Cow burps again

WHERE are the old threads about cow burps/farts?  I've done several searches, even manual ones and can't find them anywhere.  They shouldn't have been lost in the hacking because they weren't recent topics.  There's several references to the posts, but can't find the original ones. They were classics.  Was going to add this to them.

Belching cows under scrutiny
21 October 2006
By BECK ELEVEN



A North Canterbury dairy farm is under the watchful eye of scientists who are measuring methane gas from 700 cows burping.

The scientists, from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research (Niwa), Landcare Research and Agri-Food Canada are using a range of techniques to study the volume of harmful greenhouse gases emanating from the agricultural industry.

More than half of New Zealand's reported greenhouse gas emission is from the agriculture sector. Working on a farm in Medbury, the scientists will gauge the amount of methane from a herd of 700 belching cows along with nitrous oxide produced by the breakdown of farm soil by bacteria and nitrogen which is excreted by grazing animals.

About 36 per cent of New Zealand's total greenhouse gas emissions are methane. About 18% of the country's greenhouse gases are nitrous oxide. Both gases are considerably more potent as greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide.

Niwa scientist Tony Bromley said the research, which will be published in about a year, will be significant for New Zealand and other agriculture-based countries.

"We're measuring a paddock before and after irrigation or rainfall occurs, and before and after a herd of cows go through the paddock. They do their business everywhere and that will have an effect on the amount of nitrous oxide released."

Bromley said, contrary to popular belief, methane came from the mouths of grazing animals, not the other end.

Using equipment such as a tuneable diode laser, a gas chromatograph, an Oofti, poles and cake tin-like objects, the rate of build-up and total volumes of gases will be measured.

The group of scientists will be working until the end of the month. Bromley said countries needed to measure greenhouse gases so they can report on their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Would this be the thread?

http://movetonz.org/discussion/YaBB.pl?num=1122474108

Yes, but I think there was another one as well. This one is from General but the other one is referred to in my post on that thread and mentions the Coffee House. ?I tried searching for burps, farts, cows, methane....you name it I tried it but it didn't pull up either of the threads I was looking for. ?

How did you manage to track it down? ?I particularly needed it because, whilst editing an older post, there was a link back to this thread. ?As the link referred back to the old forum, it didn't work any more and I needed the new forum's link to replace it with. ? ::) ?And the ages I took sifting through all the threads manually.

Thanks, anyway. ?

Sell your cows, buy more cars!

Cows , not cars, top threat to environment, says UN report
Monday December 11, 2006

Cows have emerged as the world's top destroyer of the environment.

A United Nations report has identified the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are blamed for a host of other environmental crimes, from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs.

The report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock's Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world's 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.

Producing fertiliser to grow feed, to farm meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of ammonia emissions, one of the main causes of acid rain. Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.

Wastes from feedlots and fertilisers used to grow feed overnourish water, causing weeds to choke all other life. And the pesticides, antibiotics and hormones used to treat them get into drinking water. The report concludes that, unless drastic changes are made, the damage done by livestock will more than double by 2050, as demand for meat increases.

There are about 10 million cows in New Zealand and farmers here question the report's findings. "I suspect it is written by a vegan," Federated Farmers president Charlie Pedersen said. "We are not talking about cattle, we are talking about food. If you take that food off the market, you have to replace it with something else. You still have to eat. It's a very narrow way of looking at things."

Graham Fraser, chairman of Dairy 21 - a group reviewing dairy farming productivity within its environmental constraints - said he found the report's finding on cows "extraordinary". "The cow has been a tremendous servant to human kind for so long, converting grass into something we can eat."

- INDEPENDENT, additional reporting Jarrod Booker

Bovine pill to cut methane emissions
By KIM THOMAS - The Press | Saturday, 31 March 2007

Canterbury farmers are keen to milk a new German invention – a pill to limit bovine belching.

German scientists have invented a plant-based pill which curbs belching in cows, limiting the amount of methane they release into the environment.

The pill's inventors, from Germany's Hohenheim University, claim methane gas produced by cows is responsible for about 4 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

The fist-size pill, derived from a plant called bolus, combined with a special diet and strict feeding times is meant to reduce the methane produced by cows.

The invention was greeted with enthusiasm by Kiwi farmers. Dairy farmer and Federated farmers North Canterbury president Harry Schat said he would seriously consider using the pill if and when it arrived in New Zealand.

More here .