Sometimes, you really don’t need to make up an April Fools joke. Truth can indeed be stranger than fiction, except for the part about “four gallons” which is part of the original Telegraph article 😉 – Anthony
From the Telegraph UK, by Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
Fish oils reduce greenhouse emissions from ‘flatulent cows’
Cows which are fed omega 3 fatty acids belch out less greenhouse gases that cause climate change, according to scientists.
Cattle produce large amounts of methane as they digest their food and then belch out most of it through their mouths.
A herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane roughly equivalent in energy terms to driving a family car more than 100,000 miles (180,000km) on more than four gallons (21,400 litres) of petrol.
The omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oils can also help the heart and circulatory system and improve meat quality.
Speaking at the Society for General Microbiology meeting in Harrogate, Dr Lorraine Lillis, one of the researchers, said the study could help the agriculture industry cut emissions.
She said: “The fish oil affects the methane-producing bacteria in the rumen part of the cow’s gut, leading to reduced emissions.
“Understanding which microbial species are particularly influenced by changes in diet and relating them to methane production could bring about a more targeted approach to reducing methane emissions in animals.”
The UK is committed to cutting greenhouse gases by 80 per cent by 2050.
More than a third of all methane emissions in the UK is produced by farm animals. By volume, methane is 20 times more powerful at trapping solar energy than carbon dioxide making it a potent greenhouse gas.
Jonathan Scurlock, an adviser at the National Farmers Union, said farmers were willing to modify feed in order to reduce emissions but at the moment there are few affordable options on the market and he encouraged more research into the area.
Philincalifornia: Kreutzveldt Jakob disease in England and Europe was originated due to the wrong practice of recycling dried and milled bones, internal organs and other not sold parts of cattle. If you recycle genetic diseases reinforce by accumulation, and, generalizing this principle:Every material keeps “information”in it, in other words, memory is a property of matter.
What happened is that this recycling caused an increase in certain proteins which can self replicate, called “prions”, which in turn, produce degeneration of the brain and nerves´tissues. When it happened the case of the “mad cows” fishmeal was blamed at the beginning, but afterwards this recycling was found to be the cause.
This is a very interesting phenomenon whensoever or wherever you candidly or naively think recycling. One inorganic example: When solution in a zinc refinery is recycled, trace elements, sometimes not analyzed, increase its concentration and provoking, among other problems, redisolution of zinc cathodes.
Every system tends to reach a state of dynamic equilibrium or, in other words, to optimize the economics of energy interchange, to “survive” as an independent “entity”, that is why positive and negative feedbacks are all about, to reach a “buffered” state. To summarize it: An example of one dimensional optimization: A möbius strip (or tape)…not forgetting the close feedback system of big egos: Like the one you know..They seem a “Klein bottle” about to blow out 🙂
Maybe someone can help this old farmer here. Ruminants have been around forever eating grass and such. These articles say that cattle produce methane which I have no argument with. But they never state cattle are increasing the level of methane in the atmosphere. I suggest cattle and other ruminants are just recycling organic matter in it’s many forms and not contributing to and increase in methane.
BTW if you want to collect methane form a cow you have to put the hose in her mouth. Can we have an image of a fire breathing cow please.
I used to say that cattle are contributing Zero to the Zero increase in Methane since the Methane numbers looked like they had stabilized up to 2006.
The cow flatulence argument was just put forward by over-zealous pro-AGW researchers and animal rights activists.
But there has been a slight uptick in Methane concentrations over the past two years. Not substantial; from about 1790 ppb in 2006 to about 1807 ppb in March, 2009 at Mauna Loa – there is different rates of change at different observation sites.
These changes are very small and the levels are still well below the IPCC A1B scenario so Methane is contributing a very minimal amount to greenhouse warming right now.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/iadv/graph/mlo/mlo_ch4_ts_obs_03397.png
The photo gives new meaning to “a glass of warm milk.”
Meanwhile, I’m going out and buying some fish oil capsules.
