll

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scroll some more...

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you know what’s coming...

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carhops?

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(sorry)

[Redcitizen]

What’s in the chili? Recipes?

[Squantos]

Jumping to conclusions could make one wimpy in the underworld !

[LiberConservative]

Simple, world-wide solution: put Gax-X in the feed of all livestock. Problem solved. Duh.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Take New Zealand, where 34.2 million sheep, 9.7 million cattle, 1.4 million deer and 155,000 goats emit 48 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gases in the form of methane and nitrous oxide. Worldwide, livestock burps are responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions - more than produced from all forms of transport combined. Methane accounts for the bulk of ruminant green house gas emissions, one tonne of the gas has 25 times the global warming potential of the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide.

More than adequately compensated for by our trees in New Zealand. Sure, under Kyoto we will still end up paying for our “greenhouse gases” but that is because our huge Carbon Sinks somehow don’t count.

Helen Clark and her Labor governments were responsible for some very bucket-headed stupid decisions. Signing the Kyoto Protocol was one of them. A real doozy!

[peeps36]

I have a 6 month old dog that sounds like he has a horn implanted in his ass. I never owned a dog who had so much gas. At least the noise gives off a warning. It’s comical when the noise wakes him up and he looks around with a confused and scared look on his face.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> New Zealand...where they’re having one of the coldest summers on record...????????

Eh? It is a beautiful hot summer day here today in Auckland. Weather has been lovely for weeks.

[bigheadfred]

This is a fact many people don't realize. Under the right conditions cow methane GLOWS.

We don't have fireflies up in the Montana Outback. One of my favoritest things to do is sit on the hill overlooking the lower 47, with my best girl, on a soft summer night, and watch as the cows light up the night...

[TommyDale]

I seem to recall Purina’s Jack-in-the-Box fast food chain once getting caught using kangaroo meat in their burgers. Maybe this is just history repeating itself?

[posterchild]

I’ve had it and it was very tasty. Might have had a good marinade though.

[AnAmericanMother]

Have you read the story in All Creatures Great and Small about the gassy Boxer?

[Eagle Eye]

I’ll allow that mine might not have been prepared properly but it truly sucked. And it wasn’t cheap, either.

[Dysart]

Gorebull Warming
that struts and threats his horror upon the stage
and then is herd no more: it is a tail
told by an idiot, full of sound and furry
signifying nothing*

*tip of the hat to Shakespeare and Algore for the expectoration.