Vox

Changing the diet of cows might help them release less methane. This episode is presented by Delta. Delta doesn’t have a say in our editorial, but they make videos like this possible. For more information, visit http://www.delta.com/sustainability . Subscribe to our channel and turn on notifications (🔔) so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO There are around 1.5 billion cows on the planet being raised as livestock for things like meat and dairy — and they’re a climate problem we’ve struggled to solve. Cows have a specialized digestive tract that allows them to digest tough plant material like grass or hay, but in that process, methane is produced as waste, and the cows ... burp it out. Methane is a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, these burping animals are considered one of the largest sources of methane production in the United States, making up nearly 25 percent of all methane emissions. You’ve likely heard of a few solutions to this. The loudest one is probably the campaign to get people to cut their beef intake or switch to meat alternatives. It’s an important solution, but people are often reluctant to do it. So instead, some scientists are taking the attention off humans and focusing on the diet of the cows. What they’ve found is that certain additives in cow feed can help reduce methane emissions, and recent work has drawn a lot of attention to one unexpected hero: seaweed. For more on how the experiment at UC Davis was conducted + Kebreab’s TedTalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/ermias_kebreab_what_seaweed_and_cow_burps_have_to_do_with_climate_change?language=en https://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/news/research-led-ermias-kebreab-tests-if-seaweed-cuts-methane-emissions-dairy-farms https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces-their-greenhouse-gas-emissions-82-percent For more on enteric fermentation + ruminant animals + methane: https://extension.msstate.edu/publications/understanding-the-ruminant-animal-digestive-system https://www.horizonvetbrighton.com/site/blog/2022/06/15/understanding-the-ruminant-digestive-system https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases#methane https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane Further reading on seaweed as an additive: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33802209/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211926422000443#s0035 https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/27/climate-solutions-seaweed-methane/ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0247820 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-014-0487-z Vox.com is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what's really driving the events in the headlines. Check out http://www.vox.com. Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@voxdotcom Check out our articles: https://www.vox.com/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.vox.com/podcasts