This photo shows a fresh, dried cow chip, in situ. It is sometimes also called a cow pie or meadow muffin. Cow chips, simply stated, are the waste products of bovine digestive processes, or dung, if you will. They may contain undigested plant matter residue. The pictured chip, which I barely avoided stepping on, is about 10 inches in diameter and 2 inches high. Sort of gray-tan in color, the chip has the consistency of cooked oatmeal left on a plate to harden. (This why I have corn flakes for breakfast).
Cow chips are the successor to buffalo chips, which became obsolete when buffalo all but were exterminated by hunters. Buffalo chips, and cow chips when cows arrived, facilitated the settlement of the American Great Plains and the migration of settlers to the West Coast. Travelers through the prairies seeking the Oregon Trail and other trails through the Rocky Mountains soon discovered that there were no trees on the Plains. Homesteaders staying on the prairies had the same discovery.
Because wood and coal were not available for heating and cooking fires, buffalo chips became the fuel of choice. If a settler or traveler was accompanied by a cow, cow chips also were used-- unless the cow was used for food when game was sparse. "As a fuel, cow and buffalo chips offered the advantage of not throwing sparks into bedding or clothing, which was especially important in military tents and tipis. One early settler reported, 'Don't feel sorry for us cooking with cow chips. They had their advantages--didn't need to use pepper."*
Plains Indians also used buffalo chips for heating and cooking fires. In addition chips sometimes were used on the prairies as a building material, as a cure for various medical issues, as landmarks when piled high, and more recently for recreational cow chip throwing.
Since cow chips have a proven and important history as a fuel for heating and cooking, perhaps they can offer a solution in modern times for mitigation of concerns over perceived climate change. For example, under appropriate legislation such as the Affordable Cow Chip Act ("ACCA"), the government would provide each homeowner with one cow per member in the household. Thus, a house with two people and a two car garage would become a house with a two cow garage. Each home owner would be required to disconnect from the electric grid and from natural gas service. Instead, the home owner would be required to harvest his/her cows' chips and burn them in cook stoves, furnaces and fireplaces as the fuel for cooking and heating. Waste heat and gases would be recycled to in home generators to produce electricity. In the case of apartment buildings, where keeping of cows could be impractical, landlords or their tenants would be required to purchase chips from government operated exchanges. Commercial and Industrial facilities also would disconnect from the grid, and use cow chip independent generation, solar or wind power for energy needs.
Homeowners unable to afford maintenance of their cows would receive subsidies from the government for feed. Parties failing to participate fully in the ACCA program would be assessed a substantial monetary penalty, which would be called a tax.
Under the ACCA, therefore, all carbon related fuels would be eliminated from use as energy sources, thereby eliminating carbon emissions and stopping climate change. In addition, another benefit of the ACCA is that milk would be a byproduct of chip production from all those cows. Homeowners could sell surplus milk to the government for incorporation into the government milk grid.
Clearly, when the chips are down, governmental regulation will solve all our problems, including climate change.
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*"Buffalo Chips", Encyclopedia of the
Great Plains
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