The liberals who’ve been trying to legislate the weather lately now say that we are facing a “national climate emergency” and to hear them rant and rave it’s all the cow’s fault. Universities and greenie groups are insisting that we need net-zero cows so we won’t face “the sixth mass extinction”. These net-zero cows will be “more climate friendly” because they’ll contribute zero methane, but one wonders, what would a net-zero cow look like?
Believe it or not there are efforts afoot to come up with an EPD that ranchers can use to breed less gaseous cows. It’s been predicted that such an EPD might be five years away but it could be accelerated if a corporation like McDonalds suddenly wants beef from climate friendly cattle. Then the Big Four packers will supposedly pay a premium to ranchers who produce net-zero cattle. So instead of breeding for cattle that taste good, grow fast and efficiently, and calve easily we will all be breeding for cattle that burp less.
These new net-zero cows will probably weight 600 pounds because smaller cattle produce less methane. According to scientists net-zero cows will wear an on-board digester gas mask on their face. But if the gas mask covers the cow’s entire face how will they eat? Without any feed the cows will die making them net-zero because dead cows don’t burp all that much. This would really please the greenies who dream of ridding the world of cows.
Although this is counterintuitive, we’re told that cattle on grass actually produce 20% more methane than cattle in a feedlot. Grasses supposedly produce more methane than corn. So we can’t just spray the feed in a feedlot bunk with bicarbonate of soda because we have not addressed what we’re going to do about the grazing of cows. I checked on-line and Gas Ex Maximum is $17.99 per bottle and Beano Ultra 800 is $20.79 so we’d need one endless line of tanker trucks full of products like Pepto Bismol, Extra Strength Mylanta or Imodium to spray all the grasslands in America. I suppose you could distribute it in a block form but it’s hard enough to get cows to lick their mineral block so I don’t think they’ll be lining up to dine on the Kaopectate Extra Strength Gas Relief block.
Speaking of things cows wont eat, seaweed isn’t exactly the cow’s version of filet mignon and yet it has also been put forth as another answer to gaseous cows. Because I live by the ocean I gathered up a bunch of prime fresh seaweed and dumped in front of 100 nearly starving cows. Not only would they not eat the wet seaweed they peed and pooped on it to show their disdain. They wouldn’t touch the dried seaweed either. And not many cows are raised right on the ocean so there’ would be the additional cost of transporting the stuff. I guess you could make the seaweed in bolus or pill form but who wants to gather their cows everyday to come up with a solution in search of a problem?
Another way a rancher might produce net-zero cows is by leasing out his or her land for solar arrays and windmills and acquiring carbon credits in that manner. Their remaining cows will produce just as much methane as always but the rancher will be able to make his cattle net-zero with the greenie’s stamp of approval.
Of course wealthy ranchers will do what big corporations do when faced with the questionable climate change crises: they’ll just buy carbon credits on carbon trading platforms to make Wall Street con artists and former Vice President Al Gore even richer.
Personally, I think the idea that our cows can cause the climate to change half way around the world is the biggest con game since The Sting. If you don’t think so consider this: I looked at several sources and their guess as to how much the methane produced by cows contributed to global warming. The answers varied from three percent to thirty percent! So it’s not exactly settled science and breeding for net-zero cows with the use of an EPD for methane production is the dumbest idea I’ve heard of since the motorized ice cream cone.
It’s like treating a cold with chemo.
