COW FARTS?

           Hooray, hooray the 1^st of May…don’t be so quick putting that parka away! As our progress into warmer weather continues its slow pace one is left to question the validity of Global Warming, isn’t one? Especially in these parts it is. Following one of our coldest winters in recent memory, and the cold weather continuance around here, a little global warming doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. But, then again, one has to be careful of what one wishes for doesn’t one?

            Maybe you don’t believe in Global Warming anyway. In doing my research there was so much information regarding the subject of climate change and global warming that one could read the information for days and days and still not reach a definitive conclusion.

I’ve found that one thing’s for sure, though, the differing opinions are either politically based or scientifically based, (and often an amalgamation of both), depending on the motives of the speaker at the moment. Both parties seem to fudge their climate statistics to back their arguments…pro and con...once again, depending on the speaker’s agenda. And if you think that the mass media are going to produce accurate findings then think again because the news is a product to be sold and there is no obligation by the seller of the product, (news), to be accurate…just sellable.

On one hand science has a difficult time telling us what the weather’s going to be like next Tuesday, let alone in 2099, but can there be little doubt that the effects of 7.3 billion human beings, with all of their varying habits, has got to be affecting good ol’ Mother Earth in some form or another?

Regardless of your stance on Climate Change there can be no doubt that human habitation is adversely affecting our planet in some way. To raise awareness of this fact April 22^nd was designated as Earth Day and it was celebrated around the globe. My research states, “Founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day was first organized in 1970 to promote ecology and respect for life on the planet as well as to encourage awareness of the growing problems of air, water and soil pollution.”

Of course the observation of “Earth Day” came with some practical and some impractical solutions to lessen the negative affects people have on the planet. Take our eating habits for instance. It has been calculated that if the United States alone could reduce the national cattle flatulence production by 25% it would be equal to removing the greenhouse-gas emissions of 1.25 million cars! I know! Who’d have guessed? Cow farts?

To that end, the United Nations is promoting the reduction in the consumption of meat and dairy products by encouraging humans to consider vegan diets and replacing our beef consumption with…say…bugs! That’s right…insects! Apparently they’re a great source of protein and their gas-passing isn’t quite at the level of our bovine meat providers.

Insects are already a large part of many Earth residents’ diets but I just can’t seem to get excited over a huge dish of larvae stir-fry with a side of chapulines (grasshoppers). If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll get my protein replacement from shake powder and tofu; keeping in mind what I’ve said in the past about an “acquired taste”…if you have to “acquire” a taste it may be best to stick with your initial assessment, which was probably…”yuck”.  

We’re pretty much in cattle country around here so this livestock reduction talk will probably fall on deaf ears because one man’s pollution is another man’s livelihood and I don’t see too many Saskatchewan cattle producers and feedlots switching over to grasshopper or beetle herds in the foreseeable future but I guess it’s nice to know that there are options.

If you get right down to the nitty-gritty of the whole Global Warming/Climate Change/Earth Destruction conundrum it comes right down to science. Science and its advances have led us to this point in the Earth’s ecological history and I am hopeful that science will find a way to reduce or even reverse the damage humans have inflicted on Mother Earth with it.

“You would have thought that our first priority would be to ask what the ecologists are finding out, because we have to live within the conditions and principles they define. Instead, we’ve elevated the economy above ecology.” David Suzuki (1936-).