Cows: the new target in fight on emissions
THEY'VE put catalytic converters on cars to mop up emissions from gas guzzlers -- now they want to do the same with grass guzzlers.
Yes, they believe they can curb the amount of methane produced by cows; all 1.5bn or so of them around the world.
By the way, the poor innocent animals are now being blamed for producing 5pc of all greenhouse gas emissions.
That's because in breaking down plant fibres they produce enormous quantities of gas, mostly methane, as bacteria process the food in their stomachs. Methane captures about 22 times more atmospheric heat than carbon dioxide.
A group of Japanese experts fell across what they believe is the solution purely by accident.
Only (isn't there always an 'only'?) I don't think any of them was raised on a farm. That's because their 'solution' would involve feeding cows special additives, costing around 75c a day.
That's an extra cost -- probably not a major management problem with dairy herds, but what about sucklers, etc?
The formula was discovered, it appears, by accident during an investigation of mass cattle poisoning.
It combines a mix of nitrates and cysteine, which is an amino acid. Apparently, these act as powerful suppressants of methane production inside the cow's stomach but have no effect on milk quality. At least that's what they say.
Apparently the research will be a major item for discussion at a symposium before the leaders of the Group of Eight nations in Japan later this year.
But interfering with nature's process of transforming grass into milk -- something that has been going on for so, so long -- strikes me as a dangerous consideration in the first place.
Why is there a crisis all of a sudden about the four-legged grass guzzlers?
They've been around a lot longer than the real culprits of global warming.
But that's an argument for another day.
- Eddie Cunningham
