It's a car! It's a plane! It's George Bush!

No, it's cows.

Cows are the biggest threat to global warming. How? By farting. A study released by The Food and Agricultural Organization, sponsored by the UN, states that carbon gas emissions from cow flatulence is the source of 18% of all greenhouse gases.

The study, called Livestock's Long Shadow, goes on to state that in addition to the cow flatus,

Burning fuel to produce fertiliser to grow feed, to produce meat and to transport it - and clearing vegetation for grazing - produces 9 per cent of all emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. And their wind and manure emit more than one third of emissions of another, methane, which warms the world 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

Livestock also produces more than 100 other polluting gases, including more than two-thirds of the world's emissions of ammonia, one of the main causes of acid rain.

Ranching, the report adds, is "the major driver of deforestation" worldwide, and overgrazing is turning a fifth of all pastures and ranges into desert.Cows also soak up vast amounts of water: it takes a staggering 990 litres of water to produce one litre of milk.*

So what does this mean? Should the Great Wiki Karmel do his part and become a vegetarian (like FGS (Fort Worth, TX))**? Well...I'm not going to. But my loyal readers are certainly more than welcome to. Salami is just tooooooo good. (Side note: this was a link from the salami page in Wikipedia. I love the name.)

*This is actually from an article in the Independent, a newspaper in the U.K., talking about the report. The Independent is a liberal leaning newspaper that won the National Newspaper of the Year award at the 2004 British Press Awards. Bono is a columnist for the Independent.

**FGS (Fort Worth, TX) is not actually a vegetarian. But the Hess Truck is, which, for all intents and purposes, makes him one too.