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Canadian researchers want to study how much carbon is released into the air from cow burps and farts. That study would open the door for the federal government to put a carbon tax on cow burps and farts like New Zealand implemented. In an interview with the Western Standard, University of Alberta researcher Cameron Carlyle talked about a new study he's putting together to measure the carbon released into the air from cow belches and toots. “I was just in a meeting … to discuss trying to put together a new project where we tackle that question because it’s an...

The climate-damaging greenhouse gas methane has risen at a record pace worldwide in the past year. It is produced to a large extent in agriculture by the fermentation of feed. In New Zealand, a major agricultural exporter, the sector will soon pay for emissions. The farmers are not averse at all, in the sense of the climate. The draft of the project was published on Wednesday. A price for agricultural emissions is to be set in order to curb the large source of climate-impacting greenhouse gases. New Zealand would thus be the first country in which farmers have to pay...

Farmers Panic About a ‘Cow Tax’ By Kate Galbraith Should their greenhouse gases be taxed? (Photo: Steve Ruark for The New York Times) The comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s exploration of greenhouse gas regulation ended last Friday, with farmers lobbying furiously against the notion of a “cow tax” on methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted by livestock. The New York Farm Bureau issued a statement last week (PDF) saying it feared that a tax could reach $175 per cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and upward of $20 for each hog. Such a tax would represent a...