Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Electric Cars

John,
You'll then be aware of the research that has shown that a small amount of a specific seaweed fed to ruminants cuts the methane emissions by up to 98% -- not "snake oil" but solid scientific research backed up by animal trials in australia and america and research in Ireland (Bantry Marine Institute) shows that seawater in Ireland does and can increase the growth of this weed. The real thing now is to optimise the means of adding this to the diet of animals that don't always have a diet including added feed which can contain the seaweed. The outcome of cracking this could be really huge in countries like India with many thousands of times the number of ruminant animals that Ireland has!!!

Yes I had heard of that, as well as studies into the digestive tracts of kangaroo's and other herbivores that don't produce methane. Whether India or any other country has more animals than Ireland especially when considering the relative size of their populations is neither here or there. Indians per head of population produce less CO2 than Ireland.

Though there are 6.5 million cows in Ireland they are offsetting their contribution to the planet's methane by being a huge part of the food chain ... whereas the 305 million cows in India wander through their protected lives maybe giving a bit of milk for a while .... contributing massively to methane production with little or no return .... with their numbers completely out of proportion to their utility due to religious, and increasingly political, considerations .... if one cow population has to go for the good of the planet then it shouldn't be Ireland's .... unless we value religious dogma over science ?

K

Edited this cos it sounded as if I was getting at John personally rather than making a general point

Apparently a tiny bit of red seaweed in their diet can reduce the methane cows & sheep produce by at least half, and up to high-90s percent in ideal trial conditions.

Problem is that there isn't enough red seaweed in the world to feed to cows... I guess there'll be a synthetic alternative along shortly

Its a well made point,

I don't know whether the Indians would agree their respective religious views has a lesser standing than meat produced purely to eat. Already its predicted by 2050 we wont be able to produce enough cereal to feed the livestock necessary to meet the current levels of protein in our diet from that source. Converting cereal into meat is not a very productive cycle or use of resources. And with the predicted desertification, flooding of the Asian rice growing river deltas, cereal is going to be a very important food stuff.

Indeed .... I have no religious beliefs and as an advocate of the rationality of the scientific method have grave concerns as to how the clash of ideologies will play out ..... everyone's happy to tell me I should stop driving cars, travelling and eating meat (even though the last one is the default of the Human Animal I am for a million years) .... who's going to tell the Indians they need to cull their cows? .... or the various dogmatic believers around the world that scripturally encouraged breeding for the glory of your particular god (and the voting demoghraphic of your theocratic leaders) is ultimately killing the planet?

My nightmare scenario is that the rational inhabitants of this planet will weaken their economies and reduce their populations while the irrational will cling to their gods and breed themselves into de facto world control .... the clock turned back on centuries of hard won rational thought .... to my mind a catastrophic reversal of the ideal outcome.

K

It will be an interesting time ahead, one has to remember that global warming only really started to increase significantly post the UK Industrial Revolution where science and technology revolutionised our economy and its resultant climate damaging emissions. So it would be rather rich of us to tell others in third world countries what they need to do, impart due to our scientific advances, that may well lie at the root cause of the predicament we currently find ourselves in.

I think blaming the UK industrial revolution for our current predicament is a bit like blaming the Sumerians for Mein Kampf and the rude words sprayed on the wall of your local railway station 🙂 .... the whole world took the idea and ran with it .... the resulting prosperity and abundance has facilitated the rampant population growth that has driven us to our current situation .... our atavistic instincts to breed and gather stuff have changed from being valid survival traits to the engine of our downfall ..... basic Human Nature .... and it will be rational understanding that will allow us to over-ride that programming .... my worry, in my previous post, is that huge swathes of the world's population don't share that sense of Human agency ... relying on divine guidance in a book instead ... and I doubt the religious monoliths will be able to change in time.

K

That made me smile 'the Sumerians for Mein Kampf and the rude words sprayed on the wall of your local railway station'

The British Empire and its growth and spread of influence was fuelled by the Industrial Revolution, a time when the UK was the manufacturing centre of the world. Yes the rest of the world adopted the economic benefits but we were the original architects and purveyors. We may not be responsible for where we find ourselves today, but we certainly had a major hand at the outset in it all, which set us off down this path. I'm kind of reminded of the contradiction eg the acid rain we created from our industrial pollution where prevailing winds took it to Scandinavia which destroyed forests and then we complain about the amount of deforestation.

John - it matters not whether or not the cows per head of population is greater in India or Ireland - it is the amount of greenhouse gas being produced overall that is killing the world climate, not the respective population size in each country. If this greenhouse gas can be reduced then there is a benefit to all!
I agree the production of a synthetic compound to match the natural compound found in the seaweed is likely the game changer and what I am promoting is further research to bring this about and a feeding regime to ensure this can be extended to all ruminants.
It is a positive outlook rather than the constant whining and stunts of the likes of those gluing themselves to the road!!