Do sheep farts in New Zealand really cause Global Warming?

Question

I heard this on the news. It seems there are alot of sheep in New Zealand.

Here's an old article that mentions it:

New Zealand farmers raise stink over 'fart tax'
http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2003/09/05/fart_tax030905.html
"Scientists estimate that methane emitted by farm animals is responsible for more than half of New Zealand's greenhouse gases."

Answer 1

No, but liberals blame everything for global warming and get mad when you question them. The whole global warming thing is a sick joke.

Answer 2

Thee's been a lot of fart questions on here recently, why's that?

Sheep farts, like humans farts, contain about 15% methane but because of a sheep's diet and dietary system it produces proportionately more fart gas then humans do.

Methane is also a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, one unit of methane being the equivalent of 23 units of CO2 (specifically, it has 100 yr GWP of 23).

Total GHG emissions expressed as carbon equivalances from New Zealand are 44 million tons per year. Per capita this works out to be just over 10 tons per person per annum (population is 4.1 million).

According to Sheep World (No I didn't make it up) there are 43 million sheep in New Zealand. Using updated population figures that's eleven sheep per person and on that basis it seems quite probable that they do contribute more to global warming than the human population of the country.

N ew Zealand has a low level of grenhouse gas emissions compared to other developed nations. Partly because it's an environmentally conscious nation but also because a lot of their electricity is generated by hydro power.

So a combination of a disproportionately high number of sheep and a low level of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions suggests that the report probably is correct.

If it was cows I could work out the exact figures as I have the data for cow farts (I have some strange data) but I don't have data for sheep farts.

Answer 3

Sheeps do produce greenhouse gasses from their flatulance, as do cattle. But when put into perspective neither of these occurences is actually "contributing to global warming". The reason why this is, is because the gas in our and cattles farts/burps is a biproduct of consuming food. In the case of cattle this food is grass and before this grass is consumed it actually removed carbon from the environment as part of its growth. Weather the cattle/human farts methane, or weather the grass were left to rot and emit its carbon through decomposition, either route green house gasses are still being re-released back into the environment. In fact, the fact that some of that carbon is stored into the meat of the cattle there is actually less greenhouse gas released via consumption and conversion, then via the rot of the original vegetation. The only compounding problem is that methane is a worse offending greenhouse gas then carbon via decomposition so the problem is not that it is being released, but that the methane is not being captured. If captured this methane would be a "renewable gas" in that it could be burnt by humans thus being converted into atmospheric carbon and reabsorbed into the plants that cows would eat and converted into milk, meat and more renewable gas, and around and around. A gas is only a negative influence on global climate change if it is being released from the Earth's stored carbon sources. If it is part of a cycle which recycles carbon through living organisms then it has a net zero effect on global climate change. I hope that this helps put sheep farts into perspective for you!

Answer 4

We're famous for our sheep, but the fart tax the government wanted to impose (it failed due to lack of support and a certain amount of anger) was the methane produced by cows which we also have a lot of. It is actually from the cows burping though rather than farting. Politicians can be real a'holes at times.

Answer 5

Albert Einstein may have thought so. He said something like, 'the most important thing you can do for this planet is to become a vegetarian.'

Also, look up the 200-Mile or 100-Mile Diet for the facts.

Answer 6

Even Big Al Gores farts cause global warming.

Answer 7

Their emissions =affect= climate change, but aren't the sole cause of it. However, scientists have discovered that global warming itself has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, and everything to do with the newly discovered 'Sheep Albedo Feedback".

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/the-sheep-albedo-feedbacki/

(Skeptics beware, this article is making fun of you.)

Answer 8

That's awfully strange. xD Never heard of something like that before.

If it was really true, why wouldn't it appear here in America? We too have a lot of livestock, so it kind of makes you wonder.

Answer 9

It is almost impossible to find any activity that doesn't involve co2. That is very convenient for the liberals whose real goal is to control and tax us all and to re-distribute the wealth. We must punish the prosperous and give to the corrupt third world.

Answer 10

i don't think so but it could be possible.lol! maybe if they get all of the sheeps in the world to fart at once we could blow another whole in the atmosphere