From the new west blog: gas is a serious topic
The Cow Fart Science Fair
By Jill Kuraitis, 6-24-08
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We are advised to think seriously about cow farts.
It’s not just cars and trucks which produce greenhouse gases, according to a report commissioned by Idaho Gov. Butch Otter – it’s also dairies and feedlots full of cows.
Apparently Idaho is producing greenhouse gas at the rate of twice the national average, according to a story by the Idaho Statesman’s Rocky Barker, who wrote, “Growth was the major factor in the rise of greenhouse emissions: growth in Idaho’s dairy industry, growth in the state’s overall population, and growth in the number of miles people are driving.”
“Past reports on the state’s carbon footprint have targeted transportation as the major source - and said Idaho has a relatively low impact on global warming. But this inventory shows Idaho emits more greenhouse gases per capita than the U.S. average, according to the Center for Climate Strategies, which did the study for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.”
In previous reports, the DEQ forgot to mention the methane produced by gassy cows, which accounts for a lot of the increase.
Barker reports that Idaho has about 455,000 dairy cows and is fourth in the nation among dairy producing states.
But here’s the part of the story sure to delight fifth-grade boys: “Now that sources are identified, the state can begin to seek ways to reduce greenhouse gas production. Dairies, for instance, are testing the use of anaerobic digesters, which capture methane and turn it into electricity, as a method for reducing odors and emissions.”
Pause.
Okay, I’m sorry, but no matter how you look at it, the word “fart” is funny. It’s one of those words that, along with “chicken” “pants” and “succotash” – hat tip to comic Mel Brooks – is nearly impossible to separate from the concept of funny.
The idea that we could “capture methane” (read: “grab farts”) to produce electricity should be a topic for the Science Fair.
Think of the potential projects for those fifth-grade boys: Are there specialty containers for the capture, and exactly how, um, you know? Are “anaerobic digesters” like Cow Tums? Or could this involve hooking up the actual cow to the actual transmission line?
For those readers who are tempted to admonish me for this sort of juvenile potty writing on New West, please go and take a Tums. Arguments over the topic of greenhouse gases and global warming could use a little humor, if only to capture and diffuse the bloated animosity. (Sorry.)
But if you must be serious, have your car tuned up, drive less, and stop feeding broccoli to your cows.
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Comments
If you had four stomachs, don't you think you might have four times the propensity to pass gas? What woman would want to weigh 1200 lbs, have 4 stomachs, and have some guy making critical comments about her bag as she suffers the indignity of the auction ring, all the while some government yokel is concerned she farts too much? It's all a bit much, doncha ya think?
The REAL culprit in Idaho's green house gas deal is not cutting trees. Cut the trees, and the carbon is sequestered in a house or barn for twice the lifetime of the tree it came from. In the meanwhile, the replacement tree is gobbling up all kinds of cow farts, methane, and stores it as the tree grows. Once the tree reaches maturity, it begins to slide towards eternity just like the little blue haired old ladies pop-pop-popping their way down the aisle at the Winco store, and starts to produce more greenhouse gas than it sequesters. In the latter stages, Depends come into play, and a lot more gas escapes than is wanted by bystanders and caregivers. We do come full circle. Ever try to fit a tree with a diaper?
But the obvious bad deal in Idaho at this time is the unilateral, outside the NEPA or EIS process, USFS decision not to fight fire in wilderness or roadless areas. Wildland Fire Use they call it. WFU. A local decision backed by the National Wildland Fire Leadership Council, far away bureaucrats who have enviro NGOs sitting in on policy decisions. That is special interests making policy. That is your Haliburton kind of deal. The short coming of all this holistic forestry is that wildland fire produces prodigious amounts of green house gases. In Oregon last year, 770,000 acres of wildland fires produced as much greenhouse gas tonnage as did all other human sources in a State of 3.7 million souls.
Now I know that Idaho had twice or more the fire acres burned last year, and has half the population of Oregon. If Oregon cut their wildland fire acres by HALF, the greenhouse gas production for the State would decrease by 25%. That is a lot of bicycle rides, recycling, flatulent cows made into hamburger. I just have to guess Idaho would have twice the result. A real shot at a 50% decrease in greenhouse gases just by getting the USFS to end the WFU fires, and put out all fires as soon as possible. The Chamber of Commerce could use a boost like that to sell Green Idaho..
Of course, I expect no answers from the windbags Rocinante and I have jabbed at, because Holsteins are not the only sacred cows in Idaho. The enviros, the USFS, are milking their fire-instead-of-logging heifers and their old "Fire is good" cows around the clock. The herd leader is USFS Chief Gail Kimball, and she needs to hear some urgent moos of discontent.
Meanwhile, back on the fire front, pray no fires start outside of California for a while because all available resources are now there, and not here, or where you are. All will become WFU fires just because there is no equipment or people to fight them.
Stopping cows from slipping out a fiz-z-z-, or a fu-z-z-z, or a ripshit, a tear-ass or even one that just goes poooooh, will have no great benefit for Idaho's notso summer clean air. The Hailey Experience. Or the Jarbidge, NV to almost Twin Falls expericence of last year. Add your own Yellowpine story or wherever. They all trump the dairy cow contribution. As any teenage boy knows, fires are bad, farts are acceptable, and in combination, spectacular and possibly painful.
Livestock, primarily cattle, are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of fossil-fueled transportation put together.
Fossil fuel is also combusted to produce fertilizer to grow corn and soybeans for cattle feed, to produce and transport beef. - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And cow flatulence and gases from cow manure emit more than one third of emissions of another gas, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.
As shocking as it may seem to us cow-happy Montanans, reducing our consumption of red meat would probably do more to help reduce global warming than would giving up our Dodge Ram extra-hemi 3500 diesel eaters.
Here's a link to the 2007 UN study on the impact of world cattle production on climate change:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
-JonCheever
Goes to show, there's one born every minute.
Changing our meat-heavy diet could make more difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year.
Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, have only a limited impact on cutting emissions. Greenhouse gases (methane and ammonia) from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all global warming emissions worldwide.
Even reducing or eliminating meat consumption a few meals a week would have a significant impact.
(Here's a link to the Chicago study: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/06/060413.diet.shtml )
-JonCheever
A few years ago I flew across this country at night and was amazed at how most states seemed to be covered with night lighting border to border. How much waste do we output from farm lights running all night on millions of acres showing thieves where the goods are. I know these are security lights, but look at all the power we waste across the country on farms and in cities. The real problem passing gas is looking at you in the mirror. WE need to seriously examine the quality of our lives instead of wallowing in the quantity. It may be we need to eat more grain instead of wasting 90% of the energy by sending it into the production of meat and then shipping it hundreds if not thousands of miles. Etc.
On behalf of 5th grade boys of every age, I thank you for your story. And although some folks will laugh, it is absolutely possible to capture a fart. It is also possible to shoot down fairies. I personally save mine to chase away the gypsies and moths.
Bestest wishes,
Tabby