Scientists seek new way to stop cow farts before they destroy us all

Cow farts are the silent killer. Except for the really loud ones.

Those are both noisy and dangerous.

Indeed the gaseous emissions of the world’s cows and other domestically kept grass-eaters are beyond copious and constitute a real menace to life as we know it.

According to Munchies:

The methane expelled by cattle is 21 times more harmful to the atmosphere than CO2, and every day a single cow relieves itself of some 500 liters (or 132 gallons) of explosive, climate-changing gas. All in all, cows and their ruminant cohorts (goats, sheep, and oxen) pump a staggering 80 million metric tons of gas into our fragile atmosphere.

If you’ve never thought of innocent little poots as chemical weapons of mass destruction, take a moment to reflect on your ignorance.

It’s not the animals’ fault, of course, but that of the humans who raise them for meat and stuff them with whatever food and chemicals they think will result in bigger, fattier burgers. You’d be playing the butt trumpet too.

Furthermore, as ruminants with multi-chambered stomachs used to break down plant matter, there’s a lot of fermentation and bacterial activity going on in a cow’s gut, which, in turn, means a lot of gas. Now, scientists in Denmark are proposing the use of oregano – known to reduce gas in humans by reducing levels of certain fart-furthering stomach bacteria  – to help deal with the problem of cow farts destroying the planet.

It’s an interesting approach, though perhaps a limited one –  the researchers have acknowledged that since those bacteria play a vital role in the cows digestion so you can’t simply eliminate them all or you will eliminate the cow. A long-term study has been planned to gauge the effectiveness of the method that will run until 2019. Until then, the least we can do is all do our parts and hold that next one in.

[Munchies.Vice]