More than 1.5 billion cows are spread across the planet, each with four stomachs.  That's six billion stomachs emitting methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas that captures about eighty times more heat -- or contributes about eighty times as much to climate change -- as carbon dioxide does, at least in the short term.

Now a new product called Mootral -- like "Neutral" but with a Mooo instead of a Nooo -- aims to slash those emissions by killing off the bad bacteria in the stomachs of cows and other "ruminants" -- which is what we call four-stomached beasts like cows, goats, and sheep.By killing off the bad bacteria, Mootral makes the animals healthier and slashes the methane in their burps by about 30 percent. Can this new tool help to slow climate change? 

Here is the Mootral web site: www.mootral.com

Topics: climate change, mootral, cows, methane, carbon offsetting