REPLY: Try Beano. – Anthony
John Galt (15:34:40) : Seriously, the zealots want to take away our red meat. […] Do you know people who eat a moderate meat diet get less colon cancer than vegetarian? Meat is part of a balance diet.
I have a wonderful book: “Transition to Vegetarinanism” written by an M.D. that details what foods you must add to the diet at each step of removing various animal products.
http://www.amazon.com/Transition-Vegetarianism-Evolutionary-Rudolph-Ballentine/dp/0893891754
In some small way it convinced me not to become a vegetarian (that, and fried chicken… I can’t resist fried chicken…). At each step, the coping behaviours become more extreme and the consequences of getting it wrong become more intense. At the end of it all, it was pretty clear the we are omnivores, not vegetarians, and that it’s very tricky to have zero animal stuff and stay healthy.
If you know anyone who is a vegetarian, or anyone who is a vegetarian ‘wannabe’ they ought to have this book. It will help them stay healthy and focus them on issues like where to get enough iron and omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, etc.
Why do we have incisors and canines (teeth) if not to eat meat? If man were made to live on vegetables alone, he’d have teeth like a cow.
Well… In fact mammals have ‘eye teeth’ because our very primitive pig like ancestor (before dinosaurs ruled the earth and before any recognizable mammal) had tusks… for digging roots out of the very dry climate in which they lived! “Canine” teeth evolved from a vegetarian solution. Our molars are clearly more like a vegetarian than those of a carnivore (see a dogs molars, much more like sharp cutting tools, ours are more flat grinders with mild peaks). A detailed study of human teeth leads to the conclusion that we are omnivores with a high plant intake historically but able to eat moderate meat levels.
The difficulty living on just plants (the variety needed would not be ‘natural’) pretty much says our primate line has been omnivorous for quite a while (though a long chunk may have been early insectivore primate behaviour 😉
The bottom line is that we are so successful in part because we can eat just about anything but wood… and do…
Feeding valuable fish oil to cattle will directly reduce the availability of fish oil for human consumption and benefit, and worsen human health, especially among the poor.
Harming people to try to control the wind for highly uncertain benefits is the height of foolishness and perversity.
can’t smell the tupis either
“I’ve never, never seen it this late,” Dobbe (pronounced “Doe-bah”) says. “Not even close.”
Blame a string of uninterrupted cold days, particularly in March. Ice and snow in December didn’t help, Dobbe and others say, but cold weather in the month preceding showtime is key.
“It’s been so cool,” said Wooden Shoe co-owner Barb Iverson, who has been growing bulbs since 1974 and running the festival since 1985. “We haven’t had warm nights; you get a lot of growth at night,” she said.
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/04/its_showtime_but_where_are_the.html
Cold weather, late-blooming flowers stymie Washington, Oregon tulip festivals
Sorry for the OT.
I just received a comment from JAE on my blog about an interesting post on Pielke’s site.
If it’s true and there are no loopholes in the law, the senate has just created the first backlash against the AGW legal insanity. Whether you believe in AGW or not most seem to agree the cap and trade system is BS and apparently this might have killed it.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/the-thune-amendment-5096
geeze
tulips
It looks like Barbera Boxer messed it up
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/03/quick-evening-reading-about-the-budget.php
Link to her amendment of the amendment.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/documents/2009/03/boxer-climate-amendment.php?page=1
I seriously doubt the robustness of this study. Anecdotally I take fish oil every day and I am still blowing up the bathroom.
Didn’t a MIT study recently say that not humans cause the methane level to increase? I may be stupid but I thought they include farmers’ cows as humans.
Reference; MIT:
http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-39973-113.html
Moooo
Want to tell you something: As Peru is the biggest producer of fishmeal, in Lima city and other cities sometimes we smell fish oil in the air, actually in some places near factories there is a mist of oil in the air which oils automobile´s windshields. Quite healthy!
I suspect the miles per cow-year silliness is due to the European propensity to use a comma instead of “our” decimal point. That… plus some sloppy journalism.
