THE DEATH OF COMMON SENSE No. 4
"Want To Stop Global Warming? Eat A Steak."

Here's the deal.

I don't think we're doing everything we can to take care of the planet.
I don't think recycling is a complete waste of time.
And I don't think we should just throw our hands up and continue being a bitch to foreign oil.
I think looking out for our world is important. But if one more liberal beats me up about global warming, I'm gonna spontaneously combust.

Yesterday, some little 11-year-old tree hugger came up to me and started pounding me about the size of the carbon footprint I'm leaving. I was floored. So I fired back with the only thing I could think to say - "Go to bed Matthew!"

The truth is, I'm really just tired of taking the heat, literally and figuratively, for the cows. Have you seen what they're doing?

According to Cecil Adams, the Right Reverend of The Straight Dope, we know "animal methane presents a definite threat to the biota. In fact, research suggests that cows emit about 400 quarts' worth of burps every single day." Some argue that it's flatulence. Personally, I could care less. Any air being forced out of a cow is bound to be bad.

The numbers show that "18 percent of the greenhouse effect is caused by methane, putting it second on the list of offending gases behind carbon dioxide. Methane breaks down in the atmosphere to form carbon dioxide, ozone, and water, all of which absorb heat. The temperature of the atmosphere rises, the ice caps melt, and next thing you know you're pumping the Atlantic Ocean out of your basement."

Adams goes on to point out that there are several major sources of methane: "rice paddies, swamps and wetlands (methane-producing bacteria thrive in the underwater environment), mining and oil drilling, landfills, termites (although there's still some controversy on this one), "biomass burning" (notably in the Amazon rain forest), and animals. Ninety percent of animal methane is produced by ruminants (i.e., cud-chewers). These include sheep, goats, camels, water buffalo, and so on, but most of all cattle, of which the world has an estimated 1.2 billion."

You really want to do something to slow down global warming? Drive your SUV to DQ and eat a double cheeseburger.

Twenty years ago when I first met Ginger's little brother he was about six or seven and proceeded to tell me I shouldn't eat at McDonald's because they were killing the rain forest. Maybe so. But they're killin' a whole lot of flatulent cows too so let's just call it a wash, huh?

And while we're at it, let's give a little love to the fields in Southeast Asia. Rice paddies give off huge quantities of Methane and according to the International Rice Institute, global rice fields cover more than 600,000 square miles. That's an area six times as big as the U.K. What's next? Do I have to give up eating Jambalaya and Kung Pao Chicken?

Like I said, I know we can do better. But to figure out how, can we please stop with the hysteria and the telethons to save the Polar Bear?

They're pale. They could use a little sun.