Cow Fart Myths Pt 1
I’m Bob Larson. The livestock industry has taken a lot of heat in recent years as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions that contributes to climate change.
But, according to professor Frank Mitloehner, air quality specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences at UC-Davis, cow farts seem to get a lot of the attention, but there are a few myths in that regard he’d like to dispel …
MITLOEHNER … “I’m always amazed that, not just my 5- and 7-year old’s, are amused by cow farts, but the public in general is … laughs. So, I have to tell people to hold their horses because it really is the burps of these animals, the belching, that causes the methane.”
So, Mitloehner says those burps are the real culprit …
MITLOEHNER … “The so-called enteric fermentation gas, or the enteric fermentation process, and the second one is the manure of these animals that, when they decompose, produces methane as well.”
Mitloehner says the greenhouse gases produced by cows is the same produced by the burning of fossil fuels, yet very different …
MITLOEHNER … “The carbon in this biogenic carbon cycle of a cow is just that, a cycle. It is a recycled carbon. It’s not new additional carbon. But, every time you burn fossil fuel, you are sucking fossil carbon out of the ground, you’re burning it, you’re putting it into the atmosphere and that’s always new, additional carbon.”
Tune in tomorrow when Mitloehner debunks yet another myth about the impact of the livestock industry on climate change.
