By Steve Goreham
Originally published in The Washington Times.
O’Hare airport will finally get its goats. The Department of Aviation of the City of Chicago has awarded a contract to a private firm to provide 25 goats to munch vegetation at the city’s airport. These “green lawn mowers” will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions to sustain the planet.
Last fall, when the project was bid, Amy Malick, head of sustainability at the Department of Aviation, commented on the planned use of goats in hard-to-mow areas, “They may have steep slopes, very hard to get to with heavy machinery, and those machines also emit pollution. They’re burning fossil fuel. So as a sustainability initiative we’re looking to bring in animals that do not have emissions associated with them, at least to the same extent that heavy machinery would.”
A shepherd will herd the goats across 120 acres at four different sites on airport property. The 25 fuzzy critters are expected to clear vegetation each day from a square at least sixteen feet on a side.
Chicago is not the first city to employ animals to reduce airport vegetation. Sheep are used at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and goats are used at San Francisco International. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport deployed goats as early as 2008, but stopped because “it was not cost effective.” How can a guy with a lawn mower be as cost effective as a herd of goats?
A single one-way Boeing 747 flight from Chicago to London emits about 200 tons of carbon dioxide, or about 5,000 times the annual emissions from a gasoline-powered lawn mower of a homeowner. It appears that emissions savings from O’Hare goats will be relatively small. But what about methane emissions from the herd?
On the other side of the world, about 10,000 miles from Chicago, the government of Australia has a different solution for global warming. More than a million wild camels, called “feral” camels, roam the outback of Australia. They munch up the foliage and emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from both the nose end and the tail end. Each camel produces more than one ton of CO2-equivalent emissions per year. Feral goats are also part of this severe climate problem.
But the enlightened Australian government passed the Carbon Farming Initiative Act in December of 2011. The act calls for “The reduction of methane emissions through the management, in a humane manner, of feral goats, feral deer, feral pigs, or feral camels.” “Management” companies are now flying over the outback, shooting goats and camels from helicopters, and earning carbon credits. Maybe the Aussies should use goats instead of lawn mowers at airports?
So goats are both grazed and shot to reduce those evil carbon dioxide emissions. It’s all part of this mad, mad, mad world of Climatism.
=========================================================
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.(which they don’t like at San Jose State Meteorology Dept.)
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Rupert Bravery, maybe the same ones who did the math on shooting 40,000 elephants.
It could be so romantic.
No one has yet done it so here it is…..
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDT8qJbYlI0&w=420&h=315%5D
James Bull
Typical! Aussie Government’s solution is to kill animals to “save the planet”. These guys are total raving loonies. When is the white van arriving, please? You know, the one with the lovely loooong sleeved jackets that tie around the back.
For anyone so softly humanitarian as to find shooting goats offensive, there’s an alternative. Stare at them.
Perhaps O’Hare Airport should ask Father Christmas if they can borrow his reindeers to tow the planes in flight if they want to make a significant contribution to cutting their carbon footprint.
Actually in parts of southern Cal. there are large swaths of steep open land that regularly get the goat treatment. This prevents a buildup of dry grasses and brush that will readily burn in summer. It can’t be cut with a mower so this works. Its basically a choice between goats or fires. Mainly this is done around inhabited areas.
But somehow I don’t think the land around an airport is “steep”. This could work if they fenced in the entire area and let the goats breed and survive on their own — feral goats. No upkeep costs. If too many goats get born — shoot them.
I don’t worry too much about PETA — but, this being Chicago I am afraid that someone would try to unionize the goats.
Eugene WR Gallun
There are roughly a million camels in Australia. I’ve read the population doubles every 9 years. Which means they have to shoot well in excess of 100,000 camels per annum to reduce numbers. Since they are nowhere close to that number, it is a complete and utter waste of time and money. The camels will breed faster than they are shot.
And BTW, the camel shooters, riding in their helicopters, are getting carbon credits for their efforts.
A.D. Everard says – and my “toungue in cheek” reply……Hah.!.I guess your alligators must fart so bad they need culling too if my TV set is correct…..!! Or do they taste better to americans than camel……….
Eric Worrall, I shall be keeping a close eye on you…
…and all those others who consider liking a goat to be purely in terms of dinner.
I could shoot a goat in any name. Nasty, smelly, tobacco-craving creatures!
So on one side of the planet, goats eating grass “help reduce carbon dioxide emissions to sustain the planet”, while on the other side… “Feral goats (and camels) are also part of this severe climate problem.”
Unbelievable! Clmatastrophists just make facts up as they go.
I assume those fellows shooting camels in Oz are using wind-powered choppers, right?
I said it over a Jo Nova’s . Lets arm our outback camels with MANPADS.
I have a soft spot for our feral camels after encountering a family of them when driving across the Nullarbor Plain in my late mother’s Kombi Camper with her and my wife many years ago. We were discussing the different animals we had seen on that trip and previous ones but we had never seen camels. About then, on the horizon, appeared this family of camels. They took their time crossing the road as we approached, we slowed down and everyone went on their way. I’m glad they have made a home in the outback.
Wrong animal for grass. Goats are browsers, they eat trees and shrubs etc., sheep are grazers and prefer grass. If your problem is grass then you need sheep. It might also have slipped these planners mind that plants use CO2 and will reduce its atmospheric concentration, goats eat plants and produce methane another GHG .
