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Sheep Burping Research
Headed in Baaaad Direction?
While I don't closely follow the research being conducted on livestock flatulence, I have heard that it -- or more specifically, the methane emitted by farting cows -- is a significant contributor to global warming.
Whether it is or isn't, is anyone's guess. For the sake of this discussion, we will consider it a legitimate problem.
Now the little amount of information I have absorbed about this topic made me believe that cow farts were a major conspirator in this crime against the climate.
But apparently gassy Guernsey's are not the leading contributors of livestock methane in the atmosphere.
It's actually venting from the other end that is the problem. Yes, I'm talking bovine belches.
According to an article in last Thursday's Wall Street Journal, intensive research on livestock emissions is being conducted in New Zealand. They have what is described as the world's foremost research facility on the study of livestock farts and burps.
They're doing this for a couple reasons.
First of all, they're concerned that due to the increased awareness of global warming, international rules could be created which require countries to control the emissions of their livestock.
And secondly, New Zealand has a heckuva lot of livestock.
They have millions of cows and goats, but the focus of their emissions research is on sheep, and for good reason. The country has an estimated 35 million of them. That's 10 for every person living in New Zealand. I can only imagine what would happen to the polar ice caps, if all those sheep farted at the exact same time. I wonder if Al Gore has looked into this situation?
Well, even if he hasn't, a number of scientists down in New Zealand are busy studying the issue -- the over-all problem of livestock methane emissions that is, NOT what would happen if all their sheep farted simultaneously.
And in all honesty, the study of Unison Flock Flatulating is really more of a fringe science in the world of livestock digestive research. The odds of a U.F.F. event sizable enough to cause immediate and catastrophic climatic change are pretty slim.
While U.F.Fs may not be considered a threat, the over-all amount of gas being vented by livestock is being taken quite serious in New Zealand.
Using special "respiration chambers" their scientists have been able to measure the amounts of methane the sheep are emitting. They've found that while livestock -- this includes sheep and cows -- produce some methane when farting, significantly more is released by way of belching.
Humans also emit methane, but reputedly in much lower quantities. I say reputedly since I personally have yet to see if there is any current research on this subject.
Maybe all of the exploration that has been conducted on human methane emissions was actually done in the 1950s, years before the proliferation of buffalo wings and Bud Light. You can't tell me, that combination doesn't produce some serious amounts of methane.
But I digress.
While studying the burping sheep, the scientists in New Zealand have been attempting to lessen the amount of methane the livestock emit by varying the diet of the test animals. So far this has not yielded any worthwhile results.
I personally think this sheep burping research is headed in a baaaad direction. Rather than trying to minimize the burping, perhaps we should be encouraging the livestock to belch even more.
What if rather than trying to control the emissions, we worked at creating a way to harness the raw power of all this livestock gas using some kind of device that could capture and contain that precious methane? It could then be collected and used for the good of mankind.
Imagine if we all had a few sheep in our backyards, each of them hooked up to one of these emissions collections devices -- we'll call them a bleat-exchanger. Whenever, you needed to go somewhere in your methane-powered car, you would just go out to your personal flock, and fill 'er up.
And as a bonus, if some unexpected guests showed up for dinner, you had rack of lamb ready and waiting on the hoof.
Now, that's an alternative energy source I can believe in.
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