The World in 2030

118 The World in 2030
Meet the world’s top destroyer of the environment.
It is not the car, or the plane, or even George Bush:
it is the cow.
A United Nations report has identified the world’s
rapidly growing herds of cattle as the greatest threat
to the climate, forests and wildlife. And they are
blamed for a host of other environmental crimes,
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. 232
What can be done? Well, some California dairy farmers are
turning manure into electricity. 233 Also, Australian scientists
are working on isolating bacteria in Kangaroos 234 which allow
them to eat grass and release no methane and British scientists
claim to have already made a breakthrough in developing
a low-methane diet for cattle. 235 The magic bacteria could
hopefully be introduced into sheep, pigs, and cattle feed to
reduce or eliminate methane release. And since more methane
comes from garbage than from any other source, maybe we
could find a way to harness that gas as a form of energy.
One good piece of news is that although methane is
a potent greenhouse gas, it lingers in our atmosphere for
only ten years (compared with 100 years or more for carbon
dioxide) and thus any attempt to reduce methane emissions
would produce effects that would be noticeable rapidly.
But even though cattle emissions has a comical quality,
the notion of clearing more and more land on which to