Posted on 01/04/2009 4:06:39 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Just wondering - how much CO2 do dogs and cats expel?
Soylent Green is next, actually.
Tried one once, but it made me jumpy!
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!
Skippyburgers!
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....
SKIPPY!!!!!!!
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.
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New Zealand...where they’re having one of the coldest summers on record...????????
Get to work, you sheep...
Anyone know what dems taste like?
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.
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.
>>>Pets next?
Come over for dinner right after I wok the dog.
“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.
Forced Tofu diets on the horizon.
BTW, if we’d never populated the US, would all the buffalo have brought global warming sooner?
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