Green Options

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Call me crazy, call me crude, but I have to say that there is nothing quite like the smell of cow manure.

That scent is so rich, so savory, so earthy, so pungently sweet that just one whiff seems to bury you in an olfactory pleasure dome. And if you keep basking in the aroma, you may well feel driven to grab a pitchfork, plop a straw hat on your head, stick a blade of grass in your mouth, and head on out to the fields. This is especially true on those oh-so-humid mornings in the peak of summer, when the air is so moist and dense that you almost have to put on scuba gear. But any old day is a great day for cow poop.

I confess that I am no connoisseur of creaturely caca, but I would bet that none can compare with the quality of a cow’s. Horse manure comes close, but it pushes pungency at the expense of sweetness, plus it is not very good for fertilizer. The feces of fowls is not even in the same league; it is far too acrid, not to mention slimy and sticky and all around offensive. Elephant excrement is similarly versatile (for example, it makes a great alternative source for paper), yet so far it lacks the time-tested dependability and widespread availability of cow dung; pachyderm pooh is thus still an exotic delicacy rather than a common staple. (I cannot speak to its odoriferous character, alas.) And nobody would sing paeans to dog and cat poop. Look at how tenderly people carry those telltale plastic bags when walking their dogs–usually with one arm extended as the dog pulls the leash and the other arm, hand, and pinching fingers extended as far away as possible with the bag bobbing in the air. When it comes to the felines, we have managed to train them to go potty in specified places, cover it with “fresh scent” granules, and graciously shake off anything sticking to their paws. I suppose “domestication,” in part, means proper toilet training…or “house training,” as it is called. And as for “humanure”…I am not even going there.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat. New Zealand scientists have developed a vaccine to cut down on livestock flatulence, which should help farmers avoid a proposed “flatulence tax” on the methane their livestock produces. New Zealand cows and sheep are responsible for about half of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Via: It’s Getting Hot [...]

Confession time. I have to admit that I may have been a bit of a grumpy environmental blogger, failing to give due credit where credit is due..

In particular, I have frequently complained about bio-fuels driving up world food prices in absence of a few wider considerations, I’ve been dismissive at the EU’s lack of ability to actually implement anything that makes a real difference to the environment, and most recently I described an environmental tax levied on cows as the most stupid idea ever. So it is maybe time to examine these issues in a more positive light – negativity is, after all, the enemy of progress.

A few hours ago I sat down to write my piece for our EcoWorldly Wildlife Week. I have to admit that I know little about animals. I live in a city – I can’t even remember the last time I saw a real animal. I do remember my insurance salesman mentioning that I should buy an additional car insurance against an animal called a Martin, which has a habit of chewing through pipes in the engine, but other that that I’m clueless. With this confession in mind I make limited apology for the fact that this post may sway off topic.

Having waited all week for a relevant wildlife related idea to pop into my head, I ventured onto Google to look for information on local Swiss animals. I was surprised to learn that the chief animal topic in Switzerland does not relate to rare alpine species becoming endangered due to de-glaciation, or to urban foxes, or squirrels, or other wild animals, or to any thing else I might have guessed, but is principally related to the fair treatment of animals used in meat production.

The Swedes are an inventive lot, but this article in The Local really takes the cake, or milk, if you will.

They milk 1000 cows at Wapnö castle outside Halmstad, Sweden, and during the process of cooling the milk from 37 to 3 degrees C, they have devised a way to capture that heat and use it to warm up the castle and workshop buildings.

The Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences has just received $590,000 to support research into how diet affects a cow’s methane emissions. Livestock are blamed for 28 percent of the world’s human-caused emissions of methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Photo courtesy of Man vyi at Wikimedia Commons