A 2006 report on climate change by the UN estimated that cows are more detrimental to the environment than cars and trucks combined. This is because dairy emissions contain high levels of smog-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and lung-damaging ammonia. (To learn more, click here - PDF.) The California Institute for Rural Studies (CIRS) estimates (PDF) that poor air quality in Fresno County causes about $1.7 billion in health-related costs per year—that’s $1,124 per person.

Recommendations include enclosing barns, which can reduce VOC emissions by 80% and ammonia emissions by 65%, and using anaerobic bacteria to digest the waste and reduce harmful VOC’s by 46%. Implementing these health-preserving measures would cost no more than 3 cents per gallon of milk produced (PDF). Additional approaches include measures to capture methane and turn it into an energy resource, to actually change the bacteria in cow’s stomachs to produce fewer VOC’s, and a host of other solutions you can read here (PDF).

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