Good News!! Cow Flatulence May Reduce Greenhouse Gasses

Here's hoping this puts and end to this entire smelly mess. For the second during the past few week, cow farts have been absolved of causing global warming. This reports says that bovine toots may actually reduce greenhouse gasses.

Two weeks ago air quality expert Dr Frank Mitloehner said the IPCC report linking livestock to global warming is very exaggerated. This made cows ecstatic, as they no longer have to walk around with silly pink tanks on their backs to collect their farts for science.

According to Mitloehner, the claim is inaccurate because the numbers for livestock were calculated differently from the costs of transportation figures that were factored in to the green house gas projections.

In the report, the livestock emissions included gases produced by growing animal feed; animals' digestive emissions; and processing meat and milk into foods. But the transportation analysis factored in only emissions from fossil fuels burned while driving, and not all other transport-lifecycle related factors.

"This lopsided analysis is a classical apples-and-oranges analogy that truly confused the issue," he said. 

However a new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually reduce another greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide.

A study, published in Nature, says that in certain circumstances, it can be better for global warming to let animals graze on grassland. The study conducted in China showed that  cattle grazing on the grasslands of China actually reduce nitrous oxide.

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.

Cows can now partner with another another animal Kangaroos, whose back drafts were declared safe for the environment in 2007.

Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas.

...Researchers say the bacteria also makes the digestive process much more efficient and could potentially save millions of dollars in feed costs for farmers.

What does this all mean? Well if you are a believer in this entire global warming hoax you can start feeding your cows and kangaroos beans without fear of harming the environment.  As for the rest of us, this is just another indication that the global warming story is just a bunch of hot air.