I first thought this was a hoax, but it is from a reputable scientific organization, and I verified it with other publications. Australian scientists are looking for ways to reduce harmful methane emissions from the country's woolly flocks, a researcher said Nov 29, 2009.
Twelve percent of Australia's total greenhouse gas emissions originate with agriculture, and some 70 percent of that amount is blamed on livestock, with most of it coming from burps, study leader John Goopy said. (Yes, that is his real name)
With sheep, almost all of the methane produced comes out of their mouths. "There's not very much passed out the animal's anus at all," said Goopy, from the New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment.
Scientists measure the sheep's methane emissions by herding them into a specially designed booth shortly after they eat and then calculating the amount of gas belched. They hope to find whether there is a genetic link between the sheep that produce the least methane, which could then be exploited to breed low-emissions sheep.
Sheep produce about seven kilograms (15 lb) of methane a year while other cattle produce ten times that amount. Cows, sheep, goats, camels, buffaloes, and termites release methane.
"Of the 200 sheep so far tested, about half produced much more than average while the other half belched considerably less methane." (Hmmm, real science here)
Methane has about 17 to 21 times the environmental warming capacity of carbon dioxide. However, methane lasts only 12 years in the atmosphere vs. CO2, which lasts 100 years in the atmosphere. Wikipedia says the main greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
Let's sum this up - most of 70% of 12% comes from all livestock, of which sheep are some part of, and half of them produce more burps than the other half, so let's change nature and breed out the burping half. - We will deal with farting cows later.
And these people actually get paid by the government for these kinds of goopy studies. Of course, half get paid more and half get paid less than average.