Cow Burps & The Vaccination Debate

Cows burp.... and the planet gets hotter.




This is the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams in for Lester Graham.




Cows are extremely gassy. They burp methane gas. If you ask the Environmental Protection Agency... cow burps alone make up 20 percent of the methane emissions in the US.




Methane is a potent greenhouse gas.




But the cows can’t help it. There’s bacteria in their stomachs that makes them gassy.




The farm lobby’s worried Congress will try to regulate gassy cows. But if you thumb through the giant climate change bill before Congress... you’ll find Section 811. That section says the government can’t regulate cow burps.




In the meantime... some farmers are trying to make their cows less gassy.




The company Stonyfield Farm is getting its dairy farmers to change their cows’ diets.




Nancy Hirschberg directs the company’s Greener Cow Project. She says the new diet has cut cow burps by 12 percent. Yeah, they can actually measure that.




“It’s very much like people. When you are feeling good, you’re not having a lot of gas - you’re more efficient, more of your energy is available for living life. The same with the cows, you want as much energy as possible to go into producing milk, not into burps which are in fact, waste.”




Apparently... the cows also have sweeter breath.

























STING




This is the Environment Report.




Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:










GRANT










You can find out more about this debate on our website environment report dot org.




I’m Rebecca Williams.