Super Eco

Photo credit: karlfrankowski, Flickr

Cows burp and cows fart. It's no secret. That's just the way of the world. If you had four stomachs you would too. Now comes a scientific study from foodwatch of Germany quantifying bovine gas passing and blaming cows for climate change. Those bovine burps and cattle farming in general produce lots of greenhouse gases (GHG), not only methane but also nitrous oxide! Who knew? The laughing gas that you pay a dentist to administer is free on the farm!

The foodwatch report (a .pdf file) provides the data. Graphics from the report were published in the magazine Der Spiegel mapping cow farts to automobile exhaust.

Long story short:

• In one year, a vegan who exclusively eats organic produce will be responsible for GHG emissions equal to a person who drives her BMW 175 miles.
• That same year a meat eater who eats only the products of conventional agriculture will be responsible for emissions equal to about 3000 driving miles.
• A vegetarian who consumes dairy products falls somewhere in the middle.
• Cattle are responsible for less than 2% of Germany's GHG volume. (So, I must ask, where's the beef?)

The study recommends conservation practices to lower the carbon footprint of agriculture including wetlands restoration. When you drain a marsh for agriculture, all the marsh gas has to go somewhere. And marsh gas is made of the same stuff as cow farts. They also explore forcing prices higher for dairy and beef products to reduce demand and therefore reduce supply.

Gathering data for the study, foodwatch equipped some cows (pictured here) with gas collection bags. I don't believe anyone has extended that idea to equipping all cows with gas collectors. Think of the enormous energy potential of all that methane gas! Could we do away with natural gas pipelines entirely if we collected cow exhaust? The study does not say. Perhaps they'll follow up.