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  • Do Cow Farts Really Significantly Contribute to Global Warming?

  • There are currently approximately 1.3 to 1.5 billion cows grazing, sleeping, and chewing

  • their cud at any given time on planet Earth.

  • And these 1,300 pound (average weight for both a beef and dairy cow) animals eat a lot.

  • Much like humans, when they eat, gas builds up inside of their guts and has to be expelled.

  • (See Why Beans Make You Fart) Cows fart and burp… a lot.

  • The result is a large amount of methane being introduced into the atmosphere.

  • In a 2006 United NationsFood and Agricultural Organization report, it claims that the livestock

  • sector, most of which are cows, “generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured

  • in CO2 equivalent – 18 percentthan transport.”

  • According to a Danish study, the average cow produces enough methane per year to do the

  • same greenhouse damage as four tons of carbon dioxide.

  • So is this significantly contributing to global warming?

  • Let’s start with how and why cows produce so much methane gas.

  • Cows, sheep, goats, giraffes, and deer belong to a class of mammals called ruminants.

  • Most ruminants have four stomachs, two-toed feet, and store their food in the first chamber

  • of the stomach, called the rumen, before regurgitating it.

  • This regurgitated food is calledcudand the animals chew it again to help further

  • break it down to make it easier to digest.

  • Inside of the rumen, over four hundred different kinds of microbes exist that also play a critical

  • role in the digestion process.

  • Several of these microbes create methane gas as a byproduct.

  • Due to the sheer number of cows on the planet, along with the large size per cow, our tasty

  • friends produce more methane gas than all other ruminants combined.

  • Why could this potentially be bad?

  • Methane is twenty one times more potent at trapping heat from the Sun than carbon dioxide.

  • Though it is less prevalent in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, it is, by unit, the most

  • destructive of the greenhouse gases.

  • Since the turn of the 19th century, methane gas emissions have increased by 150%, according

  • to NASA’s Goddard Institute.

  • Methane gas, like all other greenhouse gases (which includes water vapor), acts like a

  • blanket around our planet, trapping heat.

  • The right amount and the planet has an average temperature of a life-supporting 59 degrees

  • Fahrenheit.

  • Too little and the greenhouse effect becomes weak, like on Mars.

  • Too much and the surface of the planet becomes so hotit can melt lead,” like on Venus.

  • Livestock is the largest source of methane gas emissions worldwide, contributing over

  • 28 percent of total emissions.

  • Wetlands, leaks from oil refineries and drills, and landfills also contribute methane gas

  • to the atmosphere.

  • In fact, unlike the ratios on a global scale, in the United States livestock is only the

  • third largest contributor, behind the mining and transportation of natural gas and rotting

  • landfill waste.

  • In actuality it’s not as much the farting that’s the problem, cowsburping and

  • manure contribute more methane gas than flatulence.

  • According to researchers at New Zealand’s largest Crown Research Institute, AGResearch,

  • up to 95 percent of the emissions comes from the cow’s mouth rather than its behind.

  • It’s estimated, through whichever orifice, that each individual cow lets out between

  • thirty and fifty gallons of methane per day.

  • With an estimated 1.3 to 1.5 billion cattle in the world today, this adds up fast.

  • Exactly how significant this it to our global environment isn’t something that anyone

  • can easily put a number on, but the EPA, NASA, various global agriculture organizations,

  • and the United Nations all recognize that this is a real problem.

  • In recent years, several different solutions have been proposed.

  • Scientists and experts have experimented with cowsdiets to see if that could help cut

  • down on the amount of methane gas.

  • For instance, Welsh scientists studied the effects of putting garlic into cowsfeed.

  • According to BBC News, “Garlic directly attacks the organisms in the gut that produce

  • methane.”

  • So far, results have been positive.

  • Researchers have also studied adding plants that are high in tannins to the diet, which

  • are believed to lower methane levels in ruminants.

  • Another branch of study focuses on not lowering the amount of methane gas, but figuring out

  • a way to contain it and repurpose it.

  • Some farms have experimented with having their livestock live in a plastic bubble, which

  • takes the expelled gas and converts it into electricity.

  • But this process is both expensive, inefficient, and considered somewhat inhumane, forcing

  • animals to live inside an artificial bubble.

  • Methane gas emitted by cows and other livestock does have a significant impact on the amount

  • of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, which are the main culprits behind climate change

  • and global warming.

  • While farts aren’t the only way cows are expelling methane, it is, at least, accurate

  • to say that cow farts play a part in our planet’s climate growing hotter.

Do Cow Farts Really Significantly Contribute to Global Warming?

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