Why not just kill all the cows?

[OlderAndWiser]

For years, we have been hearing sporadic reports of cow flatulence (farts) contributing to the greenhouse gas effect. At first, I just laughed because I am a natural skeptic, or because I have a sense of humor, or both. Now, apparently, the problem is even worse than previously projected.

https://www.popsci.com/cow-farts-are-an-even-bigger-problem-than-we-thought

As the cartoon suggests, many believe that cows are contributing more to global warming than the CO2 emissions from all automobiles worldwide.

It seems that this is a problem with which we could deal quite decisively and effectively. So why hasn't anyone from GreenPeace, Save The Whale, Audobon Society, Mother Earth, Inc. advocated killing all the cows? Could it be that the reason is that there are more cows registered as Democrats than as Republicans? Or can the environmental crowd not accept the planned extinction of a species to save the planet?

In any event. . . we could have a really outstanding barbecue!

Updates

+1 y

Most of you are missing the point. This was posted as a joke - tongue in cheek humor - and I thought that was obvious since I made a reference to more cows being registered as Democrats than as Republicans. A few of you understood!

[MarkRet]

The more of ANYTHING you have on this planet, the more of an impact it has. The human race just keeps growing bigger, so along with it, more consumption. More trees get chopped down and burned (CO-2), more cows for milk and meat (humans eat way too much meat anyway), more toxic chemicals get poured into rivers, etc. There are probably too many cows on this planet anyway, because we have to breed them for meat. If humans were more vegetarian, we wouldn't need NEAR as many cows.

[BronzedAdonis]

Bad mooooove

[PunkinPie]

I thought it wasn't farts as much as the excrement? Anyway, it's another example of "save the planet, kill yourself." No clear answer.

[OlderAndWiser]

Apparently, it's both!

[PunkinPie]

The answer to "why not just kill the cows" is "the massive buffalo herds will return."

[markscott]

The answer is neither farts or excrement, but to reduce the amount of energy required to produce the grain, and reduce the amount of methane gas and excrement, by having a more plant based diet. Humans directly eating a more plant based diet is the most energy efficient, and produces less methane and less pollution.

[PunkinPie]

@markscott The cows eat grass and grain, and their excrement and farts cause a large percentage of the methane, so I don't think a plant-based diet would help.

[markscott]

You are missing the point. People eat cows for food because they need energy for their bodies. Meat production It is very energy concentrated process, along with causing a lot of pollution. That is, it a cow has to eat a whole lot of grain to make a pound of beef. If we directly ate the grain, instead of it going through the cow, we would get the same benefit as if we ate the meat, but would need to eat a lot less grain than the cow did, to get us the same amount of food energy. That saves a lot of food and a lot of processing. It also saves a lot of energy consumption and creates much less pollution.

[PunkinPie]

@markscott No, I didn't miss the point. As I said in an earlier comment, if you reduce the number of cows, that grazing land would be used by something else. The United States was covered with giant buffalo herds when the settlers first moved West so I was joking the buffalo would come back. Nature would fill the vacuum regardless.

[markscott]

Sorry, but you very much missed the point, as it's very evident by your comments. There is saving the planet and saving mankind. It's not one or the other, or both lost. And reducing meat consumption is one of the most effective ways of doing it.

[OlderAndWiser]

@markscott No, it was my post, I made the point, and you missed it. End of story. This was intended to promote some light-hearted banter and you missed even though I made a comment about more cows being registered Democrats than Republicans. Admit it, you had such a radar lock on making your save-the-planet comments that you couldn't see humor that was palpable. I didn't miss anything.

[PunkinPie]

Yeah I was kidding about the planet or the people. Haven't you seen the bumper sticker "Save the Planet. Kill Yourself."?

[OlderAndWiser]

That is exactly the kind of humor I was looking for!

[CubsterShura]

Exclude/reverse all damage done by humans and let there be more trees on earth. Then cow farts would never be a problem.

[nbbn5]

👍👍👍

[CubsterShura]

I don't understand American political jokes.

[OlderAndWiser]

Humor is the most difficult thing to learn about a language.

[CubsterShura]

It's not really the language it's just that I really don't know how American politics works.

[OlderAndWiser]

Sometimes humor is based on a play on the meaning of a word. Sometimes, humor is culturally bound.

[CubsterShura]

True.

[Goodwifie]

I think my dog is a big contributor in regards to greenhouse gas emissions.😳🐩💨

[PunkinPie]

Mine is too! ROFL

[lord_chilled]

Because of milk, milk products and beef man. Too big of an industry. Personally, i wouldn't want all that to go either.
But of it had to come down to it, maybe killing them all would be a solution. I think it would be affordable to keep them all in enclosed spaces and get rid of all the gas and sh*t tough. Or convert it into something less polluting..

[Alessus]

I mean there wouldn't be the problem of starving Africans if we killed them all either, but somehow people seem averse to the whole "kill them all" option these days whether it refers to humans or something else.

[Soteris]

You say it like we aren't trying to solve that problem in the first place. Problem is its even harder to convince people to be vegan than to convince people to buy objectively better cars.

Your solution means nothing if people won't do it.

[Soteris]

Believe it or not but this is far less stupid than some serious questions I have seen from climate change deniers.

[BCRanger10]

Because we need to breed more cows so that I can have cheeseburgers and steaks.

[bobbywiz79]

Yep, kill all the cows... and dogs and cats and humans and all the other animals. The the CO2 emissions will drop drastically 😧

[OlderAndWiser]

Did you read the update?

[bobbywiz79]

Nope

[bobbywiz79]

Although, my reply was sarcastic and tongue in cheek as well.

