It's not hard to make the business case for capturing methane from agricultural waste, which is why it's being done all over the place. Yet it's not being done on anything near the scale that is needed to counter the rapid growth in animals raised for meat. Agriculture is one area of human endeavour that is largely overlooked in efforts to curb carbon emissions, but it's under the microscope now at the UN negotiations in Poland.
The trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations estimates, more even than from cars, buses and airplanes.
But unlike other industries, like cement making and power, which are facing enormous political and regulatory pressure to get greener, large-scale farming is just beginning to come under scrutiny as policy makers, farmers and scientists cast about for solutions.
Get ready for a 'sin tax' on meat. Or maybe we could just plug those living smokestacks into regional gas pipelines to ship a new agricultural product to cities. Call it liquid pig.
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