Sorry, CNN, No “Cow Fart” Vaccine Is Necessary or Will Stop Climate Change
By
Linnea Lueken
February 13, 2025
A recent CNN article, “How a ‘cow fart’ vaccine could help tackle climate change,” discusses a vaccine under development to be given to cows to reduce the amount of methane their digestive processes produce. The hope is that the vaccine will significantly reduce livestock emissions, thereby slowing down climate change. It won’t. Methane from livestock contributes little, if anything, to global warming. As a result, attempting to change these animals’ biological processes seems to carry risks far exceeding any possible benefits.
CNN explains that methane is produced as grass ferments in the rumen, and claims that it is more “potent” than carbon dioxide, but does admit that it is comparatively very short-lived in the atmosphere. The author, Jacapo Prisco, goes on to claim that “livestock accounts for about a third of human-related methane emissions, which are collectively responsible for about 30% of global warming.”
Here the CNN author either misunderstands claims made about methane, or is intentionally misleading readers. The author cites the International Energy Agency (IEA) as the source of his claim concerning livestock methane emissions. The IEA does say methane is estimated to be responsible for 30 percent of global warming, a point it admits is open to debate. What it does not say, however, is that livestock emissions of methane are responsible for 30 percent of warming, which is what Prisco’s claim implies. Livestock emissions are only a small part of methane emissions attributable to human causes, much less global methane emissions as a whole. It is also important to note that the IEA’s estimates of anthropogenic (human-caused) methane emissions are much higher than most official government assessments calculate. To be clear, the IEA is not a scientific organization but rather an institution created to assess global energy supplies, stocks, and future needs – in recent years, it has strayed from its mission to become an advocate for climate activism and legislation.
https://climaterealism.com/2025/02/sorry-cnn-no-cow-fart-vaccine-is-necessary-or-will-stop-climate-change/
