The Dutchman

"What will this blithering idiot come up with next"?

As part of its plan to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the Obama administration is targeting the dairy industry to reduce methane emissions in their operations.

This comes despite falling methane emission levels across the economy since 1990.

The White House has proposed cutting methane emissions from the dairy industry by 25 percent by 2020. Although U.S. agriculture only accounts for about 9 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes up a sizeable portion of methane emissions — which is a very potent greenhouse gas.

SPECIAL: Join the Tea Party REVOLUTION! The Obama Regime must be dismantled!

Some of these methane emissions come from cow flatulence, exhaling and belching — other livestock animals release methane as well.

“Cows emit a massive amount of methane through belching, with a lesser amount through flatulence,” according to How Stuff Works. “Statistics vary regarding how much methane the average dairy cow expels. Some experts say 100 liters to 200 liters a day… while others say it’s up to 500 liters… a day. In any case, that’s a lot of methane, an amount comparable to the pollution produced by a car in a day.”

“Of all domestic animal types, beef and dairy cattle were by far the largest emitters of [methane],” according to an EPA analysis charting greenhouse gas emissions in 2012. Cows and other animals produce methane through digestion, which ferments the food of animals.

“During digestion, microbes resident in an animal’s digestive system ferment food consumed by the animal,” the EPA notes. “This microbial fermentation process, referred to as enteric fermentation, produces [methane] as a byproduct, which can be exhaled or eructated by the animal.”

It’s not just the dairy industry that the Obama administration is clamping down on. The White House is looking to regulate methane emissions across the economy from agriculture to oil and gas operations — all this despite methane emissions falling 11 percent since 1990.

Methane emissions have largely been reduced because of the incentive for companies to capture it and sell it for monetary gain. Oil and gas companies, for example, have been looking for ways to increasingly capture methane leaked from drilling operations which they can then sell.

“The industry has led efforts to reduce emissions of methane by developing new technologies and equipment, and recent studies show emissions are far lower than EPA projected just a few years ago,” said Howard Feldman, head of scientific and regulatory affairs at the American Petroleum Institute. “Additional regulations are not necessary and could have a chilling effect on the American energy renaissance, our economy, and our national security.”

“Methane is natural gas that operators can bring to the market,” he added. “There is a built-in incentive to capture these emissions.”

Environmentalists have been pushing the Obama administration to crack down on methane emissions for some time, arguing that they drive global warming and pollute the air and water. Activists have argued that the methane leakage rate from natural gas operations is 50 percent higher than the EPA estimates.

“President Obama’s plan to reduce climate-disrupting methane pollution is an important step in reining in an out of control industry exempt from too many public health protections,” Deborah Nardone, campaign director of the Sierra Club’s Keeping Dirty Fuels in the Ground campaign. “However, even with the most rigorous methane controls and monitoring in place, we will still fall short of what is needed to fight climate disruption if we do not reduce our reliance on these dirty fossil fuels.”

Republicans and the oil and gas industry argue that the methane leakage rate has been estimated to be 50 times lower than the EPA’s estimate. The GOP argues that the EPA’s estimate is simply an attack on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

“The EPA has been on a witch hunt to shut down hydraulic fracturing, and yet again the evidence doesn’t back up their excessive claims,” said Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter. “All too often we see the Agency using flawed science for political purposes, but this report – partially funded by environmental activists no less – shows EPA’s emissions estimates from hydraulic fracturing are way off.”

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/28/white-house-looks-to-regulate-cow-flatulence-as-part-of-climate-agenda/#ixzz2xHqYITaT

Brian Devon

Environmentalists have been pushing the Obama administration to crack down on methane emissions for some time, arguing that they drive global warming and pollute the air and water.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/28/white-house-looks-to-regulate-cow-flatulence-as-part-of-climate-agenda/#ixzz2xHqYITaT[/quote]




***********************

Not to worry, Dutch, the White House announced elderly geldings will be exempt from the flatulence regulations.

bobgssc

So, in order to cut 20% of the methane, it would be a simple matter of cutting 20% of cattle, correct? Of course, that would increase the cost of milk by at least 40% (someone has to pay for all these grand surveys), further reducing the poor parent in providing much needed calcium and vitamin D for their children. Sounds like another part of the plan for contrived dependence. If they were serious, they would be going after all the termites in the world... the largest producers.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Do you know that most dinosaurs ate plants just as cows and horses do? Also, surely you know that many dinosaurs tended to be a lot larger than cattle of today. Now surely you can see that they must have farted a lot louder, longer and gassier than our cattle do. Do you have any idea what will happen to farmers who raise cattle to go to feed yards to eventually become beef for the stores you go to? How about the feed yards where they are fattened?

