GROUSERS: formerly Five Smart Guys Who Hunt and Their Generally Smarter Companions: Bears and Presidential Politics

Monday, March 10, 2008

Dr. Dirt said...: Keith!

Thanks for the link. I am going to send it to my colleagues. As someone who leads a team of 22 scientists and technicians who have dedicated their careers to the study of, among other things, nutrient losses from manure, I'm particularly sensitive to McCain's crude characterization of "frivolous" research...

Can you imagine that researchers use taxpayer money to study ways to better manage cow shit? Yuck, yuck.

Them are cheap shots that reveal a lot about how little we expect from our leaders and even how much less they expect of us. To quote McCain from the article:

"One of our all-time favorites, made famous a number of years ago, is money that was spent to study the effect on the ozone layer of flatulence in cows," McCain said in 2003. "One always wondered about the testing procedures used to determine those effects on the ozone layer."

What a jerk. FAO reports that livestock contribute nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all forms of transportation, including our SUVs and pickup trucks. How do we know this? We conduct research to figure that out, including monitoring methane emissions from cattle. Oh, I forgot, there’s no reason to worry about greenhouse gas emissions because climate change is caused by volcanoes.

Keep passing the ammo.; Sat Mar 15, 01:00:00 PM 2008