Guest blog from GROCE (Get Rid of Cow Emissions)

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*Yes, today it's my turn to take a back seat . Dreams and Daemons hosts its second guest blogger, whose name you may have encountered in the press, from proceedings at the Horseferry Rd Magistrates Courts. Or perhaps you have seen her on TV being dragged by her hair or feet into waiting Black Marias by the Metropolitan Police. It is Chardonnay Crabtree, the Chairperson of GROCE ("Get Rid of Cow Emissions"). Whilst I don't agree with all her positions, and certainly not her understanding of the sciences, I feel she has a timely message to offer which should be heard. Over to you, Chardonnay.

GROCE Campaign logo: " Get Rid Of Cow Emissions"

Hello people. Please spare a minute or two to read my message, and try to suspend any judgements you have formed about me and my organization. Most of what you have read is probably lies, put out by the beef and dairy industry, as well as my step-Dad.

GROCE was formed last year by me and my best friend Stasi (that's pronounced Stacey, BTW) straight after we did our GCSE's in Enviromental Science.

After learning all about Global Warning we felt we just had to do something to help the planet.

The problem is one of wide spread ignorance. Everyone has heard about CO2 (carbon deoxide ), it being a polluting greenhouse gas (GG) , which heats up not just greenhouses but everything else on the planet.

If you know the facts as well as Stasi and me it would really do your head in . Did you know there's another GG which is a much greater thret than CO2. Its called Methane, and it is a major cause of those carbon footprints.

You probably don't know this if you haven't been to school for a long time, but Methane is in flammable gas. If you live near a landfill sight you can see it burning at night, heating the planet. It leaks out through old pipes that have been left sticking out of the ground. Methane burns a lot more easily than CO2, which is why we should be a lot more worried about it, and not just the greenhouse owners.

Where you may ask does this Methane come from ? There are two main sauces: one, which I have all ready mentioned, is rotting uneaten food in rubbish tips (probably stuff like quiches, spinach, broccoli, hole-meal bread etc if you ask me).

The main problem however is COWS. Cows produce a lot of Methane . Sooner or later that methane will catch fire somewhere and warm the planet, which we don't want, certainly not at this time of year.

My carefully chosen campaign logo above is intended to bring home forcibly the thret that cows represent to our continued survival on this planet.

No, I am not suggesting that you will ever see flames shooting from a cow's backside, but belief me, sooner or later that Methane will burn up, probably up in the Ozone Layer where you can't see it.

When it does you get Global Warming which is a major cause of storms, hurricanes, flooding, earthquakes, volcanoes, skin cancer, forest fires, and bad TV reception. When it melts the ice at the poles, the Inwits will not have anything to build their igloos with, and polar bears will have to go and live in zoos.

So much for the science. I hope this has not gone over your head. I realise that old people who read this blog cannot be expected to be fully eau fé with all the modern stuff.

So what can we do to save the planet from the scourge of cow bums you may ask ? Quite a lot, you may be surprised to hear. Me and Stasi have drawn up an action plan for GROCE.

It is our aim in the coming months to campaign for the abolition of all cattle-raising and breeding in the UK ( except for Scotland, because my real Dad who's from Ayrshire, and still doing stir at the Scrubs, and looking forward to his release in November, says Aberdeen Angus cattle do not produce Methane).

GROCE intends to see beef and derry products abolished and replaced with substitutes, like farmed cod and scampi, chicken and turkey, imported lamkebabs etc. Who needs milk when there are lots of other drinks with a more exciting taste and colour ?

Once we get rid of cows, we won't need to worry about foot-in-mouth disease either, which sounds very unhygienic. No wonder the silly moos fall ill when you think what they tread in.

Our first target will be the nerve centre of Britain's beef industry, namely the Smithgate meat market in London, assuming it's still there and hasn't been turned into trendy cafés and boutiques. Thousands of beef carcassonnes are sold there as well, so it's not just our own beef we have to worry about, but imported French beef as well.

We intend to set up camp nearby in somewhere that is quite and specious, like Hyde Park maybe. Don't spread this around, we are also thinking of the back garden of Buckingham Palace for its publicity value. We are just waiting to hear back from Brian May, having wrote him and asked if he can suggest a route over the Palace rooftops.

We hope through our days of action to impede the flow of lorries to the market and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. The aim is to make both market porters and the public aware of the damage being done to the planet by all those cows and their emissions.

Let me say straight away that we are normally peaceful law-abiding citizens who simply have the interests of everyone at heart. Sometimes, though people don't bleeding realize (if you'll pardon my French) what is in their best interests and it's then the job of those of us who are better informed to take a lead. I learned that in the new Good Citizenship lessons at the Cherie Blair City Academy, earning a near-pass which is in my Record of Achievement..

