Guest post by Michael Oxenham
Best use of taxpayers’ money?
I have been an admirer and daily reader of WUWT for over 5 years, which, together with many other sites, links and papers have given me, I feel, a good insight into the climate debate. Veterinary research projects related to global warming/climate change have not featured on your site very often, so you may be interested in this short post from a concerned taxpayer and retired veterinarian. – Michael Oxenham
VETERINARY RESEARCH AND GLOBAL WARMING
On 25th February ’12 the Veterinary Record, the weekly journal of the BVA, published a news report of a research project, which had coined the title, ‘Ruminomics’. This was essentially to investigate the possibility of reducing the methane and nitrogen emissions from dairy cattle by varying their genome and their ruminal microbiome. This was all clearly predicated on the conjecture that these emissions cause or drive global warming/climate change. The project was described as a 4-year study in partnership with 11 European organisations, coordinated by Prof. John Wallace of Aberdeen University. It was funded by a grant of €7.7m from the EU Commission. Regrettably this seems to be a classic case of a ‘follow the money’ project.
On 24th March ’12 the VR published my letter of comment under the title ‘Best use of taxpayers’ money?’ In it I expressed my incredulity at the size of the grant and that I knew of no published empirical data or falsifiable experiments that demonstrate a link between these emissions (and CO2 for that matter) and GW/CC. The Editor strangely censored one sentence from this letter, which was – ‘I am bound to ask if due diligence was followed in the award of these funds’ – my point being that if the grant application had not been accompanied by references to published empirical data or falsifiable experiments of a link between methane and GW, then due diligence had not been followed.
Interestingly a previous letter of mine was published in the VR on 18th Dec. ’10. In it I commented, inter alia, that I hoped the keepers of the public purse would, in future, closely scrutinise fund applications which had GW/CC tagged on to the project title. I mention this because previously several of my letters to the VR on Veterinary GW/CC topics have been totally or partly censored. I get the impression therefore that there is a Guardian-type ideology in the Editor’s office. For example a BVA committee produced a very dodgy ‘Brief’ on how members could help in tackling GW/CC. My letter challenging various statements in the ‘Brief’ was totally censored.
It was strange but significant, that no one from the ‘Ruminomics’ team challenged my comments of 24th March. If ‘results’ of the project are submitted for publication, I hope reviewers will look at them with due diligence.
A side issue of this matter was that the GWPF wished to reproduce my 24th March letter in full. However the publishers of the VR, the BMJ Group, demanded a copyright fee of $895. The Foundation considered this to be an outrageous sum for a letter of comment of about 118 words. So for copyright reasons I have only been able to cite parts of that letter.
The facts of this story remind me of the late Prof Hal Lewis’s observations in his resignation letter from the APS in 2010.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/16/hal-lewis-my-resignation-from-the-american-physical-society/
I was involved at QDP, AustraliaI with quite a few researchers involved with Monensin supplementation in cattle. I don’t recall it was SOLELY to reduce methane production in rumen. Methane production is an essentail part of bacterial rumen biology? In any case at least there was a reason for the research. the AGW was added to give it more appeal to government funding bodies probably what a disgrace. I as a Vet Researcher nwould not want to be associated with this junk science in any way.
Rogelio, you are quite right that ionophore use is not solely directed at reducing methane production. One aim is to shift the bacterial population in the rumen from those that tend to produce acetic and butryic acids to those that tend to produce propionic acid. This results in better energy efficiency. It also acts as an anti-protozoal agent, and therefore kills off many of the protozoa that tend to produce methane in the rumen. Co-incidentally, it also reduces production loss and deaths from bloat and the protozoal disease coccidiosis, both of which are big headaches in dairy herds.
http://jas.fass.org/content/43/3/657 gives a good description of rumen biochemistry.
and then theres the also climate based idiotic West Aus mob who are trying to get kangaroo gut flora into cattle for the same reasons.
hell if they wanna lower emissions Ban CAFO grain fed and let the poor cows graze decent feed. it stops bushfires risk as a bonus..all that nasty black sooty carbon etc etc.
