Something Unexpected

My Environment and Society class is reading a book called Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman. I found the following information intriguing yet pretty disturbing. One of the interesting things about greenhouse gases that are being emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere is the diversity of sources that they come from. According to Hot, Flat, and Crowded, humans are “throwing up other green house gases, like methane, that are released form rice farming, petroleum drilling, coal mining, animal defecation, solid waste landfill sites, and yes, even from cattle belching.” Also, according to Friedman, a herd of cattle belching can be worse than a high way full of hummers. Yes, this is what I meant by disturbing. I would rather not think about all the millions of cows that are releasing 600 liters of methane a day into the atmosphere. Gas from cattle releases high amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Methane can be quite detrimental to the Earth’s atmosphere because it is able to trap twenty-one times more gas in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. This just proves that humans have all kinds of impacts on the Earth’s atmosphere since we’re the ones that dramatically increase the production of cattle.