Have you ever wondered if you could light a cow on fire? No? Well, it is entirely possible due to the sheer amount of methane produced by cows. In the grand scheme of things, exploding cows do not seem like a world ending issue, especially when compared to other apocalyptic current events like climate change. However, there is just one minor thing. Global warming is caused by pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, and methane just so happens to be one of the most potent greenhouse gasses. With 1.4 billion cows each dumping 100 gallons of methane into the atmosphere daily, exploding cows really are a world ending problem. Cow farts are suffocating the world.

In the war against climate change, carbon dioxide is seen as the main villain. While it may be the most plentiful greenhouse gas, it is nowhere near the most damaging. Over a 20 year period, methane is over 80 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere. With 1.4 billion cows emitting 100 gallons of methane a day (160 billion a day, 58 trillion a year). These figures make cows the fourth largest contributor to climate change, emitting 12% of all greenhouse gasses, half of all agricultural and forestry emissions and more than the total transportation emissions.

Now none of this is the cow’s fault. They are just doing what cows do: eating, digesting and getting gassy, it is just how they evolved. The reality is that the extreme impact of cow farts is due to humans. There were never meant to be 1.4 billion cows on our planet, and to keep up with global demand for animal products, we have overbred not just cows but all livestock. Furthermore, the living conditions for the majority of these animals are horrible. Through the need to maximize profits, animals are kept in spaces barely bigger than themselves and are fed food that is cheap but even harder for them to digest, leading to further increased emissions from the cows.

Death by bursting bovines seems like a pretty bad way to go — but thankfully there are solutions. Adding seaweed to cow feed has been shown to reduce methane production by limiting flatulence and bloating. The nuclear option would be genocide, but this would only be a temporary fix as ongoing demand for beef and dairy would lead do a rapid increase in the global population. In my eyes, the best solution would be creating and enforcing a limit to the breeding of cows, particularly those that are raised for slaughter. Currently, beef cattle make up roughly 75% of the population and are continuously bred and killed to meet consumer demand. This limit would ensure the decline of the cow population back down to healthier numbers, while the demand for beef would increase the resources spent on researching and finding meat alternatives