Fwd: Re: Slaughter of Australian Camels (Off Topic)

[Andrew Taylor <>]

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 02:49:02PM +1000, Peter Shute wrote:
> Is this just nonsense, or has some politician mentioned greenhouse gases in 
> relation to this?

A company called Northwest Carbon has put a submission to the federal
government including a proposal that camel culling qualify for carbon
credits due to the methane emissions avoided:
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/submissions/~/media/submissions/cfi/127-northwest-carbon-pty-ltd-and-rangelands-nrm.pdf

Its not as impractical as it sounds as their are other benefits to culling
camels, and we already do some culling for these reasons.  So the marginal
cost may be low and methane is a potent greenhouse gas in the short term.

But one obvious weakness is that even if camel culling is sufficient to
maintain a lower camel density, and hence lower camel methane missions -
you may allow higher density of other herbivores such as cattle  which
also emit methane.

Andrew