A few minutes ago I sarcastically referred to our October snowfall as a blizzard. But I wasn’t being sarcastic about the lights flickering or the danger of a tree being blown into a power line.
I heard a crash and just checked my backyard. I don’t know how clear this will be to you in the photos, but those limbs are big, snapped right off of a tree.
This first picture was the view, ten minutes ago, from my second-story home office. Yes, that’s snow. Yes, it’s October 29th. Yes, October. No, I don’t live in Alaska. I live outside of Philadelphia. The snow is coming down now in thick clumps. The second picture was taken just a few minutes later from my front door, and the snow is deeper already. It’s odd to see snow on the leaves — not just branches, but leaves. I’m going to have to shovel snow in October! And is there any chance they’ll play the second half of game 5 of the World Series in a couple of inches of snow? And my lights just flickered, so I better post this before this blizzard knocks a tree onto a power line.
Neither will sheep and cattle in New Zealand, if the claim by scientists is true that they have developed a “flatulence inoculation.” Why the need for this inoculation?
Ruminants are responsible for about 25 per cent of the methane produced in Britain, but in countries with a large agricultural sector, the proportion is much higher.
The 45 million sheep and 10 million cattle in New Zealand burped and farted about 90 percent of that country’s methane emissions, according to government figures.
As today’s Telegraph story notes, livestock only accounts for about 2% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. That doesn’t mean that American animals don’t fart and burp, just that it’s a small percentage of our total output, because we have cars and other fun stuff doing most of the emitting.
It is nevertheless a good thing that our politicians haven’t yet imposed a flatulence tax like the one New Zealand proposed. If I was as skilled a humorist as Dave Barry, I would end with a punchline about men being the real source of most of the world’s flatulence and the dire need for Congress to act.
