Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here,
Speaker 1: agriculture is responsible for an estimated seventeen percent of the
Speaker 1: world's greenhouse gas emissions, and within the category of agriculture,
Speaker 1: cattle produced the most greenhouse gases, and it's because of burbs.
Speaker 1: Cattle emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with
Speaker 1: a lesser amount through flatulence. Statistics vary regarding exactly how
Speaker 1: much on average, as some experts say it's some one
Speaker 1: hundred to two hundred liters per day, while others say
Speaker 1: it's up to five hundred. In any case, that is
Speaker 1: a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution
Speaker 1: produced by a car in a day. On a global scale,
Speaker 1: these methane emissions are about as much of a problem
Speaker 1: as emissions from the oil and gas industry at large,
Speaker 1: and the problem is expected to increase. A demand for
Speaker 1: meat and milk is growing as the human population grows
Speaker 1: and as more populations around the world are becoming able
Speaker 1: to afford it. Methane is relatively short lived in our atmosphere.
Speaker 1: It only sticks around for about twelve years, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the hundreds or thousands that carbon dioxide can last,
Speaker 1: but methane's effects are much more powerful. Its contribution to
Speaker 1: global warming is about twenty eight times out of carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide while it lasts. This is part of why some
Speaker 1: climate activists and scientists are urging people who have a
Speaker 1: choice in their diet to choose less beef so that
Speaker 1: the world will keep fewer cattle and decrease those emissions.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's talk about why cattle produces so much methane. Cows, goats, sheep,
Speaker 1: and several other animals belong to a class of creatures
Speaker 1: called ruminants. Ruminants have four stomachs, and they digest their
Speaker 1: food in those stomachs instead of intestines as humans do.
Speaker 1: A ruminants eat food, regurgitate it as cud, and then
Speaker 1: chew and swallow it again. The stomachs are filled with
Speaker 1: bacteria and other microbes that aid in digestion, but those
Speaker 1: microbes also produce methane. The same process happens in humans too,
Speaker 1: albeit on a smaller scale. When we fart, we are
Speaker 1: in fact passing our microbes farts out. Life is wondrous,
Speaker 1: But okay, this became a problem with the development of
Speaker 1: large scale agriculture. In the mid twentieth century, when farming
Speaker 1: became a big business for some companies, farms became consolidated
Speaker 1: into large enterprises with many thousands of animals across large acreage.
Speaker 1: Before then, grazing areas were filled with a variety of
Speaker 1: grasses and flowers that grew naturally, offering a diverse diet
Speaker 1: for cows and other ruminants. However, in order to improve
Speaker 1: the efficiency of feeding livestock, many of these pastures became
Speaker 1: re seeded with perennial rye grass with the aid of
Speaker 1: art fertilizers. Perennial rye grass grows quickly and in huge quantities.
Speaker 1: The downside is that it lacks the nutritious content of
Speaker 1: other grasses and prevents more nutritious plants from growing. It's
Speaker 1: been called the fast food of grass. This simple diet
Speaker 1: allows many cows to be fed, but it inhibits digestion.
Speaker 1: This is where the methane comes in. The difficult to
Speaker 1: digest grass ferments in the cow's stomachs, where it interacts
Speaker 1: with microbes and produces gas. Research into how to improve
Speaker 1: the situation has been going on for at least twenty years.
Speaker 1: There are lots of ideas out there, such as breeding
Speaker 1: and feeding beef cattles that they produce more meat, thus
Speaker 1: reducing the number of cattle needed to meat meat demand.
Speaker 1: This thing goes for improving milk production in dairy cows.
Speaker 1: There are also efforts to alter cattle's diet so that
Speaker 1: they produce less gas in the first place. For example,
Speaker 1: a team of resecar in Germany created a pill to
Speaker 1: trap gas and a cow's rumen its first stomach and
Speaker 1: convert the methane into glucose. However, the pill requires a
Speaker 1: strict diet and structured feeding times, which don't lend themselves
Speaker 1: well to grazing. Other experiments have tried supplements like garlic
Speaker 1: or garlic extracts, the idea being that garlic contains compounds
Speaker 1: that can kill off some of the microbes that produce methane.
Speaker 1: It works, though with variable amounts of success, and don't worry,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make their milk taste like garlic. A Seaweed
Speaker 1: is also under investigation as a dietary supplement. A one
Speaker 1: study out of UC Davis found that replacing just one
Speaker 1: percent of cattle's normal diet with seaweed led to a
Speaker 1: sixty percent decrease in methane production. Of course, growing enough
Speaker 1: seaweed and getting cattle to eat it may prove difficult.
Speaker 1: Many researchers are investigating ways to alter what livestock eat
Speaker 1: and to mix the best of old cow pastures, diverse,
Speaker 1: naturally growing and nutrient rich grasses, and other plants with
Speaker 1: the best of the new, fast growing and resistant to
Speaker 1: invasive species. One possibility is to increase the ability of beneficial,
Speaker 1: nutrient rich plants and flowers to grow alongside the fast
Speaker 1: growing grasses commonly used in pastures. Another branch of research
Speaker 1: focuses on plants that are high in tannins, which are
Speaker 1: believed to lower methane levels in ruminants and boost milk production,
Speaker 1: though excessively high levels are harmful to the animal's growth.
Speaker 1: Yet another possibility exists in trapping the methane gas and
Speaker 1: using it as energy or selling it back to the
Speaker 1: electrical grid. Some farmers already extract methane from livestock waste,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't solve the bigger problem of belched methane.
Speaker 1: Harnessing that methane would mean trapping it in the air,
Speaker 1: which again isn't really conducive to letting cattle do what
Speaker 1: they do best, which is wander and grays. It's a
Speaker 1: difficult problem, but people all over the planet are working
Speaker 1: to better understand cattle's digestive systems and make them better
Speaker 1: for the planet. Who knew cowbirds could cause so much excitement.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article do cow's pollute
Speaker 1: as much as cars? On HowStuffWorks dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Jacob Silverman. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.