We have met the enemy, and it moooos

Got a good chuckle out of this one.

James Lileks



In another display of pitch-perfect priorities, the U.N. has released its findings on cow flatulence. There's quite a lot of it.


The 400-page study, $27 million of which probably went to Saddam Hussein for old times' sake, discovered that the planet's livestock, including 1.5 billion cattle, produce 18 percent of greenhouse gases. Apparently the beasts of the field do nothing but wander around all day asking their brethren to "pull my hoof." Every time a cow feels a small sense of relief, a polar bear goes through the ice.


Or will, eventually. So livestock give off more greenhouse gases than cars. Eliminate the internal combustion problem, and you'd still have to deal with numberless tons of ruminant redolence floating into Gaia's celestial nostrils. We're off the hook: If global warming is organic, doesn't that make it OK?


Of course not. You can infer the report's purpose from its title: "Livestock's Long Shadow." Meat-eating and the industries required to sustain it are the actual villains, and the list of sins is enormous. As the Independent newspaper put it, the damage ranges "from acid rain to the introduction of alien species, from producing deserts to creating dead zones in the oceans, from poisoning rivers and drinking water to destroying coral reefs."