Substitute “.” for “,” and the paragraph makes more sense (and 25mpg):
“A herd of 200 cows can produce annual emissions of methane roughly equivalent in energy terms to driving a family car more than 100.000 miles (180.000km) on more than four gallons (21.400 litres) of petrol.”
Also: converting an amount CO2 to CH4 (which has 20 times the GW potential) sounds like a lose-lose to me…
Re: John Silver (15:09:01) :
“Why not put the cow on your pick up trucks bed and run a hose directly to the carburettor.”
Surely it would be more efficient to strap on some wheels and a saddle to the cow?
Seat belt? Check
Pre-ignition diagnostics? Check
Grass? Check
Fish Oil? Check
We are go for launch
Ignition
Release stabilizers
Moooooooooo
Brings a new perspective to the term “meals on wheels”.
Adolfo Giurfa (15:55:58) :
Philincalifornia: Kreutzveldt Jakob disease in England and Europe was originated due to the wrong practice of recycling dried and milled bones, internal organs and other not sold parts of cattle.
——————-
Thanks Adolfo. As I’m sure you ascertained, I was actually joking, although the thought of cows coming down with mad fish disease does approximate my thoughts on AGW science.
I was at UCSF when Stan Prusiner did the work that led to his Nobel Prize for the discovery of prions. I got to collaborate with him on a project later.
Did you know that yeast cells have prions too? They’re not infectious, of course (otherwise pubs would not exist). So, without searching PubMed, I’m guessing that fish might have them too, although given the way that fish recycle each other, there has probably been some serious selection against lethal propagation.
I just can’t imagine putting salmon-flavoured milk on my corn flakes.
Great Art Anthony. I was going to use something like that for my Plume De Hansen award but I found something better.
Anyway, you and your crowd are fairly astute. I have a nice April Fools for you. I’m assuming you could have figured it out without the extra clues I was forced to include. Enjoy.
This is going to be so embarrassing in 20 years. The grandkids will be asking, “So, Pop, did you really pay people to go around counting cow farts?”
“Err, yeah junior, but weren’t we talking about that ridiculous hair cut of yours?”
Well at least the cows won’t die from heart disease before the slaughter. Who knows maybe the red meat and milk will be healthier as well. Does giving them fish oil make “organic” cows “un-organic”? When was the last time you saw a cow fishing?
Just some thoughts.
Because there isn’t enough fish oil for this use, to save the planet they’ll have to make corn produce fish oil. Cows eating corn, which is a form of grass. A natural solution. Good.
Thank God. I will sleep better tonight.
Hey diddle diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such a sight,
As fish oil de-farted its rumen.
ZZZZZZZZZZ.
Our host’s guest post is the topic of the latest RC thread.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/04/advocacy-vs-science/
Apparently the science blog of the year represents advocates rather than reasonable thinkers. Of course that implies that we the visitors and commentators are the same.
Of course I had to reply.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/ten-replies-to-gavin-advocacy-vs-science/
My thinking is that Gavin could use 50K visitors or so leaving comments to point out the weakness of his latest argument.
OT: just had a magnificent view of the space station going overhead here in the SF Bay area. It is REALLY bright now!
Sixty Million Buffalo
Per an interview with, “Donald Fixico, Thomas Bowlus Distinguished Professor of American Indian History and Director of the Center for Indigenous Nations Studies at the University of Kansas”:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/sfeature/sf_interview.html#j
“It has been estimated that the West held as many as fifteen million to sixty million buffalo at the arrival of the white man. Even with the lowest estimate, the number was severely depleted as a result of the introduction of the transcontinental railroad to the Western homeland of the Plains Indian tribes. By the end of the 1870s, the buffalo was on its way to extinction with an alarmingly low number of less than 1,000 in the West by the end of the nineteenth century.”
Why didn’t the North American Buffalo’s methane cause the world to burst into a burning ball of fire? Did one of Al Gore’s ancestors kill all of those buffalos to save the world from Buffalo Global Warming (BGW)?
Buffalo chips, cow chips, AGW; there is a pattern here.