Giving Compass' Take:

• H. Claire Brown at The New Food Economy reports on a new feed additive, named Bovaer, that promises to achieve consistent methane reduction by 30 percent. 

• Although this is an innovative way to curb emissions, the author argues that a fail-proof way of reducing methane is by eating less meat. 

• Here's an article on cultivating clean meat for the future. 

Cow farts are having a bit of a moment. In February, Bill Gates called them one of the world’s biggest problems. The same month, Democrats unveiled the Green New Deal, releasing a draft version of a fact sheet that explicitly addressed bovine flatulence. Scientists are quick to note that the main source of pollution caused by cattle is burps, not farts, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The shorthand persists.

It’s not the farts or the burps that are the problem, really. It’s the greenhouse gas they release: Methane has 25 times the environmental impact as carbon dioxide, and the average cow releases 330 pounds of it per year. And according to the Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture is responsible for a third of the methane released into the atmosphere in the United States. (The largest source of methane, Vox points out, is leaks in the natural gas infrastructure. Last month, the Trump administration announced rollbacks on Obama-era regulations requiring energy providers to monitor and fix their equipment.) Cattle and their burps have played a major role in conversations about meat and climate change.

Read the full article on reducing methane emissions from cows by H. Claire Brown at The New Food Economy.