WASHINGTON — The real culprits behind global warming apparently
aren’t the herds of SUVs stampeding along America’s highways — but
190-million cows contentedly chewing their cuds — and emitting
clouds of foul-smelling methane from their mouths and
tailpipes.
No bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have been
brave enough to go into the field to make precise measurements, but
it’s been calculated by some experts as roughly 350-megatons each
year. (A megaton equals a million tons.) And that doesn’t count the
flatulent contributions of America’s 7.5-billion chickens,
292-million turkeys and 92-million hogs — not to mention millions
of dogs, cats, birds and hamsters.
While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ignores this
growing threat, our Canadian friends north-of-the-border are
determined to bring it to heel. The federal government in Ottawa is
channeling some $50,000 to scientists at the University of Manitoba
to determine just how much rancid-smelling methane gas Canadian
cattle produce — and how much of it comes from their diet and how
much of it comes from their indolent lifestyle.
These are important questions, because Canada late last year
signed the Kyoto treaty on global warming — thereby committing its
32 million citizens — and 15 million cattle — to reducing their
greenhouse gas output by some 25 percent.
WHILE MOST ENVIRONMENTALISTS believe man-made carbon dioxide is the
chief contributor to global warming, experts at Environment Canada
believe methane, which is capable of trapping approximately 24
times more heat than carbon dioxide, may be a major player as well.
In fact, they believe it could cause up to 20 percent of all global
warming over the next 50 years. And no, they are not suffering from
Mad Cow disease. Other scientists around the world are taking the
problem of belches and other barnyard breaches of etiquette
seriously as well. One group is even working on methane vaccines
that would lower the amount of gas produced in animals.
Other remedies under consideration include developing a bovine
equivalent of Beano — the over-the-counter flatulence reducer —
and engineering a pollution control device that would fit snugly
around a cow’s posterior and trap methane before it wafts into the
atmosphere — seriously.
The possibility that the latter solution could spur the building
of methane recycling stations in depressed rural areas reportedly
has excited government economists in several nations. New Zealand
officials, indeed, have gone a step further, proposing a
“flatulence tax” on their country’s ubiquitous sheep population.
Needless to say, that has drawn strong protests from irate sheep
ranchers.
Despite all these efforts, the problem may prove to be
insurmountable. As Paul Schneidereit, a columnist for the
Halifax Herald, recently pointed out, even if Canada could
lower methane emissions from its cattle it would be pretty much
like “burping in the wind.” Schneidereit notes that there are only
15 million cattle in all of Canada compared to 1.5 billion
worldwide. A third of them are in Asia, where some three billion
people — roughly half the Earth’s population — are not bound by
Kyoto’s provisions.
“Thus,” Schneidereit writes, “just as industries in China and
India can continue belching all kinds of greenhouse pollutants into
the air without triggering Kyoto consequences, their cattle can
likewise keep belching away, undaunted.”
YET EVEN IF THE CANADIANS are able to prod their cattle into
digestive submission, it may not be enough. Reporters from the
Toronto Star recently unveiled a suppressed government audit
showing that Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose to 729 million
tons in 2002 — their highest ever. The same audit showed the
government’s $500 million, five-year action plan, which was
supposed to reduce emission by 50-60 million tons annually, will be
lucky to accomplish even half of that.
The European Union, which Schneidereit calls “the world’s
self-appointed nag,” is having problems of it own. While quick to
criticize the U.S. for rejecting the Kyoto treaty, EU nations are
on course to achieve just a 0.5 percent decrease in greenhouse
emissions by 2008 — not even close to their Kyoto requirement of 8
percent.
Americans are fortunate that a Democratic-controlled Senate in
1997 recognized that the science behind the global warming theory
was dubious at best and fraudulent at worst. It voted 95-0 to urge
then-President Clinton not to seek ratification of the treaty for
fear its mandates would plunge the nation into a prolonged
recession. Clinton sagely accepted their advice and counsel — and
President Bush followed suit two years ago by accepting the
Senate’s initial judgment and formally rejecting the Kyoto
treaty.
If those actions hadn’t occurred, our EPA, like Environmental
Canada, might now be spending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars to
find ways to prevent cows from doing what comes
naturally…
