Re: The United States in Full Thrust

G'day Shawn,

 >They say a herd of cattle produces
 >more greenhouse gases in a year then
 >100 automobiles.

Off the top of my head I can't remember how many vehicles it is exactly,

but its a lot yes.

 >That's a lot of cow farts if you ask me........

Yep, but that's what you get for being a vegetarian unfortunately. While

there was an awful lot of activity by the major fossil fuel companies to

cut UK omissions there was sizeable help from the BSE scare, the culling
of 
the herds and planting of cow pasture with food crops (removed methane 
produces and replaced them with CO2 consumers).

 >now taking this a step farther.......I bet
 >the dinosaurs had some serious gas as well.....you
 >think that dino farts could have been the cause for
 >thier extinction?

Well no one knows for sure, it may well have contributed, though
compared 
to the major out-gassing from the massive seismic activity of the period

(and the KT boundary impact object) dino farts were probably only a
minor 
contributor ;)

The dinos had it stacked against them, some were naturally in decline by

this time (like the winged reptiles and some of the oceanic ones),
others 
suffered from the increasingly acidic atmosphere (didn't do much for egg

success), others were probably effected by associated changed in
climate, 
I'm not sure but IIRC continental drift had got the major landmasses in
the 
right places to start allowing for new current systems and so other
radical 
changes in weather patterns, there had been a fairly recent switch in
the 
magnetic poles. Then there was the impact, which would've created
massive 
tsunami's, massive fire fronts (on the scale of continents), reduced 
rainfall (cloud cover preventing precipitation), changes in temperature,

reduced photosynthesis, low light, further changes in atmospheric 
composition. Even in the short term these would've had massive effects
and 
in the long term were probably enough to push the "giants" over the
edge. 
Ecological flow on would've ended the lives of others. I have always
been 
intrigued though that none of the little guys made it through to modern 
times - all the theories about why birds/other reptiles/mammals etc did 
could hold for the smaller dinos too, but there's obviously other
factors 
too subtle for the geologic record to pick up that may have been major
factors.

Cheers