Project failed.
Rupert Bravery says:
May 9, 2013 at 11:37 pm
“So they are using CO2 emitting helicopters to shoot camels and stop them emitting CO2. Has anyone done the maths..?”
I assume the question is rhetorical? You are talking leftwing politicians here. Not only that you are talking AUSTRALIAN leftwing politicians. Why would they do the maths?
KenB says:
May 10, 2013 at 1:32 am
“A.D. Everard says – and my “toungue in cheek” reply……Hah.!.I guess your alligators must fart so bad they need culling too if my TV set is correct…..!! Or do they taste better to americans than camel……….”
I do not know what camel tastes like but alligator tastes “like chicken.” On the other hand, if you want something that tastes like chicken why not eat………………chicken?
I know a bit here, having studied environments over the ages, and have a Diploma in Organic Agriculture. Ruminants fart and burp methane. (And methane is a trace gas, it is easily disapated. (So do we by the way and there is more of us on this planet) That dickhead employed by the climate change commission, reckoned if farmers switch to farming kangaroos, this would solve the problem.
Mate! Kangaroos are marsupials, they are not domesticated, they do not come into season every year unless they want to, and hold fertilized pre embroniic eggs for years until the mum wants to eject it into her pouch and have avoided being domesticated for centuries. I give up! And quite honestly I don’t like their meat, to me it is like venison, that needs more to enhance the dish, like wine, garlic and herbs. Minced kangaroo, well my dogs don’t reject it.
What everyone seems to have missed is that O’Hare and the Department of Aviation have accepted as ‘settled science’ the fact that CO2 is bad to the extent that they will spend money employing a “head of sustainability at the Department of Aviation” and justify using goats by quoting the CO2 emissions of a lawnmower. These are the people that will be difficult to convince that AGW is a hoax. They did a degree in ‘Sustainable Development’ and now have a job based on their ability on carbon equivalences. Telling them that they have been used will not be easy some of these people have formed departmental empires based on working to carbon dioxide reductions.
I also note that the author quotes the ’emissions’ from a 747 as a balance to the lawnmower and methane from the goats. This neatly falls into the trap of accepting the fallacy that Anthropogenic Global Warming exists and is caused by CO2 emissions.
Another fallacy of the AGW proponents that the author provides support for is that of polluting aircraft. I would point out that the venerable 747 fuel burn is around 56 miles per gallon per paying passenger seat as good as many get from a Toyota Prius and that a modern 737 gets around 120 miles per gallon per paying passenger seat. The newer Airbus and Boeing aircraft are 20-25% better than that again.
Arguing about emissions strengthens the AGW case. They should just be told to show the empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 causes heat to be retained on the planet. No such evidence has been found despite huge resources for satellite and surface monitoring.
Nevertheless, using goats and sheep is an excellent idea and is not a new idea. If the airport did this right the shepherds would be paying to have grazing land for their flocks. There could be an O’Hare goat’s cheese factory which could sell to the restaurants and passengers. There is no need for all the juju for the local AGW believers.
@Nicholas James
I am not sure of the terminology to be honest. I think I am either feral or exotic. I am a European breed introduced to Australia from Africa.
Whatever the story I am definitely not a friendly towards the current native government although I note that that is also headed by an exotic/feral which could also be classified as pest/vermin.
I haven’t noticed global Methane content in the atmosphere increasing? Surely this needs to be shown first?
Another interesting observation – domesticated animals good. Feral animals bad.
Ya think PETA might have a problem with that?
“So goats are both grazed and shot to reduce those evil carbon dioxide emissions. It’s all part of this mad, mad, mad world of Climatism.”
Climatism is just a theological system that allows to run any number of scams. Each scam operates in the same basic fashion:
a) Pick an activity
b) show how that activity reduces some kind of emission
c) ignore the emissions the activity itself causes
Now you have “shown” that you help save the planet. (You often need the help of government “scientists” for this who must first “analyze” your scam and rubberstamp it by publishing a “study”.)
d) Profit!
As government “scientists” are eager to publish a lot of “studies” so they can rise to the rank of a globalist communitarian like Hansen or Schellnhuber, you don’t even have to bribe them. The funding for the “studies” is extorted from the taxpayer for you by the (super)state.
Eugene WR Gallun says:
May 10, 2013 at 1:22 am
“No upkeep costs. If too many goats get born — shoot them.
I don’t worry too much about PETA — but, this being Chicago ….”
Shooting goats won’t work in Chicago. Chicago has the strictest gun laws in the Country so it is almost impossible to shoot anything or anyone there.
“The reduction of methane emissions through the management, in a humane manner, of feral goats, feral deer, feral pigs, or feral camels.”
,
You’ll note that most of these animals are kind of ugly. Only ugly animals can be culled. I guess cutesy ones do not emit methane apparently. Environmentalists would never endorse a seal cull for example, way too cutesy. And trading seal carcasses for carbon credits would never get off the ground.
But hey, camels are soo ugly, trading their ugly carcasses for credits is encouraged.
What has happened to modern environmentalism?
Quietly fishing on the canal side one day,the bucolic atmos was interrupted by what sounded like a riot in a tuba testing facility. Just three goats, apparently in training for the farting olymics.What an incredible noise! Much funnier than a lawnmower.
The emissivity of a goats nether end is something to behold.
Goat curry is a winner imho.