Green Cows: Flatulence Inoculation Developed

While most of us are focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the fact is that methane emissions are more than twenty times more harmful in climate change. Methane emissions come from multiple sources, such as landfills and livestock. Livestock, such as cattle, sheep, and goats, emit methane through belching and flatulence. Depending upon the size of the agricultural sector of a country's economy, the amount of methane emissions varies.

In New Zealand, sheep and cattle are responsible for about 90% of the methane and methane accounts for more than half the country's total greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand farmers already successfully fought a flatulence tax on their livestock. So it should come as no surprise that researchers in New Zealand claim to have developed a "flatulence inoculation" for sheep and cattle. The inoculation could help the country reduce its emissions.

It is estimated that livestock account for approximately 25% of methane emissions in Britain, 2% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and about 15% of worldwide emissions of methane.

Read the full story in The Telegraph.

Corrected June 17, 2008.