Don't have a cow, man

An interesting piece on Newsnight last night. About cows. Dead cows, to be specific, and their role in powering trains, buses and cars in Sweden in an environmentally friendly way.

And here's how it works....

The dead spirits of the cows return to haunt the evil murderers who put them to death - something akin to Marley's ghost in a Christmas Carol - and tell the wicked men that they must stop killing animals and protect the environment by developing 'greener' sources of fuel. The wicked men, chastened by this experience, then go on to find a way of running Saabs off carrot juice and Volvos off lavender oil.

In reality, of course, the item didn't quite say this. What it did say was that the Swedes are using the organs, fat and guts from dead cows to produce the biogas to drive trains, taxis, rubbish trucks and private vehicles in the towns of Linkoping and Vastervik. I'm assuming here that there are zero (or at least very low) carbon emissions using this form of fuel but does appear to show what can be done when the political will is there.

An encouraging development then and one that could have implications beyond the arena of environmental and transport policy. It could affect our wider politics too. Take this man, ('take him please'...), his life could change overnight if we were all to depend on ex-vaches rather than oil for running our motors....I can see the headlines now, "Gorgeous George in dead cow-for-food scandal".

p.s. Watch the Newsnight video item.