Australia's $24 Million Plan to Stop Burping

Cows may moo, but more often, they burp. A lot. But it's not cows' uncouth behavior that bothers scientists and environmentalists. It's the fact that every time a cow belches, it releases a little burst of methane into the atmosphere. Methane is about 21 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, so all that burping contributes to global warming.

Which is where the Australian government and the continent's beef industry come in. The two entities paired up to fund a $24 million campaign to reduce ruminants' burping. As the New York Times recently reported, researchers are looking into all kinds of plans to combat cow belching, from feed additives to managing manure to recalibrating stomach organisms to selectively breeding animals that burp less. Scientists like Athol Klieve are even studying ways to transfer microbes found in kangaroos' stomachs into cows in order to reduce the ruminants' methane emissions. The initiatives mirror research going on throughout the globe to make cows less gassy.

While it may seem laughable that the world's top scientists spend much of their time researching cow burps, the problem's quite serious. According to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock create about 18 percent of the globe's greenhouse gas emissions.

And despite governments, beef industries, and scientists across the globe investing millions of dollars into cow burp research, I can't help but wonder if there's not a much easier — and cheaper — solution. Namely, for folks to eat less red meat.

As an omnivore myself, I can understand why people across the globe may have trouble swallowing the idea of eating less beef. But let's examine the facts: For one, livestock contribute a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions every year. With international climate pacts seeming less and less likely, it could be up to consumers to really stop global warming in its tracks. Plus, red meat isn't exactly the healthiest of dietary choices. Eating too much beef has been linked to colon cancer and heart disease. And finally, it's pretty hard to defend a meat choice with such big environmental and health risks when other options abound. Chicken, pork, and fish don't produce even close to the same level of greenhouse gases that red meat does (although to be fair, production of these animals can also pose environmental problems in some cases).

That's not to say agriculture doesn't create its own ecological problems. Growing crops can be pretty resource intensive, especially when highly mechanized farm equipment is involved. Big Ag's use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides has been linked to acid rain, water pollution, and human health risks.

I'm admittedly on the fence on this issue, and it's definitely something that's controversial. So what do you think readers? Is it worth investing time and money into creating burp-free cows, or should people just opt for less beef? Tell us what you think in the poll above.

Photo credit: C.K. Hartman via Flickr