Cows off the hook–for now
This is not—I repeat, not—an April Fools joke.
For quite a while scientists who study global warming have claimed that (and there is just no way to be delicate about this) cow flatulence and excrement—or what this article refers to as their “wind and manure”—have been significant contributors to the phenomenon, because of the methane produced. This has acted as a sort of twofer for the AGW crowd: they get to blame people for raising so many cows, and they also get to promote vegetarianism for humankind.
Now comes the startling news that under certain circumstances, cow grazing reduces global warming rather than increases it (scientists often have such difficult making up their minds!). The mechanism in this case is—I kid you not—laughing gas.
Yes, apparently the grass on which cattle would graze shelters microbes that produce nitrous oxide in the spring if it is kept long. But when cattle have grazed there and the grass is short, the microbes have trouble wintering over and less of this particular greenhouse gas is released come spring.
This has thrown some environmental scientists into a tizzy. To wit:
Dr Butterbach-Bahl said the study overturned assumptions about grazing goats and cattle.
“It’s been generally assumed that if you increase livestock numbers you get a rise in emissions of nitrous oxide. This is not the case,” he said.
Estimated nitrous oxide emissions from temperate grasslands in places like Inner Mongolia as well as vast swatches of the United States, Canada, Russia and China account for up a third of the total amount of the greenhouse gas produced every year. Nitrous oxide is the third most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane.
But Dr Butterbach-Bahl pointed out that the study did not take into account the methane produced by the livestock or the carbon dioxide produced if soil erodes. He also pointed out that much of the red meat eaten in the western world if from intensively farmed animals in southern countries.
He said the study does not overturn the case for cutting down on red meat but shows grazing livestock is not always bad for global warming.
If one thing is clear from the above excerpt, it’s that the state of knowledge on even such a small part of the larger global warming picture is meager, to say the least. The interactions are mind-bogglingly complex and poorly understand, even among the known factors, and there are probably countless unknown factors as well that have not even been considered.
[NOTE: And has anyone else realized that the name of the good doctor is somewhat reminiscent of a type of turkey that used to be very popular in supermarkets around Thanksgiving time?]
Anyone with the slightest scientific experience could and should have foreseen this. Not only are the primary terms in climate models, shall we say, soft, but even softer are the cross-terms, of which this is but one example. Given this, the very notion of hard predictions – or indeed, any predictions – was risible.
For my part, I think that liberal politicians cause global warming. I have no proof, but merely invoke the precautionary principle as justification for getting rid of them. /g
just think what those vast herds of wild American Bison were doing or..er…not doing to Global Cooling, warming…whatever.
Occam’s Beard: risible, as in laughing gas?
Wait, isn’t water vapor the MOST important greenhouse gas? Doesn’t even make the top three in the above mentioned article. Geniuses.
Well this is unfortunate. I enjoyed feeling I was doing my part against AGW when I tucked into a nice juicy rare steak. Now I have to worry that if not for my appetite, someone wouldn’t be a laughing.
Hey, I had this on my sidebar earlier today. I’m glad to see we are in sync with the cows and will be until the cows come home.
Haven’t they heard the meme about a butterfly fluttering its wings in the Northern Hemisphere resulting in a hurricane in the Southern Hemisphere years later? How many butterflies are included in their climate models?
I rest my case.
Too funny. While I am undoubtedly what the “C3” (carbon conscious crowd; it’s mine, don’t steal it. Use, yes…steal, no.) would call a denier, it certainly was warm t’other day… 😉
Forget about greenhouse gases – all of them. Climate dynamics has nothing to do with variation of greenhouse effect. It is governed by ocean currents, and we have not yet even began to gather relevant data.
Is this off-topic? Well, it’s about cows, science and politicians. Don’t know who versed it. Enjoy.
A cowboy named Bud
was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California
When suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you Give me a calf?”
Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location
which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution
photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected
Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”
“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud.
He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, “Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”
“You’re a Congressman for the U.S Government”, says Bud.
“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”
“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked.
You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and You don’t know a thing about how working people make a living – or about cows, for that matter.
This is a flock of sheep…..
Now give me back my dog.
So let me get this straight – grass is a contributor to global warming now?
Dang – that means I gotta fuel up the ol lawnmower with gas and start cutting emissions or it’s liable to be 90-something degrees within just a few months!
