Cow Flatulence Latest Fear-Inducer Among Climate Change (aka Weather) Community

An article in The Daily Caller “White House looks to regulate cow flatulence as part of climate agenda” could have been an April Fool’s joke yesterday, but sadly it is not.  It seems of all of the issues facing our country and the world today, climate change stands at the top of the list as the most serious threat to humankind.

New EPA regulations seek to reduce methane gas emissions from cows by twenty-five percent by the year 2020, labeling it an extremely potent greenhouse gas (if you are married you know what they mean).  Taking this issue as seriously as the EPA demands we do, perhaps we should look at exactly what the (un) intended consequences of the new regulation would achieve:  Reducing methane gas emissions by twenty-five percent would force farmers to reduce their livestock by twenty-five percent. After all, cows will be cows and cows will be gassy.  This will drive up the cost of beef and dairy products and create food shortages.  If they do not reduce their livestock population farmers will be fined or taxed for the excess emissions their cows produce.  These costs will put many if not all small farmers out of business, thus once again reducing our food supply.

Of all of the animals in the wild, how many also produce methane?  And how many more animals (domestic and in the wild) are there in the rest of the world that produce methane?  I would suspect every mammal walking the earth might emit some methane, but I am not a scientist – I will leave that determination up to them.  Would regulating cows in the United States really make much difference, even if you bought in to the fallacious argument that cow farts create climate change?

You see, it is not about greenhouse gas emissions, it is about regulations taking more of our hard earned money and putting small farmers out of business.  It is about redistribution of wealth and it is about control, and it is not a joke.