Methane is responsible for 30% of global warming. According to CBS News, cattle account for one-third of all methane emissions.
A Canadian farmer named Joe Dorgan discovered that feeding seaweed to cattle would reduce greenhouse gases by as much as 40%. Methane is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide and it's caused by burps. A cow emits as much greenhouse gas as a small car in a year. 15% of global emissions are attributed to livestock because animal numbers have skyrocketed to feed a growing human population. Rob Kinley, the chief scientist at Futurefeed, was motivated by the increase to find a seaweed species with even more methane-reducing power. The Asparagopsis species showed up in a big way after we started testing seaweeds from coastal Australia. Kinley said that they didn't believe what they were seeing. It took multiple runs of testing before we believed what we were seeing. Kinley's research showed that Asparagopsis, a common type of red seaweed, has the potential to eliminate methane emissions from livestock. It's not easy to harvest from the ocean, so scientists are experimenting with farming it. Josh Goldman, project leader at Greener Grazing, is one of the people who are getting closer to perfect the techniques. There is a challenge in encouraging cow owners to use seaweed. Adding seaweed to a cow's diet will make them consume less food. He says that dairy farmers and cattle ranchers will be able to sell carbon credits for the emissions they reduce.
Goldman said that eliminating methane from almost all cow's on Earth would have a tremendous impact, equivalent to taking every car off the road globally.
"It's clear that methane reduction from seaweed is effective in the short-term," the article concludes, "but there's some fear that its effects may diminish over time as the cow's digestive systems adapt."
