Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/08/2010 5:07:48 AM PDT by Gordon Greene
Livestock could actually be good for the environment according to a new study that found grazing cows or sheep can cut emissions of a powerful greenhouse gas.
In the past environmentalists, from Lord Stern to Sir Paul McCartney, have urged people to stop eating meat because the methane produced by cattle causes global warming.
However a new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduce another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.
Authors of the paper, published in Nature, say the research does not mean that producing livestock to eat is good for the environment in all countries. However in certain circumstances, it can be better for global warming to let animals graze on grassland.
The research will reignite the argument over whether to eat red meat after other studies suggested that grass fed cattle in the UK and US can also be good for the environment as long as the animals are free range.
Klaus Butterbach-Bahl, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, carried out the study in Inner Mongolia in China. He found that grassland produced more nitrous oxide during the spring thaw when sheep or cattle have not been grazing. This is because the greenhouse gas, also known as laughing gas, is released by microbes in the soil. When the grass is long snow settles keeping the microbes warm and providing water, however when the grass is cut short by animals the ground freezes and the microbes die.
Dr Butterbach-Bahl said the study overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle.
"It's been generally assumed that if you increase livestock numbers you get a rise in emissions of nitrous oxide. This is not the case," he said...
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Daughter blames mother for global warming
By Dr. Paul Donohue
SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH
01/27/2010
Dear Dr. Donohue - My daughter complains that I flatulate more often than most individuals. Furthermore, she claims that the gas an individual passes contributes to global warming. I don’t know if I am physically able to keep my gas to myself to go green. Is my daughter really right?
All this nature is going to kill us!
Now THAT'S laughable.
The author must be doing whippies....
The only constant in their "science" is man bad.
Ah, now grass is bad? How long before these people figure out that our ecosystem is so complex that neither cows, nor grass, nor termites, nor humans are “bad” for the environment?
Make mine medium rare, please.
Ah, the "all countries are equal, but some countries are more equal than others" argument.
Yet every time some environmental whack job publishes something, the idiot faction (mainly Washington liberals) think it must be accepted on as Gospel and acted on immediately.
There ought to be a law passed that no environmental theory can become regulation or law until it has survived scrutiny for at least fifteen years.
Cows good, grass good, lying libturds bad.
I wonder why the planet didn’t explode when grass and buffalo covered the plains.
Not really... It jsut suggests that manicured lawns are better than wild prairies.
Klaus Butterbach-Bahl? He’s probably just a front for the German turkey industry. You know, those Butterback-bahl turkeys.
I don’t care how much nitrous they make, I’m not putting my face up a cow’s butt to get high.
Yer a patriot. Next up: barbecue sauce is good for The Environment...
There are two constants at work, not just one.
The true scientists are searching for the truth of this issue, no matter where the search leads.
The others, who merely call themselves scientists, are campaigning to control us, no matter what tool, global warming, gun control, health care, they need to reach that goal.
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