Monday 7 March 2011

Bad Gases

So that's what we get with cows and their poohs. They are so polluting that New Zeland won't be able to catch up with the Kioto Protocal because of its livestock. The question is: why such poohs are so polluting? Among other things, they are because they release a greenhouse gas called methane. The point is that this is not new. It is known that some "special rucksacks" are carried by sheep. Such rucksacks inject a substance into the blood which neutralizes the methane, a gas which is twenty-two times more powerful than CO2 with respect to the capacity of warming the planet.

So far everything seems to be bad but as many things in life there are heads and tails. The good thing of the methane is that if well managed we could be able of making a car work. Let me explain it. If we could manage to collect all the gasses of ten cows during a year, we could make a car work for 9,000 kms, maybe you laugh at what I'm saying but it is bussines, really business. If we take into account that a typical gasoline car goes over 10,000 - 12,000 kms, the propose is really interesting which also would allow us to get rid of such a gas and to cut down CO2 emissions by 50%.

Last but not least, this is one of the arguments that people like the writer of this post have used to justify their rejection to eat meat.Here I leave you an interesting reading: Livestock's Long Shadow.