Posted on 11/28/2008 6:18:52 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The proposal is finally out there that will regulate all emissions of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, even if they are the bodily functions of livestock. Ridiculousness aside, the goal of curbing the release of carbon and hydrogen into the air is going to reach all the way to the rangeland of Kansas, the hog lots of Iowa and the front yard of the American home.
Don't over-react or under-react to the desire of the public to control global warming. Don't deny the volume of methane that a cow can generate on a good day of grazing. There is a method to all of this that Al Gore uttered to me in 1999. He said, in response to a question about regulating the emissions of agriculture, that, "Everyone has to come to the table." He did not give the politically expedient answer that others must comply with regulations while farmers do not. His answer was in line with environmental activists from the early 1960s who kept repeating: "If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the pollution."
I realized over a year ago (Root Zone May 7, 2007, "A global warming front just passed through") that the concept of global warming has been accepted by our government, present and future. Whether it is real is now past political debate. How to reduce pollutants is the next step and, in the coming administration, the clean air act will come into its own. Proposals to curb greenhouse gases will be put into the rulemaking process at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a breadth that will go from lawn mowers to bovine flatulence (not to be confused with the flat tax). The case against livestock is that they contribute 20 percent of all global methane emissions. What to do? Tax it. The current EPA proposal is rumored to have put a dollar amount on how much a producer might have to pay per animal. The figures offered by Rick Krause, American Farm Bureau Federation Director of Regulatory Relations, are $175 per dairy cow, $87.50 per beef cow and $20 per pig.
All of this goes back to the Kyoto Protocol of the Clinton era. We didn't sign it but a lot of other countries did and they've had to deal with the requirement to curb emissions that contribute to global warming. New Zealand had a big uproar over an agricultural emissions research levy, which immediately took on four-letter status. Political opposition was strong enough in a rural country to hold it at bay; but, how it will fare in an urbanized society like ours is yet to be determined.
It appears that there will be tradeoffs where farmers will be paid for no-till agriculture and taxed for livestock production. Dairies may be able to install methane generators and use or sell the gas. Businesses will be incentivized to "go green" and taxed for carbon emissions. Even homeowners may be taxed for owning a lawn mower with an internal combustion engine, but might be able to offset by utilizing landscaping that does not require power tools for manicuring. Enforcement is as easy as pulling up a picture from "Google Earth" and clicking a calculator. Just add it to your property taxes and the behavior change begins.
No matter what happens in the regulatory process, the world (in human terms) will change forever. The results may not be seen for hundreds of years and those who started the movement will either be viewed as fools or prophets. The transition will be painful but must be persistent if it is to actually change behavior of civilized society. If no one gets a free ride, then the process can work. Remember, we removed lead from the environment and we eliminated Chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFC's) because science showed the need and politicians adopted the cause.
We are an evolving society. That is what we really want to be, if you get down to our true beings. We want to have less of an impact on the landscape and we want to know that our actions are not causing irreversible damage for our descendants. When I look back at that washed away farm in Oklahoma where I grew up, I'd give a great deal to have stopped the settlers from plowing those sandy hillsides. I'd welcome any means to send information about soil and wildlife conservation to our ancestors so they wouldn't disrupt nature's rhythm on the plains. We can't undo what was done in the name of exploration and progress but we can examine whether a modification of our existence can mitigate a pending environmental disaster. That's the debate we should have in the years ahead rather than isolating and destroying a single sector of our economy. As much as I hate to agree with Eco Al on anything, we all need to come to the table together and talk about our shared future.
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Editor's Note: This is Ken Root's 34th year as an agricultural reporter. He grew up on a small farm in central Oklahoma and started his career as a vocational agriculture teacher. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as a broadcaster and was the original host of AgriTalk. He has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Kansas City. Ken is now the lead farm broadcaster at WHO and WMT Radio based in Des Moines, Iowa. He has been a columnist for HPJ and Midwest Ag Journal for seven years.
Next: Taxing cans of beans because of human methane...
No, we're not. A society s no more evolved the the people who make it up. As human beings, we are as we were 500 years ago, using and killing each other just as we have done for centuries.
Methane gas has increased 150% in the atmosphere since the mid 1700’s. (During the same time period, carbon dioxide has increased only 30 %.) A gram of methane gas has more than 25 times as much greenhouse gas impact as a gram carbon dioxide. As many know, flatulence, “farts,” are composed almost entirely of methane gas.
Therefore, Al Gore has developed a new program to combat this obviously increasing peril to our planet, and make a little money for himself at the same time.
It is called Fat Al’s Recycle Technology.
Everyone will be required to wear a “F.A.R.T. meter,” (Cost $75, available only from Al Gore) which will record and automatically transmit to a new government agency (the Federal Automatic Recording Technology Department) the occasion of each fart and the volume thereof.
For an additional fee of $4,500, interested parties can purchase a fart capture device (available only from Al Gore). This 25 pound device can be conveniently worn under the special clothing available also from Al Gore in attractive shades of brown.
