Global warming is disturbingly enhanced by the gaseous emissions from sheep and cattle. Australian scientists might have the solution.

"The scientific method," Thomas Henry Huxley once wrote,

"is nothing but the normal working of the human mind."

That is to say, when the mind is working;

that is to say further, when it is engaged in correcting its mistakes.

Neil Postman

Reducing the Gas

Australia’s CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation) is testing a vaccine that reduces methane production in sheep.

Methane is breathed out by sheep and cattle as part of their normal digestive process. It is 23 times more potent (and therefore more damaging) in its global warming capabilities than carbon dioxide, and is estimated to currently contribute about 12 per cent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions.

It is estimated that a single sheep will emit approximately seven kilos of gas per year, while methane emissions from cattle can range from 60-114 kilos per head, per year.

For more information: CSIRO