Greenhouse gas goals unattainable

Harris and Ferguson Township supervisors have recently vowed to implement strategies that will result in zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as feasible (CDT, 8/15). This is utterly impossible.

The potency of methane as a greenhouse gas as compared with carbon dioxide was calculated by Ken Caldeira, of the Carnegie Institution for Science, and published in the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Ruminants Produce More Greenhouse Gas than the Transportation Sector.” Ruminants are cud-chewing animals, which include cows and sheep. As computed by Caldeira, their exhalation, flatulence, belching, and manure is 25 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than the carbon dioxide released by cars. He found that the world’s ruminants are responsible for more greenhouse gas than the entire transportation sector.

Thus, Harris and Ferguson supervisors will need to rid all of the sheep and cows raised on farms in their townships that help supply our dairy products and meat. It will be a sad day when there is no more Meyer Dairy to serve us milk and ice cream. Of course we could replace the cows and sheep with kangaroos because their flatulence apparently contains less methane.

This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 9:53 PM with the headline "Greenhouse gas goals unattainable."