An Inconvenient Toot

According to the United Nations, livestock farming is responsible for as much as 18 percent of the greenhouse gases contributing to global warming. Almost a quarter of that comes from bovine flatulence. Here are some fool-proof and foul-proof ways to stop you cow from farting, if you want minimize its contributions to climate change or if you just want to go somewhere nice for once with the cow and don’t want to have to worry about it embarrassing you in public.

Give the cow probiotics 
Probiotics contain bacteria that can help with digestion and breakdown the hydrogen gas produced during the digestive process. Feed the cow everyone’s favorite off-white sour snack practically synonymous with probiotic abundance. That’s right, Sauerkraut. If you want the cow to cease with its stinkers, switch it to a diet of strictly fermented cabbage. You’re welcome in advance, ozone layer.

Put the cow in A Quiet Place 
Move the cow to the post-apocalyptic setting featured in the movie A Quiet Place. It will hold in its loud toots or risk being eaten by monsters with ultra-sensitive hearing. Put that in the Paris Agreement, why don’t you.

Discuss quitting smoking with the cow 
Smoking increases the amount of air the cow is swallowing, which can then lead to more methane moo poos. Only pursue this route if the cow is ready to give up smoking. Do not force the cow. This is a lifestyle decision that the cow has to make themself. If they’re open to it, have them ask their veterinarian if Chantix is right for them.

Don’t let the cow get married 
Determine the cow’s relationship status. If the cow has just started seeing someone, it will most likely quell its malodorous methane murmurs in the presence of this individual. However, once the cow is married, any sense of personal boundary will dissipate and the cow won’t think twice to let out rip in the company of their spouse. You must impart into that cow: trust issues, emotional baggage, a realization of the absurdity of marriage and general doubts about love and whether it is really just a neurochemical facade. Whatever it takes to stop it from developing a meaningful, long lasting relationship. Remember, this is for the polar bears.

Put the cow on the quiet floor of a medical school library 
A big part of the reason why cows break wind so regularly is because they don’t think anyone can hear them. Amongst the ambient sounds of tractors and other animals on the farm, it’s easy for the acoustic proof of their gas grass to be muffled. A little-known fact is that cows are easily embarrassed. If you move the cow to a quiet medical school library, full of overstressed, Type As who have zero tolerance for distracting noise, the cow will think twice before turning on its sphincter siren.

Put the cow in an elevator
Similar to the previous method, put the cow into a situation where it is at risk of becoming a social pariah. Cows have debilitating amounts of social anxiety. Use this to your advantage. They typically thrive in open air pastures which make their fecal fumes imperceptible to olfaction. No self-respecting cow however would cut the cow cheese in an elevator with other occupants in it. It would be too obvious. A cow isn’t smart enough to appreciate The Inconvenient Truth, but it is smart enough to know that if there’s a weird smell in an elevator, people are going to think that smell is coming from the only cow in said elevator.

Accuse the cow of farting 
Again  — really want to emphasis this point — fart-shaming is your best play. Casually but firmly accuse the cow of farting. It will then without a doubt reflexively deny the flatulent accusation. This is your opportunity to expound on the cow the universal tenet accepted by most scholars, philosophers and religious figures, that “whoever denied it, supplied it”. The cow will be so psychologically devastated by your quick and poignant remark, it will never fart again. Planet saved.