Explained like I’m 5 - Cows don’t pollute
A. Cows don’t create carbon, they perform neither nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. They can’t create elements.
B. Everything that comes out of a cow, must have gone into the cow.
C. Grass grows using carbon from the environment.
D. Cows eat grass, because they are a ruminant.
E. All the gas that comes out of a cow went into the cow as grass.
F. Therefore all the carbon that come out of a cow first has to be captured by grass to go into the cow.
G. Cows are part of a natural biocycle, they do not create pollution.
H. If cows don’t eat the grass something will - animals, fire, microbes, and the biocycle will continue.
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They don’t create elements, they create molecules. They don’t pull methane out of grass, grass doesn’t pull methane out of the air. Grass pulls CO2 out of the air and it is fermented by microbes into methane (CH4). Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 although it stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time before it does break down back into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
In a sense, yes, everything on earth is basically a closed loop and it all eventually balances out. The amount of each element remains stable. The problem is that things like mass farming of cows shifts the balance of those elements.
What’s really cool though is Australian marsupials that eat grass (notably kangaroos, Wallabies, and wombats don’t make methane. They have more efficient bacteria fermenting their grass so the only gas they emit is CO2
Right now cattle fore gut microbes are being engineered to add the efficient genes from the marsupial microbes. If it works and the cattle tolerate the modified bacteria it will solve the methane problem
I also note that the methane isn’t a big problem, cattle methane is probably tiny compared to fossil methane (“natural gas”) leaks, but we don’t know because leakage is enormously underreported
Methane (CH4) is significantly more effective than CO2 at trapping heat in the atmosphere: by a factor of 28 over a 100-year time frame based on the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report estimate (IPCC 2013). Over the last 250 years, the concentration of CH4 in the atmosphere increased by 161.9 percent (IPCC 2013; NOAA/ESRL 2024b). Within the United States, the main anthropogenic sources of CH4 include enteric fermentation from domestic livestock, natural gas systems, landfills, domestic livestock manure management, flooded land, coal mining, and petroleum systems (see Figure ES-8).
Significant trends for the largest sources of anthropogenic CH4 emissions include the following:
- Enteric fermentation was the largest anthropogenic source of CH4 emissions in the United States in 2022, accounting for 27.4 percent of total CH4 emissions and 3.0 percent of total gross emissions. Emissions have increased by 5.2 percent (9.5 MMT CO2 Eq.) since 1990. This increase in emissions from 1990 to 2022 generally follows the increasing trends in cattle populations.
- Natural gas systems were the second largest anthropogenic source category of CH4 emissions in the United States in 2022, accounting for 24.6 percent of total CH4 emissions and 2.7 percent of total gross emissions. Emissions have decreased by 20.9 percent (45.7 MMT CO2 Eq.) since 1990, largely due to decreases in emissions from distribution, transmission, and storage.
https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-04/us-ghg-inventory-2024-main-text_04-18-2024.pdf
Methane from cows and other livestock is absolutely a big problem, it’s more than all the known gas leaks from fossil fuels in the United States. There are probably a lot more gas leaks we don’t know about, but that doesn’t diminish just how much methane we know livestock produces.
Did you miss the party where I said it is active research to remove the methane?
Did you not look into it at all and not find that it is a cheap fix?
Are you a robot just restating your one factoid (“methane bad”) in response to anything?
Maybe in the future, cows won’t produce methane and we’ll just have to worry about land use and the efficiency of raising cows for food. But historically and presently, they produce a huge amount of methane and contribute significantly to climate change.
I also note that the methane isn’t a big problem, cattle methane is probably tiny compared to fossil methane
This specifically is why I replied to you: you didn’t know something, made a guess, and were very wrong about it.
you didn’t know something, made a guess, and were very wrong about it.
I actually said we don’t know, and your response pretended we do. Great job of clearing things up. We don’t know because gas extraction companies don’t report their leaks
and yet the methane overhead of a cow is stable, and doesn’t grow over time, its not a net contributor.
If grass based enteric methane was a existential threat to life we would be culling all ruminants, preventing all grassland fires, draining all wetlands… throwing a anthropogenic label on methane like the grass wont grow and be eaten if humans were not involved isn’t consistent.
and yet the methane overhead of a cow is stable, and doesn’t grow over time, its not a net contributor.
Emissions have increased by 5.2 percent (9.5 MMT CO2 Eq.) since 1990. This increase in emissions from 1990 to 2022 generally follows the increasing trends in cattle populations.
You really just don’t bother reading things if they go against your world view, don’t you?
I wonder what else has increased in the last 32 years…
Cows produce particularly high amounts of methane, not just because they’re big, but per unit of mass.
And methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, much worse than carbon dioxide.
In nature, methane does get formed, but in lower quantities. More carbon ends up being carbon dioxide instead.
Methane has a 10 year linger time, a stable herd has a stable methane overhead.
Methane (CH4) in the Earth’s atmosphere is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 84 times greater than CO2 over a 20-year time frame. Methane is not as persistent as CO2, and tails off to about 28 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year time frame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane
Converting CO2 to grass then methane is significantly worse than having it go back as CO2 in a stable cycle. We need to rapidly stop greenhouse gas emissions in the next few decades, because we’re already starting to see how bad climate change is going to be.
Also, the population of cows currently on earth is unnaturally high, and convincing more people to adopt a carnivore diet would only raise it more.
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methane has a 10 year linger time, a cow as a static methane overhead, it is not a net contributor
. We need to rapidly stop greenhouse gas emissions in the next few decades, because we’re already starting to see how bad climate change is going to be.
