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in diets of cows seaweed promise in shows methane reducing emissions 33 B Y : S O F I E V A N M O O R L E G H E M As is common knowledge, the problem Earth has been facing is one of a great multitude, several projections, and a laundry list of causes. Climate Change is not a new problem, yet now we are starting to see some of the effects of the Earth's warming in our everyday life. This warming comes from multiple sources including fossil fuels, greenhouse gasses, and pollution. However, the top reason that we are seeing the speeding up of climate warming is because of these greenhouse gases, the largest contributor of these gases is methane. Methane is a very dangerous air contaminant and a dominant atmospheric gas, stated by UNEP1 “causes 1 million premature deaths every year” and “over a 20-year period, it is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.” Methane is also made one of two ways, either through fossil fuels or CO2 combining with Carbon in plants and being eaten and belched out by cows, not to mention that it also remains in the atmosphere for approximately 12 years after it is created.2 This makes methane a large problem in the scope of global climate change, and it is only going to be a bigger issue moving forward.
34 So yes, methane emissions are obviously scary and seem to do a lot of harm but what does this mean? What is being done about this large issue? Thankfully, there are a lot of scientists thinking about this same dilemma right now and have been creative in coming up with solutions that can aid the fight against methane emissions in the long term*. The majority of methane emissions stem from agriculture and the cultivation of livestock, roughly 32 percent of total emissions, and are expected to rise to 70 percent by 2050 because of growth in population, economy, and animal agriculture.1 So, science turned their heads that way for a solution. Thus, in 2018, scientists from UC Davis and Penn State found results in seaweed. According to Alexander Hristov3, Professor of Dairy nutrition, they found that the seaweed form Asparagopsis taxiformis in “short term studies of lactating dairy cows, there was decreased methane emission by 80 percent and had no effect on feed intake or milk yield”. Researchers in California4 also found that the seaweed increased milk production in cows which are why “farmers in ancient Greece and 18th-century Iceland deliberately grazed their cows on beaches”. The reason for this is that Asparagopsis’s chemical makeup includes components that hinder methane production by stopping the binding of carbon and hydrogen together.4 Therefore, this seaweed decreases the amount of methane produced from the belches of cows. This breakthrough brings lots of excitement to the scientific community, however, every discovery has its pitfalls and seaweed is no exception. This finding has raised many questions and concerns, especially in applying it on a global scale. Yet, this view is still conflicting, according to Penn State’s Alexander Hristov3 if seaweed is to be used internationally, the manufacturing scale would have to massively increase, and “with nearly 1.5 billion head of cattle in the world, harvesting enough wild seaweed to add to their feed would be impossible, even to provide it as a supplement to most of the United States' 94 million cattle is unrealistic”. Also, Hill5 reports that seaweed farming in the oceans can be done but could pose more environmental issues. For instance, they say that the farming of seaweed could harm marine mammal diversity and possibly add to the rise of oceanic pollution.5 However, according to UCDavis4, this is not necessarily the case, and “seaweed cultivation could actually take up excess nitrogen and dissolved carbon dioxide from ocean waters and cultivating it could create new economies in impoverished regions.” Nonetheless, new research needs to be done on the subject of seaweed cultivation in order to fully understand the impact that it will have on the oceans and the atmosphere.
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