“Veterinary research projects related to global warming/climate change have not featured on your site very often”
I hope this isn’t too far off topic, but last night the BBC showed a 1 hour documentary about the world wide decline in bee populations. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jzjys
It was quite informative, and covered many aspects thought to be responsible. However near the end “Climate Change” was blamed as one possible cause – this should have not been a surprise coming from the Beeb.
More relevant, I thought, was the discovery in one dead bee of no less than 23 different pesticides, followed by a bee keeper in central London who reports his hives are doing very well. Presumably climate change doesn’t affect large cities?
rian H says:
July 24, 2012 at 3:10 am
Peter;
It is notable that drug lords are scrupulous about not sampling and getting hooked on their own wares. I wonder if the same is true of Hansen, the Hokey Team, etc? I suspect some of them have been carelessly hooked, others are more cynically rational.
_________________________________
I think it is “The Cause” they are actually hooked on and not CAGW.
Up to 12% of ruminant’s energy taken in goes to produce methane. Hops, with varietal effectiveness ( 800 µg mL−1 innoculant of “Millenial” Humulus lupulus looks good due to it’s levels of alpha & beta acids), is showing promise to reduce methane & boost propionate short chain fatty acid.
for bkindseth,
“Methane production by domestic animals, wild ruminants, other herbivorous fauna, and humans”;
http://www.tellusb.net/index.php/tellusb/article/viewFile/15135/16953
I’m doing my part. I eat the cows.
you are doing a very good job.
I appreciate your witty and informative comments made in the best traditions of WUWT. Unusually it was a troll-free zone.
The methane discussion was particularly good I thought. The link sent by ‘gringoj’ to the paper by Paul Crutzen et al, published in 1986, is an excellent example of how research should be done and which is totally uncorrupted by the GW/CC meme. Those were the days, of course, before the EUSSR and Al Gore.
The copyright angle exercised quite a few well-informed readers. At the time of writing to the GWPF, the VR carried a copyright warning notice in every issue. So it was the GWPF’s decision not to reproduce it in full and advise me to make a post where it would be subject to comment.
I am grateful to m’learned friend ‘a jones’ for explaining the UK law. I am sorry to disappoint readers, but I have no intention of running a test case on the matter.
Tweaking the genome of bacteria. Isn’t that what they do to make biological weapons?
This gentleman could write a similar letter to Homeland Security pointing out that the proposed activity could very well be misused. Then HS will insist on a level 5 lab, and close scrutiny by its own people. And that will be the end of it.
So let’s see, they stole your intellectual property (letter) then demand $900 for royalties? Add ’em to Madame Defarge’s list.
The large quantities indicate to me a bulk discount is sought plus less paperwork overheads for the next few years instead of buying annually.
I’m doing my part: I don’t eat the cows, or any other animal, so I don’t send a signal through the market to ‘Produce more cows (or other hapless victims)!’ One of the (perhaps) very few things on which I agree with Mr Pachauri. Seriously, land use is important for climate and for many other issues which are far more significant than climate. http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1491/447.full.pdf+html?sid=0a95dff6-b7ba-461e-be5b-91a63a8e5e2b , for example. What’s clear (but unwelcome for many) is that any problem caused by agriculture (pollution, land use, water use, energy use, etc.) is magnified about tenfold by meat animal production and use, plus the ‘bonus’ of pollution by excrement runoff and greater opportunities for various diseases to spread to humans.
That environmental damage is “magnified tenfold by meat production and use” is not clearly understood, indeed in many cases the land is better off under livestock than other land uses. Having worked in semi-arid grazing rangelands for some decades, under prudent management, I can attest the environment is better preserved than when cultivated and converted to grain production, as is common in fragile steppe environments in China. Likewise periodic grazing by cattle in the Australian Alps reduces buildup of dead undergrowth and minor bushfires cause rapid regeneration and germination of tree seed. Locking the Alps up in National Parks and excluding grazing has caused significant environmental damage as well as loss of human life when wildfires sparked in dense undergrowth kill all trees and tree seeds, and spread beyond the Parks to burn neighbouring towns.
If people choose to abstain from meat for health or moral reasons, so be it. Senior Nazis certainly did. But the environmental objections to livestock production require much deeper thought and in many cases the problems are not as large as imagined. In some cases the solution is worse than the problem.