I think that the EPA was crazy to do this in 2012 and had to back down because those city raised people had to finally realize what they were doing. Many farmers were selling their herds in 2012 to avoid having to pay that tax. May I also ask just who decides how one pays that tax. Is there some liberal group that intends to follow them around in the pastures counting the farts that come from the cattle. Doesn't that sound like a good way to get more much needed employment that the government could claim they had done?

How did the relatively tropical climate of the dinosaur ages keep from dying with all of them farting all the time? Surely it was warmer then than now.


***********************

Not to worry, Dutch, the White House announced elderly geldings will be exempt from the flatulence regulations.[/quote]

Nickolai

Methane is the second most important long-lived greenhouse gas. Approximately 40 % of methane is emitted into the atmosphere by natural sources (eg. termites wetlands ) and about 60 % comes from human activities such as cattle breeding, rice cultivation, fossil fuel exploitation, landfills and biomass burning. Atmospheric methane reached reached a new high of 1819 ppb in 2012 according to the "World Meteorological Organization." or 260 % of pre- industrial level, due to anthropogenic sources. Atmospheric methane is increasing again after a period of leveling off

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Are you saying that we have to kill off all our horses and cattle because of the huge amounts of methane they pass off? As I recall this kind of thing happened in the early days of the Soviet Union when farmers filled the rivers with hogs and cattle. That time it had to do with communists wanting farmers to give money to feed city people or something as ridiculous as that.

Nickolai

I'm not suggesting any such nonsense just the fact that Cow flatulence contribute to Methane emissions. Another note! American Agribusiness grows enough grain to feed two billion people but half of that grain is used feed livestock. Cattle feed lots are huge where not a blade of grass grows and trucks laden with feed grain roar up and down the highway's

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

How do you propose we change our diets to eating the grain instead of running it through those animals which most of us know isn't the most effective way.

I think that the packing plants and feedlots in the region I live in would have to close down which would cause some serious unemployment among our illegal aliens. They tend to be people who are willing to work anywhere and the pay isn't bad although the stench gets very strong.

Are you willing to stop eating meat so we don't need to feed so many animals which would surely cause some killing off of them and lead to less of that horrible methane gas?

BearK Loc: TN

Don't be surprised if these idiots in DC decide everyone should where a monitor. Since we exhale carbon dioxide as well, and the EPA has declared that dangerous, but then we also pass gas. I looked this up and found the following: About 10% of a fart is methane, the rest mainly nitrogen. Therefore, the average person passes 75cc of methane per day. It is a greenhouse gas. It's 23 times more effective than carbon dioxide. I also found the average resting adult passes 3456L per day of CO2, that may be larger or smaller depending on lifestyle, lung capacity, and breaths per minute. We are greenhouse gas producers.

Now that I've bored you with those bits of trivia, how about this fact - Termites fart more than any other animal. Because of their diet and digestive processes, they produce as much methane as human industry. It is believed they are a major contributor towards global warming. Now why isn't the EPA out to get them - what are they animal (insect) lovers (just not American people lovers)?

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Bits of trivia, you say? Fart is one of my favorite words in the language and I laugh just hearing the word as well as the action.

I was always very happy at the signs we used to see on the Autobahn in Germany. Ausfahrt, was the off ramp. Friefahrt meant it was a freeway and of course einfahrt meant one way on the freeway. I used to go down those highways laughing at what it seemed the signs said.

Hey, thanks for all that trivia. My sons say that the amount of releasing of gas by me and other old men proves that old men are earning the nickname, old fart.

Nickolai

I'm not offering solutions just making the point that the millions of cows on those feed lots fart a lot and that world meat consumpion increased from 47 million tons in1950 to 260 tons in 2005 and is expected to double by 2020 due to population growth. These trends will have major consequences on the global invironment. While meat production provides food and a livelyhood for our" illegal Aliens " The growth in meat production mirriors the growth In world population which has trippled in my lifetime to 7. 222 billion and has added 20 million since Jan 1st 2014. and is having a severe impact on global warming as reported monday by the (IPCC)

BearK Loc: TN

In looking this stuff up, I read that they believe there is some connection to genetics, naturally your diet, but I swear with age - it does seem louder, and more often. That makes it harder to blame on the dog.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

The thing that bothers me is that sometimes without warning one just slips out. Those slip outs can smell pretty bad sometimes.

The Dutchman

I wonder how long before this buffoon of a potus and his administration full of babbling idiots try to make us quit eating beans?

"Beans, Beans, the musical fruit,
The more you eat, the more you poop,
The more you poop, the better you feel,
So eat your Beans at every meal"

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

Beans don't have that kind of effect on me. I don't need any special food I just toot and toot all over the house.