[NOTE: And has anyone else realized that the name of the good doctor is somewhat reminiscent of a type of turkey that used to be very popular in supermarkets around Thanksgiving time?]
Yes, Neo. I’ve been chortling over his name since I first read it.
Aren’t liberals generally heading in the direction that Life itself is what’s putting the planet at risk? Hmmm
Plus, a pet peeve as I’ve been staying in a hotel all week. A sign in the bathroom implores patrons to “save the planet’s water resources” by using towels more than once. I want to know what liberal invented the notion that using water somehow destroys the water. And why is it somehow better if the water stays in the river and not recieve a thorough cleaning after washing my towel? I don’t think the water issue has been thought out any better than the cow flatulence issue.
Global Cooling causes Global Warming.
DavidW: enjoyed that!
Dr Butterbach-Bahl
I certainly would prefer “Dr. Butterbahl-Bach”, a real turkey of a composer.
It was Burt Bacharach’s name before his agent insisted he change it. 🙂
Dr. Butterball… That’s my tip that you’re funnin’ us despite your denials. The denials are part of the joke right?
SteveH @ 8:26
Thomas Malthus famously predicted in 1798 that the human sex drive was so strong it would eventually lead to an over-populated planet that would not be able to sustain itself. That was the consensus of scientific thought of his generation. Of course, since then the global population has increased by several multiples and standards of living continue to improve. The basic flaw in his theory was he failed to consider the impact of technological advances on every aspect of our life: food production, mining, medicine, etc.
Just as Malthus failed to consider all the variables that led him to wrongly predict doom for mankind because we’re so horny, it’s hard for me to believe scientists have properly considered in their models all the various and complex interactions of variables to conclude with certainty that man is creating a climate catastrophe that will, once again, doom mankind.
The AGWer’s may be right, but I’m more inclined to think they are modern day Malthusians and Fabian Socialists who believe intellectual elites need to plan our lives for us for the greater good of the collective.
Smoking grass will be leagal in CA. soon. That will make everything better. 🙂
“”but I’m more inclined to think they are modern day Malthusians and Fabian Socialists who believe intellectual elites need to plan our lives for us for the greater good of the collective.””
Scott
But isn’t it the control freaks who actually endanger people by removing so much individual responsibility from the equation? For example, how many times have govt beauracrats flip flopped on egg consumption being good for you, then bad for you? You end up with citizens like my sister, who believes every pronouncement from a beauracrat study to be the gospel truth and doesn’t recognise the life she is living is at the mercy of people less qualified to direct it than she is.
vegetarians are more suggestible…
So let me get this straight – grass is a contributor to global warming now?
Dang – that means I gotta fuel up the ol lawnmower with gas and start cutting emissions or it’s liable to be 90-something degrees within just a few months!
in his joking, he points out that those that mow their lawns are using carbon to offset the nitrogen..
in being funny, he was accidentally on target to a degree!
Occam’s Beard: risible, as in laughing gas?
Yup. Actually, laughing gas (nitrous oxide) is a) used as propellant in aerosol cans and b) mole for mole, is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.
You can’t say God doesn’t have a sense of humor.
“Estimated nitrous oxide emissions from temperate grasslands in places like Inner Mongolia as well as vast swatches of the United States, Canada, Russia and China account for up a third of the total amount of the greenhouse gas”
We better pave it over right now to be safe.
Perhaps we could ask our socialist betters (but I repeat myself) to lead us to the Promised Land, since we’re too thick to make any decisions for ourselves.
Moo!
YAY everyone go eat lots of beef!!
incidentally, I once read somewhere that human vegetarians flatulate more than human nonvegetarians. is it safe to say, then, that vegetarians are bad for the environment????
I wonder if Mr. Bahl has a plastic doohicky in his chest that pops out when global warming cooks him just right.
Jon Baker, At one time the estimate was that the bison population in north america exceeded 40 million animals, not to mention those in europe and asia and all of the other bovines wild and domestic world wide. That pretty much dwarfs the modern beef industry. I guess buffalo don’t fart…
Anna, Maybe not for the macro environment, but you don’t want to be in the same room. Know what I mean?…
Besides, aren’t cows eating grass “carbon neutral” for the same reasons humans eating plants are? Carbon sequestered = carbon emitted, etc.
Well, I guess that’s what they get for joining a religious faith that doesn’t really care about anything but ending the Golden Age of Reason.