M&S To Waste £1m on Flatulent Cows
By Paul Homewood
Guest Post by Ian Magness:
Marks & Spencer is spending £1m to cut the harmful gases in its dairy cows’ belches and flatulence as part of a net zero push.
M&S said it would change what it feeds cows in its supply chain in an effort to cut around 11,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
Changing the cows’ diets could reduce the carbon footprint of its fresh milk by 8.4pc, the retailer said.
M&S will work with the 40 dairy farmers in its “milk pool” to bring the scheme to fruition.
Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases and has been blamed for warming the planet.
Agriculture contributes 40pc of the world’s methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Cows are a major source of the gas, which is produced during their digestion and released through wind.
Britain has pledged to reduce its methane emissions by at least 30pc by 2030 as part of national net zero plans and plans to make farmers across the country give methane-suppressing feed to cows.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/09/marks-and-spencer-cows-flatulence-net-zero-push/
Hmm, so we are told that £1m (it’s not said but let’s assume all figures are per annum) on fart/burp reduction saves 11,000 tonnes of methane emissions.
Now, we know from previous maths (see previous article with section copied below) that a million tons of CO2 avoided reduces global average temperate by a whopping 0.00000087C.
According to many sites (eg iea.org or climate change connection.org), the methane warming (GWP) equivalent is 28 – 36 times that of CO2 on a 100 year basis. Let’s say 32 times for the sake of a calculation.
So, avoiding a million tonnes of CH4, would reduce global average temperature by 0.00002784C. However, M&S claim that its cunning plan will save a huge 11,000 tonnes of CH4. So, its plan would save 0.00002784 x 11/1,000 = 0.00000031C.
Wow! I’m so excited!
Further, using a rough guide that an average change of 1C exists per 400 miles (= 704,000 yards) of latitude, this is the equivalent of moving each dairy farm some 0.2yards (or 8 inches) northwards.
Imagine 100 countries adopted this scheme – whoopee!
Might as well allow the hedgerows to grow 8 inches northwards – cost £0 minus less carbon emissions from hedge-cutting.
Oh, and, by the way, if cows didn’t eat that grass, it would just rot down and produce GHGs in the form of CO2. Add those “carbon emissions” to those produced by the alternative food on consumption and it isn’t clear there is any worthwhile gain
Oh, and, by the way, new foods have to be manufactured and delivered to farms nation-wide thereby producing a whole new set of carbon emissions.
This all makes so much sense doesn’t it? Well done M&S!
Or as one DT commentator put it:
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
To put it in context, its like a fart in a thunderstorm!
I read another article today, that they are going to make sustainable airplane (SAF) fuel from human shit.
My unicorn farts capturing venture is more likely to succeed than the M&S and SAF. Just waiting for a few million quid from the government to get the start up going. It will bring thousands of jobs to the Northeast.
I think I remember that in the 1970s (?) there was a government study looking into the possibility of using sewage as fuel for power stations. I believe that one of the straplines that they considered at the time was “Shit for Britain!”
I may be wrong but think that the M&S trial is using Bovaer.
Bovaer® (dsm.com)
Methane has a much shorter lifetime in our oxidising atmosphere than the ludicrous 100 years used for GWP comparison, a deeply dishonest method.
A good comment on the article:
“M&S clearly don’t employ anyone with more than Junior school science knowledge. Methane is a non problem in the atmosphere. Apart from being measured in parts per billion, it is only measured as more potent greenhouse gas if measured in DRY air, which the atmosphere is most definitely not. As a consequence the infra-red absorption wavelength of methane is swamped by water vapour. Next methane is very short lived in the atmosphere – it is quickly broken down into – yes, you guessed – water and carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide is more or less the same amount that the grass the cows ate absorbed while growing. In other words it is a closed loop system for carbon that has no effect on fictitious climate change. To use an appropriate american term the whole thing is a nothing burger.”
And, of course, this conveniently ignores all the belches and farts from millions of animals in the wild—wildebeest, elephants, buffalo et al.
⁸To say nothing of our chums, termites, cockroaches etc
.
What about humans? There’s an awful lot of us producing methane now. Do vegans f@rt more than meat eaters? A ban on beans? Where is this leading..? Cows should be fed on grass outdoors for most of the year – they produce healthier and better-quality milk. Even in winter, when cows prefer to be indoors, they should be fed on mainly hay or silage – both grass in a different form. Manufactured foods are unlikely to be as healthy and may have detrimental effects on people. All that excess corn produced in the US has been fed to cattle and the resulting product is not as healthy as food from cattle fed on grass. Part of the obesity and health problems of today.
Doesn’t rotting vegetation produce methane? I had thought it this when listening to Green Politicians in New Zealand. or reading some parts of the newsmedia which are going to be defunct soon because of advertising revenue collapsing. ( American ownership closes them down, I gather) The Green people want forest and swamp to be restored. but they generate fewer clicks on adverts. Many journalists will need new jobs.
If you ask one of these green loonies what the half life of methane in the atmosphere is they look at you with blank bewilderment, also if you ask them how much warmer it was when six million Bison roamed the Great Plains they have no answer.
All this is based on the assumption that the cows still produce the same amount of milk on the new diet.
Not necessarily the case
M&S busy continuing to annoy, recent visit to local store which was covered in Pride flags, bunting, posters- they were so Proud of Pride that having repainted the frontage, they they redid it back to the original- thus creating work for the painters, the posters, flags and bunting was carefully placed in the relevant recycling bins and effectively wasted- all these costs go into the overhead calculations that drive the pricing policies- more waste, higher prices.
As too whether of not the methane idea is sane, M&S could and should publish the details of costs involved in changing the feed, and the CO2 implications of moving the feed from producer to farmer, and where the “new” methane free milk was taste tested.
Methane Free Milk, the cows farts and burps are no longer a climate hazard.
Well at the end of the thought process chain, someone will be picking up a bundle of cash, as ever, follow the money.
Hey M&S, can i sell you my herd of flying pigs?
I also have a nice bridge to sell you.
Investor alert – sell out of M&S; the loonies have taken control so the company will now fail.
M&S, I fart in your general direction.
And what are M&S doing about the methane from rice production?
Point four? They use a decimal point to show they have a sense of humour.
it’s parts per billion, guys. Ferget it
What the ecoloons seem to forget about farting cows is
A. That pasture will produce the same methane whether grazed by cows or not when it dies.
B. If they want to remove ruminants from the planet are they going to cull all such ruminants from the wild? Eg elephants, wildebeast, antelope, buffalo, zebras etc etc? These I suspect far outnumber domesticated animals. And then of course there are the termites…