[OlderAndWiser]

Digital communications suck for conveying nuance.

[bobbywiz79]

I agree

[markscott]

It's not just the farts, but the huge amount of energy, food and pollution, that it takes to put the pounds on the cattle. It's an extremely inefficient and pollution intensive way to obtain food.

[Sucram]

I first heard that about sheep's in Australia. It's not just cows, it's cattle all together. We'd need to completely stop eating meat then. And no use of dairy products. All in all what's required for this to work is that we all go vegan, otherwise it won't work. And to live vegan isn't great for several reasons either.

[newgeek]

In my religion (hindu), strongly religious people would prefer to kill you rather than cows and there are around 1 billion hindus , so that will never happen. cow is sacred here.
Killing is not solution , we should decrease deforestation and don't use vehicle unnecessary.
(Dairy products are so good)

[Juxtapose]

Nobody cares about your religion.

[newgeek]

1 billion does care about their religion 😂😂😂

[newgeek]

If I never seen magic like things that don't have any scientific proof or logic I would be atheists too but I have seen things , so i don't know if god exist or not but there is something that is heigher than us or we can't understand that.

There are lot of great peoples who believes in god.

People usually reject things that they can't understand.

I am not strongly religious but I do believe in someone heigher than us.

[Juxtapose]

"If I never seen magic like things that don't have any scientific proof or logic I would be atheists too but I have seen things"

So you think your faulty human perception is more reliable than the scientific method? Laughable.

"There are lot of great peoples who believes in god."

I know lots of kind yet stupid people as well.

"People usually reject things that they can't understand.

I am not strongly religious but I do believe in someone heigher than us."

I'm not asking for much man, I'm just asking for your beliefs to pass through the scientific method before I consider them anything but made up bullsh**.

I know I sound like an @$$hole (I am) but I gotta be to get my point across. People need to realize how absolutely absurd religion is.

[newgeek]

I get fever but medicine doesn't work then my grandmother did something traditional thing then I get well within few hours.

[newgeek]

Man's stupidity is not related to being atheist or not.
Atheist people could be nicer than religious people.

[Juxtapose]

You're trolling me.. right?

[newgeek]

If you think magic like thing doesn't happen then it's not your fault , you never seen it. only thing that you have seen is magic tricks.

[newgeek]

No man , i am not trolling.

[newgeek]

We can go with tony stark as he said "magic is high level science that we don't understand it yet".

[Juxtapose]

You do realize that having a fever go away is not proof of jacksh** right?

Were you not taught about the scientific method in your schools or what?

[newgeek]

Aww i am telling you , you can reject these kind of things because you never seen it personally.

[Juxtapose]

What makes you think I'd trust my own perception more than science? You do realize we can hallucinate or otherwise misinterpret reality, right?

[newgeek]

Just check uttrakhand in india , its also called devbhumi (lands of god).
Its my hometown.
I know you might be thinking I am fool but even spirits comes back and take over human body until they don't get what they need.
I myself don't like these kind of things like they are dead why would they need anything , its stupidity but I can't reject existence of these things even if I want to.

[newgeek]

Right now there is a problem in our family because my great grandfather did suicide because of some guilt and now he is coming back so that we can cover his mistake.
Sounds stupidity but I can't reject it

[newgeek]

World is too big bro... We can't say anything by just our life experience

[Juxtapose]

Anecdotal "evidence" means nothing.

[newgeek]

Becoming a religious is not necessary.
Just be a nice person and do your work.✌

[Chiral]

I don't understand why warming of the planet isn't a good thing anyway.

[newgeek]

Warming planet->melting glacier->increase ocean water->destruction of those places which are close to ocean->increase flood frequency

[Chiral]

Yes I'm aware of that but also warming planet-> warming vast stretches of currently frozen lifeless ice desserts->habitable land and more co2 in atmosphere - > more vegetation growth on that habitable land.

Earth currently in an ice age cycle because of distribution of land masses weighted over poles. Equatorial region is largely ocean. Distribution as it is tips cost benefit analysis in favour of warming as I see it.

[Chiral]

Even if it was net negative for human society, it's unequivocally positive for ecosystem as a whole. Warming from current frozen conditions back towards conditions at time of dinosaurs would result in greater abundance of life.

[Juxtapose]

Meh, I want my burgers. And in terms of global warming, we're fu**ed beyond all measure already. At least I won't live to see the worst of it.

[readywriter]

We could also outlaw chili and bean salads.

[OlderAndWiser]

I think you understand!

[LegateLanius]

Cows provide dairy products, beef and are sacred to Hindu.

[Atreyu]

Lmao and what a barbeque

[OlderAndWiser]

I'm glad that someone recognized this as a joke!

[Atreyu]

Haha yeah internet is bad for clear communication. Whoda thought

[OlderAndWiser]

Exactly. This is precisely why you shouldn't try to conduct a serious relationship by texting (which I'm sure you already understand.)

[Atreyu]

Debating politics always goes so well here too lol

[OlderAndWiser]

Swimmingly!

[FatherJack]

I think all the BS uttered by politicians worldwide contributes to far more greenhouse emissions !!

[Unit1]

Hahahaha ohhh
https://i.imgur.com/b3AHAAg.gif

[Whatthefluff]

We like hamburgers

[Listening5]

Lol poor cows

[dogfish]

cause cows got milk <3

[OlderAndWiser]

So did my mama!

[lilmissumshine]

So sad I love cows

[OlderAndWiser]

You know that it is not a serious suggestion!

[lilmissumshine]

😂😂😂😂😂