you don't read your own comments? Even the first one? *sniff*

The Mythbusters covered this about a year ago in their "Young Scientist Special." They made complicated rigs to catch the greenhouse gases coming out of the rear end, only to be told later by a scientist they were looking at the wrong end :)

But do the cows burb the alphabet? A wondering population wants to know.

puerile picture - i want it

JONAH!

I don't know if this is sufficiently puerile, but it's a) short b) involves a burp c)involves a young woman d) isn't naughty or anything like that.

The burp may not be sufficiently bovine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoh_5FVJnuE

Time to tax beef like we tax cigarettes.

Eat beef instead of chicken -- causes much, much less suffering.

I am unhappy that this concept appears novel, since I posted this information on this very blog months ago, in response to another thread about animals and greenhouse gases.

Since an attack on this problem would also focus on other animals using the same digestive process -- sheep, goats, etc. -- we would be talking about eliminating not just to meat but dairy as well.

Which raises the inevitable concern about the greenhouse gas contributions of humans who subsist on legumes.

This has interesting policy implications. Does anyone know if cow burps depend on the type of feed that is used? I mean, right now we practically force feed cows with corn, when their natural diet is more grassy.

Another factoid for the cow-haters is that most of the Colorado River's water is used to produce alfafa and hay for cows ! Getting rid of cows would eliminate the water shortages in the Southwest.

The cows emit carbon dioxide and methane, The methane is quickly reduced to more carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide from the air is taken up by plants. Plants are eaten by cows and converted to methane and carbon dioxide. There is no net increase in atmospheric carbon in this cycle. On the other hand, burning coal, gas, and oil add carbon which has not been in the atmosphere for tens of millions of years.
Catt;e dp not contribute to global warming, fossil fuels do.

Jim H: Coal, gas and oil are utilized to feed cattle. Therefore, massive cattle operations contribute to global warming.

Jim,

I haven't done a rigorous carbon balance for cattle-raising (and have neither the time nor expertise to do so), but I would say that while cattle in the aggregate may not contribute to global warming, the way we raise our cattle very likely does.

For one thing, land use changes to cow pasture are highly implicated in global warming. Additionally most cows in the US AFAIK are not fed on local grazing, but are fed on trucked in crops grown using fertilizers that produce GHGs.

Also, the cow->methane/CO2->CO2->plant->cow loop is only balanced if there is sufficient plant biomass to take up all that carbon created. Otherwise, by definition, the remaining CO2 is excess and contributes to AGW. Also, it depends on what the mechanism is for converting methane to CO2. Also, cows produce N2O which is an even more potent GHG than methane.

Again, it isn't that cows are causing global warming, but the number of cows we raise and the way in which we raise them almost certainly does.

i believe the methane is produced by bacteria in the cow's gut that decompose the cellulose in their food

I did my MS thesis in 1998 on the capture and enumeration of methane in cattle eructation (did you know that cattle is the general term, and cow refers to just the females? news to me too) - thrilling reading, the pictures aren't too bad.

BTW JimH - the methane from fermentation by livestock DOES make it into the atmosphere where it acts as a substantially more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2

> Time to tax beef like we tax cigarettes.

Actually, putting aside standard of living adjustments, that's probably exactly what should be done. If we're looking to tax greenhouse gas-producing goods and services, in order to account for their total cost, then all sources need to be considered. (If not immediately, then over time but as soon as possible.)

In fact, cattle are physically unable to release gas from the stern end, which is why a blocked oesophagus gives them "bloat" - a painful buildup of gas in the gut.

Understand, first, that the whole cattle burp issue was raised in an attempt to divert attention from the use of fossil fuels. Notice that the people who spread this story never seem to pose it in terms of changing farming techniques to reduce use of fossil fuels, but to imply that the human impact is negligible. In this sense, cattle, and the buffalo that preceded them, are not in and of themselves the problem. It is human addition of fossil fuels to the equation, whether industrial or agricultural. As for the methane, the information I have seen says it only lasts about four days.

Way to resist those frat-boy impulses, Ezra.

Maybe if they were allowed to walk around eating grass instead of penned up and fed only corn and antibiotics they wouldn't burp so much.

I think we should give them all a anti-acid..stop the burping..train them to crap in one place and sell it to the organic farmers..this would cover the expense..milking farms could mask the cattle, bottle it and sell it to power trucks, or cook on...lets give them some ideas people!! fix it

cow eructation is greater on grass than on soybeans.

methane is 20x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas

The grasslands we had in the areas where the buffalo roamed were dependent on the buffalo roaming for their health. Today's grasslands are nothing like what they were when the buffalo reigned.

You can't just do a simple calculation to determine the impact of cattle and then argue that people should stop consuming cattle on the basis of your calculation - you also have to figure in what people will consume to REPLACE the foregone cattle.

I would like to see an analysis of what cattle produce when eating what they *should* be eating vs. what CAFOs feed them.

they need to consider feeding the cows raw garlic -- Bill Nye recently said that this alone would cut the gas in half. Isn't cutting the largest source of greenhouse gasses in half a pretty big impact?!

Again, cattle are not the biggest source of greenhouse gases. They are the succesors of buffalo and part of the natural system. The only way they add carbon above the normal amount in the carbon cycle is through the use of fossil fuel derived fertilizer to raise feed and the use of petroleum for transport of feed, cattle to slaughter houses, and meat to market.
This is an attempt by the fossil fuel industries to claim that they have little or nothing to do with global warming. In fact, they are almost entirely responsible for global warming, the exception being the contribution of deforestation by humans.

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