even AOC can’t blame this one on the cow farts

Es­ti­mated reading time is 2 min­utes.

WHAT DOES ALEXAN­DRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ have to do with cow farts or methane? Well, I wanted a hu­morous title to catch the read­er’s attention—especially given the se­ri­ous­ness of the issue—and the word “fart” catches a lot of folk’s at­ten­tion. As for AOC, you will have to wait until the post­script below to find out how she is as­so­ci­ated with bovine flatulence.

I just re­ceived an email newsletter that men­tioned the ar­ticle “Methane Leak in Antarctic Sea Floor Prompts Fears of Cli­mate Tip­ping Points” by Joe Mc­Carthy (Global Cit­izen – July 24, 2020). It’s a se­rious topic and while methane leaks from the Antarctic were ex­pected, this leak is a puzzler:

“Sci­en­tists have iden­ti­fied the first ac­tive leak of methane gas in the seafloor of Antarc­tica. The cause of the leak is un­clear, but sci­en­tists have so far ruled out cli­mate change be­cause the Ross Sea, where the leak is lo­cated, has been rel­a­tively shielded from warming temperatures.

Sci­en­tists have iden­ti­fied the first ac­tive leak of methane gas in the seafloor of Antarc­tica and have so far ruled out cli­mate change.

The leak was wors­ened by the rel­a­tive ab­sence of mi­crobes that would nor­mally filter the methane be­fore it en­ters the atmosphere.

Methane makes up 10 per­cent of U.S. green­house gas emis­sions that sci­en­tists blame for global warming. En­teric fer­men­ta­tion, the di­ges­tive process in cows and other ru­mi­nant an­i­mals, is the largest source of U.S. methane emissions.”

Ac­cording to An­drew Thurber, from Oregon State Uni­ver­sity, who led the re­search: “The delay [in methane con­sump­tion] is the most im­por­tant finding. It is not good news. It took more than five years for the mi­crobes to begin to show up and even then there was still methane rapidly es­caping from the seafloor.”

To read the ar­ticle in its en­tirety, click HERE.

Sci­en­tists have iden­ti­fied the first ac­tive leak of methane gas in the seafloor of Antarc­tica and have so far ruled out cli­mate change. Click To Tweet

Cows close up 1000

FEA­TURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page was cropped from this photo that I found with “Green New Deal Looks To Tackle The Scourge Of Farting Cows.” This ar­ticle states (and I have con­densed two para­graphs into one):

“Alexan­dria Ocasio-Cortez’s newly-released Green New Deal res­o­lu­tion calls for a World War II-style mo­bi­liza­tion ef­fort to elim­i­nate green­house gas emis­sions from agri­cul­tural op­er­a­tions. If that’s the case, that means any sub­se­quent Green New Deal leg­is­la­tion would have to deal with a major source of methane emissions—cow flat­u­lence and burps.”

PS: For readers who may think I am taking a poke at Alexan­dria Ocasio-Cortez, well, I guess I am. Farts are funny and politi­cians con­sid­ering them se­ri­ously is kinda hu­morous (click the “Green New Deal” link above). That said, I am a big fan of AOC and hope that I live long enough to vote for her for Pres­i­dent of these here (dis)United States!

 

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