An unusual snack for cows, a powerful fix for climate
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/27/climate-solutions-seaweed-methane/
Source: By Tatiana Schlossberg, The Washington Post.
Source: By Tatiana Schlossberg, The Washington Post.
Excerpt: ...Asparagopsis taxiformis and Asparagopsis armata — two species of a crimson submarine grass that drifts on waves and tides all around the world’s oceans... could practically neutralize one of the most stubborn sources of a powerful greenhouse gas: methane emissions from the digestive processes of some livestock, including the planet’s 1.5 billion cows, which emit methane in their burps. ...In lab tests and field trials, adding a small proportion of this seaweed to a cow’s daily feed — about 0.2 of a percent of the total feed intake in a recent study — can reduce the amount of methane by 98 percent. That’s a stunning drop when most existing solutions cut methane by about 20 or 30 percent. ...growing seaweed used for the feed supplement could also help sequester carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas, and reduce ocean acidification, because the plant sucks up carbon in the water as food....