Cows Must Diet to Curb Flatulence

We all have heard about how livestock are one of the worse culprits of global warming. Cows produce up to 250-500 liters of methane a day, which warms the earth 20x faster than carbon dioxide. Also, as one can imagine, there is a lot of energy used in releasing this gas which makes the animals less efficient. The sheer number of livestock in the world plus their extreme gassyness requires some sort of solution before the world is warm and/or stinky from cow farts.

One solution is eat less meat. Yeah right.

Another way is put them on a diet by adding oil or a compoung called tannin to feed which lessens methane formation. "Mootral" is an additive that reduces bacteria essential to methane formation and is being commercially developed.

Although this would help reduce global warming, produce better cows and more profitable farms, there are several obstacles:

1. The various populations of livestock in the world require different additives based on where they are located and their food source.
2. Legislation and regulation of feed additives. There are already bans on antibiotic and hormone use in certain countries.

Hopefully some kind of solution will pass to produce a cooler and less stinky world.