This is a win-win for the Greens. If the research is successful, they’ll be pleased with the reduction in greenhouse gases. If it doesn’t, they won’t have to explain to their followers why it’s OK to trash GM crops and force cloned animals off the market, whilst allowing these Frankenstein creatures to exist.
Peter Hannan says:
July 26, 2012 at 12:59 am
I’m doing my part: I don’t eat the cows, or any other animal…. any problem caused by agriculture (pollution, land use, water use, energy use, etc.) is magnified about tenfold by meat animal production and use, plus the ‘bonus’ of pollution by excrement runoff and greater opportunities for various diseases to spread to humans.
_______________________________
What a load of bovine excrement. Let me explain the actual case.
The answer to Pollan’s question is simple.
Taxpayer $$ or euros => grain subsidies and pass through the farmers due to monopoly/monpsony to the Ag Cartel (Monsanto, Andre, Cargill, JB Swift, Smithfield et al) See: Dept of Justice: MONOPSONY ISSUES IN AGRICULTURE
By using taxpayer money to make grains artificially cheap (below production cost) CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operation) could compete successfully with grass fed operations and “win” by driving the traditional farmers completely out of business in the egg, chicken, dairy and pork industries. USDA/FDA regulations written by the Ag Cartel aka the IPC via the corporate government revolving door also played a significant part. Before a farmer can dig himself out of debt from paying for the first government mandated changes to his farm a second set of regulations is issued.
By having a monopoly on the input (seeds, fertilizers…) and a monpsony on the output and control of the regulations, the Ag cartel could squeeze the farmer right out of business as was the intention. The integrated farm with crops and animals has been wiped in favor of monoculture farming.
Monoculture farming whether crop or CAFO is hard on the land and in the long run just plain stupid. Ruminants and other animals utilize land unfit for crop growing because it is too hilly, too rocky or just plain worn out. Pasture grass is a much better filter strip that is a forest and pasturing animals is a very good way to build topsoil.
Please do a bit of investigation before blaming the poor cow for the actions of the greedy Ag cartel.
i find it very interesting how AGW is put in opposition to GMOs by some commentators. i.e. if you are “scientifically minded” and dont buy the GW load, you should support GMOs because that is what the greens oppose, and vice versa, if you are opposed to playing around with the genetic code of the planet, you should support the AGW load.. in the end it will be: GM will solve it, so everyone should support it..
No need to be concerned about methane emissions by cattle:
1) The global distribution of methane concentrations in the atmosphere as measured by ENVISAT (http://www.iup.uni-bremen.de/sciamachy/NIR_NADIR_WFM_DOAS/Buchwitz_ch4_global.jpg ) does not coincidence whatsoever with the global ruminant livestock distribution (FAO 2006: http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM Map 20).
2) The rise of atmospheric methane concentration in the atmosphere reflects fairly well human natural gas consumption and the available technology to stop gas leakage – rather than livestock numbers or density (http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/04/methane and http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/08/csiro-s-methane-problem ).
3) As Lewis P. Buckingham points out there are good reasons to assume that natural habitats, particularly in semi-arid regions emit as much methane as do managed grasslands under ruminant grazing.
4) Certain agro-ecosystems used for grazing are in fact methane sinks and not methane sources (http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nsw/content/2009/08/s2649416.htm ).
On the other hand I do not agree with Simon of the Caucasus who complains about digestible energy loss through methane emissions. Methane is a product of anaerobic fermentation of cellulose, the most abundant substance in the biosphere, by cellulolytic rumen bacteria. Please note: Vertebrates are unable to break down cellulose. May be the conversion of forage, rich in fiber, by ruminants into meat and milk, is the energetically most efficient way of making use of the rough herbage growing in abundance on up to half of the terrestrial surface, representing rangelands unsuitable for other forms of land use due to natural restrictions.
There is an agricultural property on the extreme west of Tasmania, Australia called Woolnorth. The tourist guide would take you to the cliffs and proudly proclaim that if a penguin farted in Antarctica, we would be the first to smell it. There is nothing between there and Sth Africa and that is the route the clipper ships followed sailing “The Roaring Fourties” to The East Indies.
I’m sure they had a weather station there and it would have been operating for over 100 years. THAT would be quality data.