Something else we learned about was the necessity for freedom of expression, which is why I refuse to be judgmental about Stasi's friends in the Direct Action group. What they do is of no concern to me, provided it's not done in the name of GROCE.

I personally abwhore all violence, whether it's against people or property, although I would make an exception for my stepfather who's a low-life scumbag, and not someone you would want to share a park bench with.

So if Stasi's strange friends exploit the situation to further their anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation agenda that's not something over which I shall lose a moment's sleep. Maybe that break-in at the Pirbright lab, and spreading those foot-in-mouth germs around the countryside was maybe a bit OTT, but I think they have their hearts in the right place.

You may be wondering what you can do to help, now you are aware of the justice of my cause.

First, obviously, you have to stop eating beef , or meat from any other rheumatoid species, such as lamb, sheep etc. If a single stomach is good enough for us humans, it should be good enough for farmayard animals too. Pigs are OK, despite smelling 10 times worse than cows, and twice as bad as my step-Dad.

Remember, that means no beefburgers, steak-and-kidney pie, rump steak, or burfborg onion if you're posh.

You also have to cut out milk, yoghurt, cheese, butter and other dairy products. Remember, there's always crisps if you're feeling peckish.

Refuse to buy anything made of leather, unless you're certain it's not from a calf, a cow or a bull.

But whatever you do, don't make Stasi's mistake: she invited all the media to a ceremonial burning of her motorcycle gear, being President of the Ilford Hells Angels. So what happens ? A smart arse journalist picks up a smoking fragment of lining and reads the label: "100% pigskin leather". They made her look a right prat. That's the trouble with the media - they try to confuse you with the facts.

A final word: we are desperately short of funds, after participating in the Heathrow demo'. (it's unthinkable there should be an extra runway while there's the slightest chance of cattle being flown in or out the country, and there were passengers wearing or carrying leather too who deserved to have their flights delayed).

Please make your cheques (uncrossed) payable to Chardonnay Crabtree. Send them to me c/o POBox 23, Unit 3, The Old Industrial Estate, Dagenham, Essex.

Remember: £25 buys 5 balaclava helmets, £50 buys wire- cutters and pepper spray, £75 buys a pack of non-traceable SIM cards, £100 buys a sack of marbles and a dozen smoke bombs. £1000 buys a dodgy lawyer on the Legal Aid Panel.

Thanks for hearing me out. I actually quite like old fogies really. You're like me really. Non-judgmental, except on the subject of those bloody cows and their digestive systems.

Has Cameron gone too far ?

Methane meters : How long before they are compulsory in our homes ?

Will they save the polar bears?

(Ed: word of advice: it says above that I posted this on the last day of March. But that was Pacific Standard Time ( out of my control; it's Blogger's chosen international standard).

It was in fact posted early on the first day of April (French time). The devil, as they say, is in the detail.)

OK, so most folk have taken on board the idea that air travel does not really leave a trail of sooty carbon footprints in the sky, that the real pollutant is invisible carbon dioxide gas (CO2).


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And measuring our carbon footprint has, up till now, been concerned mainly with estimating the amount of CO2 we add to the atmosphere through travel , heating our homes, and other activities that burn fossil fuels.


*But extending that concept to methane (CH4), the other major greenhouse gas, sounds to me a big step into the unknown, and I have grave doubts about the soundness of the science.


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But David Cameron’s sudden conversion to the idea of a 'methane tax' sound to me like a tax too far. OK, so I have simplified the name: the full name is Aggregated Greenhouse Index Tax, or AGIT for short.


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In case you missed the item on the news, AGIT works like this: each person, farmer, company etc is rated for their total greenhouse gas emission, which is not just carbon dioxide (obviously) but would now include their personal methane.


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The index is weighted to take account of the fact that methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas , weight for weight, than the equivalent amount of CO2. As such it is considered a major contributor to global warming, climate change and loss of polar bear habitat.
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I would guess that most of us who live in towns or cities have little difficulty with the way AGIT will apply to farms and their livestock. They will bear the brunt of the new tax. The importance of ruminant methane from cattle, sheep etc as a major contributor to greenhouse gas emission, and global warming is well known.


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Technical note: cattle and sheep are ruminants, with a forestomach full of methane-producing bacteria that efficiently break down plant fibre, that would otherwise be indigestible and unavailable as a source of energy and nutrients. In contrast, poultry and pigs are like us, in being monogastric (single stomach).


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Incidentally, did you know that an elephant produces enough methane in a day to run a car for 20 miles ? The comparable figure for a polar bear is unknown (being less cooperative in the matter of meter probe insertion; moreover, not many cars in the Arctic are adapted to run on methane)
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What people will think about paying more for their beef and lamb remains to be seen. Speaking for myself, whilst an AGIT levy of 25p or thereabouts on a T-bone steak would not bankrupt me, I would see it as yet one more nuisance tax, to add to the dozens that Gordon Brown has already introduced - usually by stealth, and often on some dubious pretext of "protecting the environment and polar bears".


