Some stuff I found interesting

I had to do a group project in one of my animal science classes where we refuted posters that were put up in the commons that were fighting against milk, meat, and cows in general. Our group choose bST (bovine somatotropin) as our topic. I have already stated my oppinion about how I feel that this hormone is being misrepresented and the media is using scare tactics so people wont use it.

One of the largest arguements that is being thrown around is that cows are absolutely terrible and destroying our country by releasing tons of methane into the atmosphere. According to K. A. Johnson and D. E. Johnson from Washington State University in their article "Methane emissions from cattle,""Ruminant livestock can produce 250 to 500 L of methane per day. This level of production results in estimates of the contribution by cattle to global warming that may occur in the next 50 to 100 yr to be a little less than 2%." To add to my arguement for for bST, using rbST (which is the manufactured hormone produced the same way as human insulin for diabetics) reduces the number of lactating cows required to produce a given quantity of milk = reducing feed products = A reduction of cultivated cropland =decrease soil erosion and reducing the number of cows reduces the amount of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Using rbST in 1 million cows saves enough cropland to reduce soil erosion by 2,300,00 tons per year and CO2 emmisions by 824,000,000 kg per year. Even though cows are only contributing to global warming under 2%, bST can reduce this even more. I just thought all this was interesting.

While we were researching for materials we also stumbled across this book and website that I just can't believe are even out there (well I guess i can, there is alot of crap out there) but still... Its so ridiculous to see what out there. The book is called Milk A-Z and the website is notmilk.com. If anyone has the time to check out something, definitely check out the website. It just humors me to see how hostile they are. They call some of the best animal scientists in the world "the clueless ones." So much of this websites information is not cited and I could not find anything to back up half the information. I believe this ties in with alot of what we have said about publications and how they are un sesored and not peer reviewed. They are claiming all facts but they have no way to back that up. I think this is a great case of someone who falls under the category of the "tyranny of the ignorant" and is leading many others to fall for the same trap.