Agreed, we can be better - but attacking food that keeps people healthy isn’t the way to achive that. Sick people are expensive and the medical industry is a massive polluter
Also, the population of cows currently on earth is unnaturally high, and convincing more people to adopt a carnivore diet would only raise it more.
I don’t know if you just don’t bother reading things or if you silently disagree with and ignore them.
I don’t know if you just don’t bother reading things or if you silently disagree with and ignore them.
it was a non-sequitur, it had nothing to do with the biocycle.
Also, the population of cows currently on earth is unnaturally high, and convincing more people to adopt a carnivore diet would only raise it more.
I don’t see this as a problem, we have a billion people with type 2 diabetes, getting them off carbs would have a huge improvement in their lives, health, and environmental impact (being sick is expensive).
it was a non-sequitur, it had nothing to do with the biocycle.
Because your post is about pollutants, remember? Cows produce excessive amounts of methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas.
I don’t see this as a problem, we have a billion people with type 2 diabetes, getting them off carbs would have a huge improvement in their lives, health, and environmental impact (being sick is expensive).
I don’t know why I bother talking to you.
Cows produce excessive amounts of methane,
Cows don’t produce excessive amounts of methane, they produce just has much as they have before humans intervened, they have a stable methane overhead.
I don’t know why I bother talking to you.
Nor I, please block this community and move on with your life.
By this logic steam engines are good too: firewood – engine – atmosphere – firewood again.
Yes, but fire also produces particulate pollution
from the perspective of renewable energy - yes, if you only burn wood that just grew and you find a steady state (i.e. you only burn what grew that year)… yeah, it’s sustainable.
air quality and human lung issues don’t encourage consistent burning in places where people live, but yeah forest fires happen, so the cycle is sound. The fuel will be used by animals, microbes, or fire.
One could argue that this doesn’t apply with grain fed cows… I agree, don’t feed cows grain…
One could also argue about methane rather then just carbon, methane is short lived, so a stable herd has a stable methane overhead… not to mention other animals and microbes eating that grass will also produce methane…
Methane has a average atmospheric lifetime of 10-12 years according to wikipedia. So yes, over a long period, a stable herd will have a stable methane cloud I guess.
But
- What happens when we increase production of beef? More methane.
- How can we reduce the amount of methane (and greenhouse effect)? By producing less beef.
We aren’t increasing production. Who cares what would happen if the thing that isn’t happening happens
We aren’t increasing production.
As in people who consume beef aren’t increasing the production of beef? How so? Do you mean to say that supply and demand are unlinked?
Who cares what would happen if the thing that isn’t happening happens
Where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
There is maybe one person eating only meat for every ten eating vegan, and people eating only meat don’t eat more beef than what used to be normal before veganism appeared as a response to the climate crisis, we just eat a lot more fat
You need about as many cattle to feed us as you do to feed a turn of the 20th century person.
When you hear zero carbers talk of how much meat they eat they mean both the lean and the fat
Sure, nothing wrong with any of that.
But global demand for beef is rising, and therefore so is production. No matter how you shape your diet, each time you eat a piece of meat, you’re part of increasing the pressure on our climate.
No judgement from me, I think that’s completely my own and your own prerogative. But I think it’s important we make the decision based on facts.
Global demand for beef isn’t increasing in the English speaking world. It’s probably the masses of China increasing beef intake
Luckily they also are world leaders in renewable energy
Anyway what I’m getting at is carnivore eaters don’t eat more meat than a regular omnivore, we just deprive soap and candle makers of more fat
Global demand for beef isn’t increasing in the English speaking world. It’s probably the masses of China increasing beef intake. Luckily they also are world leaders in renewable energy.
Sure. That also doesn’t change the fact that no matter where in the world you are, no matter how much energy is produced renewably, each time you eat a piece of meat, you’re part of increasing the pressure on our climate.
Once the planet has stopped heating catastrophically, there might be some budget of GHG that we can spend on producing and eating meat more or less sustainably. But until then, it’s all part of increasing the pressure.
Anyway what I’m getting at is carnivore eaters don’t eat more meat than a regular omnivore, we just deprive soap and candle makers of more fat
First of all, this point holds whether you eat meat once a year, or every day. It’s not about more or less than the average, each piece of meat contributes.
Second, interesting point, I’d love to read more about the numbers going into that calculation if you can link them.
And just to make it clear: no judgement, these are just facts you need to make an informed decision.
To what end, so we can game GWP-20 while ignoring the lion’s share of GWP-100 from industry, all the while getting sicker and losing topsoil?
No need to ignore GWP-100 or GWP-20 or accept losing topsoil. We can reduce the carbon footprint from beef production and from other food production and work on sustainable and healthy diets for all.
We probably have to do all of them at the same time, in fact.
But I don’t know how we best fight climate change. My point was just that eating less beef translates into a clear and significant reduction of pressure on the climate. What you do with that fact is up to you.
Ruminant meat is essential to human health, there are lots of sick people in the world (almost a billion t2ds) and the climate impact of maintaining sick people is quite high. Getting the sick people off carbs and onto meat would really help everyone, including the climate.
We need ruminants to make topsoil, you can’t remove them and create top soil.
Sure - if we reduce the meat production to what is medically necessary and required for topsoil, I’m sure that would be a major reduction in livestock and climate pressure.
I am not saying get rid of all meat. I’m saying that each piece of meat you eat is increasing the pressure on the climate.
Ruminant meat is essential to human health
But what do you mean “essential”? What about the people that live long, healthy lives without it?
Unless I’m reading what you’ve said wrongly it’s remarkable you think most GWP-100 is from food production.
I don’t think most of GWP-100 is from food production. I think food production is a significant part of human GHG emissions. But I don’t think it’s the majority.