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Personally I am very happy to eat more poultry and pork which I see are almost zero rated. Indeed the new tax, if implemented (Dave’s got to win an election first !) may be just what’s needed to push me into vegetarianism.


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But even vegetarians do not get off scot-free, given that the proposed rating of foods applies also to fruit and vegetables, on account of their alleged methanogenic potential. That's due to the fact that many of us harbour methane-producing bugs in our lower bowel. Mind you, so do polar bears, so they have to an extent brought things upon themselves.


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Should polar bears be metered as well for methane production ?



Flatus is the subject of much folklore and many jokes, but it's maybe worth mentioning that pure methane is colorless, odourless and yes, highly flammable. So there's some truth to those stories about the games little boys play in the bath with glass jars and lighted candles ....


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So it's logical, I guess, that Cameron's new proposals should target foods that tend to favour methane production. It's mainly those that are rich in complex carbohydrates, better known as starch and dietary fibre.


*Well, I never did care that much for lentils, baked beans anyway,. But I was alarmed to see some other items being singled out for the top rate of tax, such as my favourite breakfast cereals. And Colin Randall will not be pleased when he sees the top-band levy that's proposed for curry dishes, which rates them as eco-damaging as prime rump steak.
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Incidentally, this is where I have grave doubts about some of the science. The in vitro models used to assess methanogenic potential strike me as somewhat arbitrary and contrived. For example, there is no such thing as a “typical” human gut microflora. Methane production varies enormously from on person to another, even on the same diet, because there is a sizeable variation in one’s ”carriage” of different species of gut bacteria, only a few of which are methane-formers. The same is probably true for polar bears.
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Personally, I don’t know about you, but I think that while there may be a case for discouraging wanton emission of personal methane , Cameron’s proposals are unfair: they penalise certain foods deemed “methanogenic”, even if they do not have this effect in all people.


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I was interested therefore by an article by Ivor Greenbaum of Surrey University's Flatulence Institute in Technology Today magazine. (In passing , I'd mention that he's a keen naturalist in his spare time, with a deep and abiding love for polar bears, despite one of them having eaten his grandfather on Ellesmere Island in 1963). Anyway, according to the distinguished professor, recent advances in sensor technology mean that every home can now be compulsorily fitted with a greenhouse gas meter (or GGM -see graphic above).

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(BTW: Please ignore the meter on the right. Although looking virtually identical, it measures carbon monoxide gas, which is not germane to this topic, but I did not have time to photoshop it out.)
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It's a suggestion that David Cameron has keenly endorsed in his Channel 4 interview last Wednesday.
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One or more of these GGMs would situated within the home, perhaps inconspicuously, he suggests , in the master bedroom, and would continually monitor ambient methane levels.


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They would all be linked into a radio-linked network through a dedicated satellite in geostationary orbit. Periodically they would transmit readings to a central database . There, each home's output of greenhouse gases would be computed, and the homeowner would then be billed annually, possibly through their Council Tax.


*What kind of money are we talking about ? The Surrey prof was reluctant to be drawn on that, saying that was essentially a political decision, but that left to him he would penalise people whom he described as "fecklessly flatulent".


*"People need to be made aware of the importance to choose a prudent diet that does not endanger the planet for polar bears and future generations".


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But he conceded that if the levy was set too high, there might be a tendency by cash-strapped householders to engage in a practice known to the medical profession as “flatus retention” (FR).


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FR has previously been considered a factor in the aetiology of certain bowel conditions such as diverticulosis – people learn to retain ("save up") flatus, perhaps in places where people congregate, and in so doing may build up potentially damaging levels of intraluminal pressure in the bowel. Once clear of one's fellow humans, the pressure can be released......


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There is a danger that FR might be used to cheat on the spy in the home. Folk might be tempted to set their alarm clocks to go off , say, at two hour intervals during the night, and then trot out into the garden for a quick and satisfying vent. That way they might keep their meter readings low.
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But sound, as we know, can carry a long way at the dead of night.


*We surely don't want a situation where everyone in a street full of methane meters is driven to wear ear muffs at night to blank out the sound of their neighbours, out under the stars, cheating on their meters .


*That would signal that a well-meant exercise had become self-defeating, at least where the planet's atmosphere is concerned. And where would that leave the polar bears ?


So perhaps you need to think again, David Cameron . Maybe today is not the time to be entertaining these fool ideas. Or there again, maybe it is.


Comments welcomeThink againThink againn*

Filed at 00:45 , Sunday 1st April, 2007 (Paris time)

Comments welcome: email sciencebod01@aol.com