Bionic Planet: Reversing Climate Change by Restoring Nature
Navigating the New Reality of Life in the Anthropocene
015: How Garlic Cloves and Orange Peels Cut Cow Burps and Slow Climate Change
More than 1.5 billion cows are spread across the planet, each with four stomachs. That's six billion stomachs emitting methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas that captures about eighty times more heat -- or contributes about eighty times as much to climate change -- as carbon dioxide does, at least in the short term.
Now a new product called Mootral -- like "Neutral" but with a Mooo instead of a Nooo -- aims to slash those emissions by killing off the bad bacteria in the stomachs of cows and other "ruminants" -- which is what we call four-stomached beasts like cows, goats, and sheep.By killing off the bad bacteria, Mootral makes the animals healthier and slashes the methane in their burps by about 30 percent. Can this new tool help to slow climate change?
Here is the Mootral web site: www.mootral.com
Topics: climate change, mootral, cows, methane, carbon offsetting
More episodes from Bionic Planet: Reversing Climate Change by Restoring Nature
063 | COVID-19 and the 2020 Emissions Chasm Report
The UN's Emissions Gap Report showed that the current Paris Agreement Climate Plans (NDCs )will leave us nowhere near where we need to be to avert a climate catastrophe.
Will Burns of the …
062 | At What Temperature Do Forests Stop Absorbing Carbon?
Today I speak with environmental scientist Jason Funk, who runs the Land Use and Climate Knowledge Initiative (LUCKI) about the important findings of a paper called "Long-term thermal …
061 | Seaweed, Cities, and Mangroves: The Blue Carbon Story
In this episode, we speak with oceanographer and sedimentologist Steve Crooks, one of the world's leading authorities on coastal ecosystems and …
060 | What The Civil Rights Movement Can Teach Us About Meeting the Climate Challenge (Encore Presentation)
In this episode, which originally aired in October, 2018, we speak with the Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley, who says climate change and civil rights are inexorably intertwined, and not just …
59 | Why The Sustainable Development Goals Matter (Encore Presentation)
If there's one thing COVID-19 reminds us, it's that global institutions matter. For that reason, I'm replaying this 2016 episode looking at the Sustainable Development Goals.
Forests, Fires, and Jurisdictional Offsets: A Conversation with Naomi Swickard of Verra
Global greenhouse-gas emissions will drop 5.5 percent this year because of COVID-19, but they must drop 7.6 percent every year to meet the Paris Agreement's 1.5C target. Forest carbon …
How you can listen to this podcast
You can listen to episodes right here on the website, or if you prefer, in a podcast app. Listening in an app makes it easier to keep track of what you’ve already heard, listen without using your data plan and many other conveniences.