Do Cow Farts Really Significantly Contribute to Global Warming?,There are currently approximately 1.3 to 1.5billion cows grazing, sleeping, and chewing,their cud at any given time on planet Earth.,And these 1,300 pound (average weight forboth a beef and dairy cow) animals eat a lot.,Much like humans, when they eat, gas buildsup inside of their guts and has to be expelled.,(See Why Beans Make You Fart) Cows fart andburp… a lot.,The result is a large amount of methane beingintroduced into the atmosphere.,In a 2006 United Nations’ Food and AgriculturalOrganization report, it claims that the livestock,sector, most of which are cows, “generatesmore greenhouse gas emissions as measured,in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – thantransport.”,According to a Danish study, the average cowproduces enough methane per year to do the,same greenhouse damage as four tons of carbondioxide.,So is this significantly contributing to globalwarming?,Let’s start with how and why cows produceso much methane gas.,Cows, sheep, goats, giraffes, and deer belongto a class of mammals called ruminants.,Most ruminants have four stomachs, two-toedfeet, and store their food in the first chamber,of the stomach, called the rumen, before regurgitatingit.,This regurgitated food is called “cud”and the animals chew it again to help further,break it down to make it easier to digest.,Inside of the rumen, over four hundred differentkinds of microbes exist that also play a critical,role in the digestion process.,Several of these microbes create methane gasas a byproduct.,Due to the sheer number of cows on the planet,along with the large size per cow, our tasty,friends produce more methane gas than allother ruminants combined.,Why could this potentially be bad?,Methane is twenty one times more potent attrapping heat from the Sun than carbon dioxide.,Though it is less prevalent in the atmospherethan carbon dioxide, it is, by unit, the most,destructive of the greenhouse gases.,Since the turn of the 19th century, methanegas emissions have increased by 150%, according,to NASA’s Goddard Institute.,Methane gas, like all other greenhouse gases(which includes water vapor), acts like a,blanket around our planet, trapping heat.,The right amount and the planet has an averagetemperature of a life-supporting 59 degrees,Fahrenheit.,Too little and the greenhouse effect becomesweak, like on Mars.,Too much and the surface of the planet becomesso hot “it can melt lead,” like on Venus.,Livestock is the largest source of methanegas emissions worldwide, contributing over,28 percent of total emissions.,Wetlands, leaks from oil refineries and drills,and landfills also contribute methane gas,to the atmosphere.,In fact, unlike the ratios on a global scale,in the United States livestock is only the,third largest contributor, behind the miningand transportation of natural gas and rotting,landfill waste.,In actuality it’s not as much the fartingthat’s the problem, cows’ burping and,manure contribute more methane gas than flatulence.,According to researchers at New Zealand’slargest Crown Research Institute, AGResearch,,up to 95 percent of the emissions comes fromthe cow’s mouth rather than its behind.,It’s estimated, through whichever orifice,that each individual cow lets out between,thirty and fifty gallons of methane per day.,With an estimated 1.3 to 1.5 billion cattlein the world today, this adds up fast.,Exactly how significant this it to our globalenvironment isn’t something that anyone,can easily put a number on, but the EPA, NASA,various global agriculture organizations,,and the United Nations all recognize thatthis is a real problem.,In recent years, several different solutionshave been proposed.,Scientists and experts have experimented withcows’ diets to see if that could help cut,down on the amount of methane gas.,For instance, Welsh scientists studied theeffects of putting garlic into cows’ feed.,According to BBC News, “Garlic directlyattacks the organisms in the gut that produce,methane.”,So far, results have been positive.,Researchers have also studied adding plantsthat are high in tannins to the diet, which,are believed to lower methane levels in ruminants.,Another branch of study focuses on not loweringthe amount of methane gas, but figuring out,a way to contain it and repurpose it.,Some farms have experimented with having theirlivestock live in a plastic bubble, which,takes the expelled gas and converts it intoelectricity.,But this process is both expensive, inefficient,and considered somewhat inhumane, forcing,animals to live inside an artificial bubble.,Methane gas emitted by cows and other livestockdoes have a significant impact on the amount,of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, whichare the main culprits behind climate change,and global warming.,While farts aren’t the only way cows areexpelling methane, it is, at least, accurate,to say that cow farts play a part in our planet’sclimate growing hotter.