Cow farts are an even bigger problem than we thought

Climate change just isn’t that funny. Cow belches, conversely, are hilarious. It’s the rare issue that’s seriously impactful and giggle-inducing—bovine flatulence is a precious, smelly diamond in the climate change rough. And it turns out to be an even bigger problem than we thought.



A new estimate of the global methane emissions from cow mouths and butts is 11 percent higher than previous stats suggested. The study was funded by NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System program, and published in the journal Carbon Balance and Management. Fortunately, it seems that the U.S. estimates are still on track. It was mainly the global numbers that varied.

That may seem like a tiny amount to be off by, but the dose makes the poison—and boy is there a lot of poison billowing into our atmosphere. This updated estimate says that livestock pushed about 119.1 million tons of methane into the air in 2011 alone. Carbon dioxide emissions are far greater in terms of volume, but because methane captures more of the sun’s energy, it’s actually a more potent greenhouse gas. And underestimating emissions means we also underestimate how much we need to do to combat climate change.

READ MORE AT: https://www.popsci.com/cow-farts-are-an-even-bigger-problem-than-we-thought#page-2

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