Best Headline Today: Miliband muses on farm farts ban

Miliband is David Miliband, the British government's environment secretary. Livestock, especially cows and sheep, let's just say, emit methane which has a global warming potential 21 times worse than carbon dioxide. The headline is from an article in Green Business News which did note that Miliband's concerns are unlikely to

"…result in a 'fart-tax' with civil servants chasing cows round with breathalyzer style methane measurers, [but] Miliband did argue that farmers should act to reduce methane emissions by feeding cattle different food, breeding them to live longer, altering the handling of manure and getting farms to generate 'biogas' or 'biofertiliser' from animal waste."

Is this a call for genetically modifying livestock to produce low-emission cows and sheep?

For more information see Green Business News article here .

Fun fact: Sheep flatulence is the greatest source of Kyoto Protocol signatory New Zealand's greenhouse gas emssions which is why the government is considering a plan to reduce those emissions.