Scientists in New Zealand, for example, are researching a vaccine that could be injected into sheep and cows to reduce the amount of methane gas they release. (bbc.com, 23 November 2021)

Recently, there has been concern regarding activists who wish to reduce harmful gas emissions in the atmosphere by taking away our normal food. Instead of first recommending the complete abandonment of fossil fuels, they want to reduce all pollution sources simultaneously, including agriculture, which, together with harvest transport and processing, creates 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions (several times less than fossil fuels). They are proposing blatantly foolish actions with predictably harmful consequences, whereas I would like to offer something sensible and inexpensive for my part.

First on the list of trendy extremist endeavours is so-called vertical farming. We are being told that by growing greens in multi-storey buildings in the city, near the window facade, transport costs and associated emissions are saved, because the harvest no longer needs to be transported from the countryside and can be picked fresh while sitting in front of the TV. If we compare the cost of one square metre of an apartment in Riga (at least 1,000 euros) with the price of one square metre of the most expensive arable land in Zemgale (1 euro), then vertical shoots no longer seem so sweet. Of course, one can set up shelves, lamps for proper plant lighting, and mount an irrigation system, increasing growth intensity, but that will be water at a cost, not from rain or morning dew. Photosynthesis will then be at a cost, not from sunlight, and it is likely that at least 40% of the lamp light will be obtained from fossil fuels. You can only improve this proportion by installing 260-metre-high wind turbines and photovoltaic panels in fields where white shirts used to be hung out. The only thing for free will be the insects in the apartment for plant pollination. And, most importantly, if buildings for human accommodation were replaced by vertical farms, population density on the urban footprint would decrease.

An electric lift is by far the greenest form of transport if we compare it with the transport required to travel from the suburbs or outskirts to one's workplace or place of entertainment. Skyscrapers need fewer water supply and sewage networks, asphalt, cables, and street lighting than sprawling suburbs where everyone has their own little patch of land. You can farm trout in your apartment bathtub to reduce their transport costs and emissions, but don't forget to add a packet of salt to the water some time before eating the trout (that is exactly what is done in fish farms to get a sea flavour), and here we arrive at the reason why we eat plants and the animals that have eaten these plants, including fish, at all. We eat them because we need fats and sugars for energy, salts and other substances for cell growth, and acids for digestion. Let's take just a couple of the most well-known chemical elements, namely potassium and phosphorus, which, alongside nitrogen, are the components of complex NPK plant fertiliser. Each of us needs 2.5–5 grams of potassium daily – a metal that is not found in nature in a free state, but which we can get by eating, for example, hemp, pumpkin, or sunflower seeds. In reality, we are eating feldspar and mica, which are obtained by crushing boulders and using them to fertilise plants, thereby whittling away the Earth's surface. It is similar with phosphorus. Our body absorbs the 1 gram needed daily by eating meat, cheese, bread, or matches, although phosphorus for plant fertilisation is also obtained from rocks. Nitrogen, however, can be obtained directly from the air, and traditional farmers do just that. Peas and beans fix 40–60 grams of nitrogen per 1 tonne of yield from the air, and protein can be produced from them to replace the need for meat. Supporting the creation of such a pea protein factory in Jelgava would be a green patriot's step in the right direction.

Now I want to put in a word for cows, because they are threatened by a significantly larger slaughter than 30 years ago, when 4.4 million mentally unstable cattle were slaughtered in Great Britain alone during the mad cow disease outbreak. Let's start with basic fairness. In New Zealand, there are 6.3 million dairy cattle, or 1.2 cows per inhabitant. In Latvia, there are only 140 thousand (and not even of the brown breed anymore), or seven-hundredths of a Holstein cow per person. Let the New Zealanders eat kiwi. Methane and carbon dioxide are released into the air not only by cows but also by other cloven-hoofed animals. According to data from Norwegian scientists, each moose releases 2,100 kg of CO2 per year, which is the same as emitted by a car driving 13,000 kilometres. There are 23,000 moose, 71,000 red deer, and 201,000 roe deer in Latvia's forests, gnawing on the tops and buds of coniferous trees and sabotaging CO2 sequestration in the forests.

Meanwhile, my suggestion would be that the government could buy a face mask produced by the British company ZELP for each of Latvia's 140 thousand cows, which would halve methane emissions. After all, why should face masks only be worn by us?
Article first published in the January 2022 issue of the magazine "Rīgas Laiks"