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
88 | Bees, Bursaries, and the Gospel of REDD+
In part three of our continuing series from Kenya, we hear how the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project helped people switch from burning trees for charcoal to …
087 | How REDD+ Revived a Major River, Slowed Climate Change, and Saved Lives
Evans Maneno is Makueni County Ecosystem Conservator for the Kenya Forestry Service. He walks us through a tree nursery in the Chyulu Hills and …
86 | The Race to Save the Cloud Forests of Kenya's Chyulu Hills
A decade ago, the cloud forests of Kenya's Chyulu Hills were on the brink of collapse, threatening water supplies for the Tsavo and Amboseli Plains …
085 | Can Ghana Leverage REDD+ to Save its Cocoa Farmers? A conversation with Roselyn Fosuah Adjei of Ghana's Forestry Commission
Ghana's cocoa economy is second only to Côte d'Ivoire's, but climate change threatens to decimate it. Today's guest, Roselyn Fosuah Adjei of the Ghana Forestry Commission, is charged with …
084 | Treeless Neighborhoods and Poverty: the Deadly Link and How to Address it
A 2021 study of trees in America showed that poor neighborhoods had far fewer trees than wealthier ones, and that translates into higher temperatures, poorer air, and more deaths. Jad Daley …
083 | What to Make of COP27, with Jos Cozijnsen of Climate Neutral Group
Jos Cozijnsen has been working the climate puzzle for decades -- first by helping to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and then by helping NGOs like the …
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.