Saturday, October 14, 2006

Fart machine and air pollution.

A recent report in BBC has put a blame on cows for emitting hazardous amount of methane (CH4) gas to the atmosphere (click news source) from their nether region. It was found out that one cow produces approximately 400 litres of methane due to farting.

Methane, a greenhouse gas, also known as the primary component of natural gas source (read more at wikipedia) is one of the prime reasons for ozone layers depletion and global warming. Nevertheless, methane is also the prime source for the biomass renewable energy as one of the cheaper and renewable alternative to fossil fuel. Extensive research have also been carried out using methane potential in fuel cell applications as means to produce hydrogen through catalytic steam-methane reforming process. Compressed methane is also used as a clean fuel alternative in many vehicles nowadays and is known as NGV (natural gas vehicle).

Now, why must they blame cows for becoming one farting machine when we have never heard of a farmer who died because of that? It has to be as the result of some sort of a chemical fertilizers in the grass meadows where they let the poor cows chomping throughout the day among other things. Other possibilities could be through feeding the cows with beans and a lot of other grain/seed produce apart from letting them grazing leaves, which of course is their staple food.

Not only do the cows fart methane, they also burp methane. This actually affect the growth rate of a cow. BUT somehow, this seemed to be the worry of those farmers in the UK. What about other places around the world where they have huge cow farms like New Zealand, Switzerland and India?

Speaking of cow fart, i had a worse but funny incident with horses farting. That was like a year ago during my istanbul tour. I was with my turkish friend, fatma the day we went to an island nearby istanbul called Princes Island, or locally known as Buyuk Ada (translated as "big island"). No fuel-based vehicle is allowed there to retain and preserve its natural ecology. Therefore, only horse and donkey carts and carriages, as well as bicycles are the only means of wheel-vehicled transportations. That applies to tourists as well if they wish to tour around that island.

Fatma recommended that we should get on the horse carriage ride as it is a must there. So off we went to a vacant carriage at a special station meant for tourists. At first we both sat in the carriage while the driver sat alone manouvering two healthy horses named Phyllis for the mare and Morad for the male one. After a while, i got excited on the thought of doing a "cowgirl" stunt and asked if i could sit next to the driver while we were on the course. Without further ado, he stopped the carriage to let me climb onto the seat and off i went riding directly facing two horses' behinds.


Yeeee...haaawww...!!!!!! Posted by Picasa


It was all fun watching the beautiful sceneries on the ride until one of the horses started to break out one long, powerful wind followed by dumping some craps on a special crap sheet hanging underneath them. Unbelievable! How rude was that! Not long after that, the second horse did the same thing. Boy, i wish you could watch how they lift their long, bushy tails up and let out those awful gas. That time i began to imagine if those people in hollywood have had such experience like me while filming on a horse carriage...or even worse, Queen of England and the whole royal family lot during their royal excursion in the public and so on....

Nonetheless, i was just laughing all the way seeing how capable those horses, one by one emitting that pungent-smell fart, but nobody was harmed (as in fainted to say the least) during the journey. Not even the horse driver who has been doing this job for ages.

Ironically, farmers normally have longer life than those city-dwellers. And some people have the cheeks to blame those herbivorous animals (cows, horses, sheeps, etc) to be one of the causes of air pollution? In spite of that, some people still do research on this cow flatulence or belching effect to the environment. Go read it at:

2 comments:

The Pisces Man said...

Now, that smile on your face, was it before or after the fart incidents? I should think those Hollywood actors and even Queen Elizabeth had experienced being farted before... hehe..

Anyway, totally ridiculous to blame it on the cows for our thinning ozone layers. Just don't bring them or their future generations to courts please... Or worse, if people slaughtered 'innocent' birds for flu virus before, maybe those cows might suffer the same fate when things just get hotter.

ManaL said...

How can i tahan laughing when those horses kept farting at a random frequency.