Cows, pigs and beavers — Government follies

“Pssst, mister miner, wanna buy some bovine belching credits?”

Some what?

“Methane emissions from cows. Haven’t you heard? They contribute to global warming. I’ve got some farmers willing to stop raising them if someone will buy their emission credits. Running a farm doesn’t pay much, I gather. Couldn’t you miners use these emission credits, you know, to help the government stop climate change? You can trade them on the London Stock Exchange, maybe even make a profit on the deal.”

Look pal, I’m a geologist, and the climate can change pretty darn quick if you remember we were under ice 10,000 years ago. What’s the government going to do when the ice comes back? (And trust me, it will.) Make us double our emissions?

“How the heck should I know? Let’s just stick to business here. Do you want my bovine belching credits or not?”

Sound far-fetched? Think again. Busy minds in government are, as you read this, busy trying to figure out what to do about methane emissions from cows and pigs. Each time they belch or pass wind (every 50 seconds or so), they increase this country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively they produce copious amounts of methane, a gas environmentalists believe is many times more powerful in warming the earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide, a better known greenhouse gas.

The agricultural industry accounts for 10% of Canada’s greenhouse emissions, which sounds modest enough, but agriculture is about breeding these environmentally insensitive animals. Government bureaucrats are worried that by the year 2010, if livestock numbers escalate as projected, the agricultural sector’s emissions will rise more than 20% from 1990 levels.

This means Canada will not be able to meet its commitment to reduce greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Accord, even if we close the dozen oil refineries we are told we must live without in order to reach the target. Unless we feed these animals Bean-O, or do something equally imaginative, we will be humiliated on the world stage.

The problem isn’t just livestock. Farmers release measurable amounts of carbon dioxide when they till the soil and plant crops. And the “measuring” has already begun in the U.S., where energy companies are preparing to buy emission credits from farmers willing to stop growing things.

Certain species of wildlife are also on the environmental blacklist. Government bureaucrats who monitor greenhouse gases still haven’t caught on to the damage done by beavers, Canada’s national symbol. These notoriously busy animals cut trees, build dams and flood land at an astonishing pace, allowing millions of tons of vegetation to decompose, which, in turn, creates copious amounts of methane. Some experts believe they may even produce more methane than do pigs and cows. And there are a lot more beavers around now than a few centuries ago, when a certain type of furry hat was in fashion.

It can’t be easy being a government bureaucrat these days, having to worry about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cows, pigs, chickens and wheat fields, in addition to the usual suspects in industry.

In all fairness, the government has put together an “industry tables” program in hopes that the business community will help it devise an action plan.

However, business groups are warning that the Kyoto Accord will cost us dearly — at the gas pumps, in the supermarket, and just about everywhere else. One group warned that in order for Canada to meet its emission targets, gas prices will have to rise 24 cents per litre and that natural gas prices will have to double.

We could all freeze in the dark, an idea that seems as grim now as it did when it was first suggested by western oil and gas producers during the Club of Rome days. That was when disco was hot and the world was this close to running out of all its resources. Then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau thought his Liberal government had all the answers in the National Energy Program. The oil companies thought otherwise, which is why Trudeau doesn’t visit Calgary or Edmonton much anymore.

The idea of government bureaucrats running around monitoring and measuring greenhouse gases is a nightmare on wheels. Why not focus on major pollutants instead? Garbage disposal and sewage and effluent treatment is where the real work needs to be done. Moreover, the government still hasn’t solved the problem about how and where to store nuclear waste, and it has done next-to-nothing about the world’s silent killer — dihydrogen monoxide, a major component of acid rain and the carrier of an estimated 80% of the world’s diseases.

It took a brave high school student in Greater Idaho Falls to get a petition going demanding strict control or total elimination of dihydrogen monoxide. He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical; 43 said yes and six were undecided.

Only one knew that the chemical is more commonly called water, a compound as essential to life as carbon dioxide.