Dairy Farmers Switch Feed to Curb Burps

Methane production drops after farms adopt new feed

(NEWSER) - Cow belches have been called a bigger environmental threat than cars and trucks—and now dairy groups are taking steps to keep dangerous burps to a minimum, the New York Times reports. One Vermont farmer has seen his cows’ methane emissions drop 18% after boosting the alfalfa and flaxseed in their feed, while methane has plummeted some 30% in France, where industrial farms are using alternative feed. More»

Carnivores rejoice: a new pill makes beef more environment friendly

(NEWSER) - Who knew that bovine burping was a major source of methane gas and hence global warming? German scientists, that's who, and they've come up with a fist-sized pill to reduce it, along with the 4% of greenhouse gas emissions for which it is responsible. More»

Researchers now able to distinguish new, old sources of methane

(NEWSER) - There are huge quantities of methane locked in ice sheets around the world, threatening to speed up climate change as they get released in melting ice. But determining which methane is the ancient kind and which is much younger and hails from, say, plant life that has decayed in lakes hasn't been easy—until now. The BBC reports that researchers have been able to ID the former by logging the ratio of different isotopes of carbon found in the methane molecules. Scientists were then able to test some of the 150,000 sites in Alaska and Greenland where methane is seeping into the atmosphere, and found that some are indeed releasing ancient methane. More»

Carbon dioxide you know, but what about perfluorocarbons?

(NEWSER) - With things set to really heat up next week at the Copenhagen climate summit, the Guardian runs down greenhouse gases you oughta know:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2): Industrialization and deforestation have produced high levels of this gas, which helps trap heat inside Earth’s atmosphere.
• Methane (CH4): Thirty times more dangerous than CO2, it’s mainly a byproduct of agriculture—think burping cows. But much less methane than carbon dioxide is produced.

Methane from livestock may cause more emissions than automobiles

(NEWSER) - Big oil, coal-fired power plants, automakers and now sheep: As governments look to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, researchers are looking seriously at livestock, believed to contribute more than cars via the methane gas they belch during digestion, the Wall Street Journal reports. To that end, researchers in New Zealand are trying everything from altering diets to altering genetics to create less-gassy sheep. More»