When full, the interested consumer can present his fart capture device to Al Gore’s recycling center, where for a fee of $0.10 per fart, the captured farts will be recycled into the US natural gas distribution system. Al Gore also will receive a modest fee of only $0.015 per fart for the energy content of the gas.
The interested consumer will also receive “fart credits” for the number of farts he recycles. These “fart credits” can be traded to other consumers, who elected not to purchase a fart capture device, through Al Gore’s Fart Trading Exchange. Al Gore will extract only a small commission of $0.01 per fart for each trade.
All Consumers will be required to be “fart neutral” by a “Cap and Trade” regulation, administered by the new Federal Automatic Recording Technology Department.
Legislation is being developed as we speak, by the concerned Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and her erstwhile compatriot in the Senate, Harry Reid.
Get ahead of the mandated stampede to control this growing threat to our planet. Get you fart capture device now.
Simply contact Al Gore and follow his instructions.
I think I deserve many, many carbon credits retroactively for all the prime rib and all the steaks and burgers I have consumed at great risk to myself for lo, these many years. I should get additional credits because I never fart.
Sorry, we are in a ZERO SUN SPOT activity Cooling Phase.
Global warmers are People who believe MORE in Cow Flatulence, than they believe in Global Mechanics or Solar Activity.
Get your head out of your posterior and look at the Sun, Dufus. Also, Nasa continues to Revise their published figures once again.
You guys don’t want people coming to ANY Table unless they Bring Money or a Tax Plan to get it.
Call me when your great Leader, Al Gore, Rides a Bicycle to his next Conference.
These whores will do anything for money and control.
Between this and Obama searching for waste in the farm bills, the Democrat party is going to fart around and lose the farmer vote it’s been subsidising ‘lo on these many years.
The "working girls" are very offended by the comparison to Al Gore, Pelosi and Reed. They have standards, the working girls that is.
How is this “FACT”, rather than pseudoscience BS?
The American Buffalo is a prolific farter; those herds were HUGE until the last half of the 1800’s.
How many “Methane Monitoring Stations” existed back then? Where were they? How good are those records, Yah can't use a thermometer, or any other simple tool, to measure your city's Methane Level.
Great! That means higher food costs! This has nothing to do with climate, this is an agenda! The vegans and econuts want to cram their new age satanic beliefs down everyones throats and take us for everything we got!
No, not “unreal.” It was the program of a marxist named Jeremy Rifkin (Peoples Bicentennial Commission, Peoples Business Commission, Foundation for Economic Trends, Citizens Commission of Inquiry into US War Crimes in Indochina,etc).
He wanted to put diapers on cows or have ways of collection methane emissions (Job Application - showing pipes up cows’ rears. Job stinks but pays well). He proposed these attacks on the cattle industry in the late 70’s and some people in the media actually gave him some credibility despite his marxist credentials, plus the fact that I think he is out of his f*ing mind (but that is my opinion). Con-artist is more like it.
Later he wanted to ban cattle raising.
Who says the marxists aren’t out to destroy our society?
No veggie burgers for me!
Lets see, the cost of raising livestock will raise, and the end price of beef/pork will rise. Many farmers will go bankrupt and go out of business. Others will severly curb livestock production, meaning supply will drop, demand will increase, driving prices up more.
We are already diverting corn from human/livestock consumption to ethanol production, for this Gorebull warming scam, causing corn prices to rise, or corn supplies for food to be short.
We have a "president-elect" who wants "everybody" to sacrifice for the greater good. He'll tax gas so that we use less, to "protect" the environment. He'll reinstate the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling. He'll ban ANWR and any othe wilderness drilling. The US will be at the whims of Russia and OPEC for our oil.
Oil prices will once again rise, add to that The Ones gas taxes gas will be 6,7, or $10 a gallon.
The cost of gas will cost transportation cost to go up, meaning food prices will rise.
Trucking companies were already getting hit hard this past spring and summer. In the future many will outright go out of business. What companies are left, will not be able to handle all the trucking needed to be done. Slowing the entire economy more, but also meaning store shelves be be less stocked. Less stock means higher prices.
During the Great Depression, unemployment hit 25%. Imagine that many people out of work, wages will at the least stagnate if not drop and everything will be more expensive.
Add to this our government printing money faster than the machines can print it, in the form of "bailouts". We have another sign of inflation.
So many negative signs out there. And government officials bound and determined to turn us into a third world country/planet.
Quote from Wikipedia:
“Methane in the Earth’s atmosphere is an important greenhouse gas with a global warming potential of 25 over a 100-year period. This means that a methane emission will have 25 times the impact on temperature of a carbon dioxide emission of the same mass over the following 100 years. Methane has a large effect for a brief period (a net lifetime of 8.4 years in the atmosphere), whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period (over 100 years). Because of this difference in effect and time period, the global warming potential of methane over a 20 year time period is 72. The Earth’s methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases.[13] Usally, excess methane from landfills and other natural producers of methane are burned so CO2 is released into the atmosphere instead of methane because methane is such a more effective greenhouse gas.”
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane
http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/017.htm
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