Wednesday, 11 December 2024 11:25

Seaweed the hero?

Written by  Milking It

OPINION: A new study, published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to some existing evidence about a simple way to cut emissions dramatically - seaweed.

Researchers from the University of California, Davis, tested a seaweed-based supplement for grazing beef cows on a ranch in Montana. They gave 12 cows the supplement but left another 12 without it; the cows wandered around for 10 weeks, burping as usual, but the ones that ate the supplement produced 37.7% less methane than their buddies — and showed no differences afterward in terms of health or weight.

That’s an enormous improvement, especially of a greenhouse gas that is substantially more powerful a warming agent than carbon dioxide, though on a shorter time scale.

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