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Dead cows don't fart . . . or belch
The BSE crisis could help Britain to cut its greenhouse-gas emissions significantly. In a report to be published next month, a climate researcher at University College London says that a possible long-term halving of the British cattle population would cause a decline of 3 per cent in methane emissions, and free up pastures and fields growing fodder crops for planting trees to soak up carbon dioxide.
'Beef is a greenhouse-intensive food,' says Susan Subak of UCL's Centre for Social and Economic Research and the global Environment, because cattle belch and fart methane, which is produced during fermentation in their guts.
A typical animal emits 48 kilograms of methane a year, with more bubbling out of its manure.
Britain is committed to stabilising emissions of all major greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by the year 2000. In the case of methane, says the government, that will require a reduction of 5 per cent in the anticipated increase from all sources, which range from cattle to natural wetlands, waste tips, coal mines and natural gas pipelines. Subak says that halving Britain's beef cattle population would 'go halfway towards meeting that goal'.
Beef farming makes other indirect contributions to the greenhouse effect. For instance, fossil fuels are burnt to generate the energy to produce the fertiliser that feeds the fodder crops on which many animals feed.  Rearing beef is also land-intensive, says the study. Some 340 000 hectares of British farmland are devoted to growing feed for beef cattle, and beef cattle pastures take up more than a million hectares. If some of this land were planted with trees instead, these would soak up co2 from the atmosphere as they grow.
Subak calculates that if half the fields devoted to fodder crops were planted with trees, along with just 5 per cent of the nation's grazing land, this would remove 1 million tonnes of co2 from the atmosphere each year.  This figure approaches 1 per cent of Britain's overall output of the greenhouse gas, and would make a major contribution to the country's international commitment to stabilise emissions.

This goes quite a way to show that environmentalists are so whacky that they would like to see half of an entire national industry go away.  I say to the environmentalists:  How much greenhouse gases do you contribute a year?  Kill yourselves and you may just save the planet!

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