News,The Cow Turns Green

[Omaha Rocks]

Originally Posted by rlchurch

Since the hills around California regrow after a wildfire, there's no net impact on CO2. {Science over ignorance}

So... Wildfires that consume thousands of acres of forest, and spew billions of cubic feet of smoke into the are do NOT harm the environment - but farting cows are destroying the planet?


{Common sense over DC BS.}

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks

So... Wildfires that consume thousands of acres of forest, and spew billions of cubic feet of smoke into the are do NOT harm the environment - but farting cows are destroying the planet?


{Common sense over DC BS.}

I actually have some trouble with the cow farts as well, particulalry if grass fed. While the cow is going to ferment greenhouse gases out of the grass it eats and the cow's stool is going to do some off-gassing after deposition, a lot of the carbon in the grass is going to wind up as sugars in the cow's blood and it isn't as though running a piece of plant matter through a cow means that it sublimates into CO2 and methane completely. Some of that carbon remains tied up in various ways. In other words, greenhouse gas emissions from cattle grazing is an inefficient process. On the other hand, the vast majority of the weight of any grass that regrows in place of the grazed vegetation is from carbon fixed out of the atmosphere. The process of grass taking carbon from the atmosphere and turning it into living structure is far, far more efficient than the process of a cow breaking it down. It seems to me that pastureland that is grazed and allowed to regrow would be very close to a zero-sum carbon emission process. Corn actually fixes carbon too, but I can see that there is a carbon footprint associated with its harvest and transport that would skew the equation.

Either way, I can't see that the cows or their consumption by humans represent the fundamental problem.

[vec101]

Originally Posted by rlchurch

LOL no vec we aren't talking about CO2 problems with cows. Please do some reading before you embarrass C-D

Thought you had decided to help reduce CO2 emissions and had gotten rid of your computer. - had not read your ever smiling prose on here lately.

Read the other posts - yes, cows and CO2 were/are being discussed.

[vec101]

Originally Posted by Omaha Rocks

So... Wildfires that consume thousands of acres of forest, and spew billions of cubic feet of smoke into the are do NOT harm the environment - but farting cows are destroying the planet?


{Common sense over DC BS.}

Guess RL just did not read the quote nor do any checking on the internet.

[vec101]

Our ancestors must be rolling over in their graves laughing about all the discussion, worry, and potential political actions over cow farts. They probably think we have become a generation of idiots.