“We are very pleased that the countries that participated in the conference committed to good practices in livestock not only to adapt to climate change but also to mitigate methane emissions. This includes countries from five continents and most of the major cattle-producing countries of the west of the world,” said Esteban Valenzuela, Chile’s Agricultural Minister.
https://www.globalmethanehub.org/2023/05/17/major-livestock-producing-countries-commit-to-mitigate-methane-in-agriculture/
In a remarkable display of ignorance towards the very thing they propose to ‘save’, thirteen nations, including the United States, have entered into a pact that is effectively a death knell to agriculture. They have agreed to stymie food production by closing farms to reduce “methane emissions”, in a bid to combat so-called ‘global warming’.
This is a mirthless example of international governments endorsing self-inflicted starvation in the name of an ever-nebulous climate crusade. The insatiable beast of Climate Change alarmism is now demanding that we feed it with the very food off our plates.
The Global Methane Pledge: A Recipe for Disaster?
The nations in question include some of the world’s largest producers of meat – the U.S., Australia, Brazil, and Argentina. Their signature on this pact promises to significantly cut the global supply of meat and dairy. Such actions are akin to trying to extinguish a fire by dousing it with gasoline; the result will be catastrophic.
In the name of reducing methane, they are jeopardizing their citizens’ access to nutritious food. Indeed, the bitter irony here is that the methods used to combat ‘global warming’ could leave us in a world where the heat of hunger burns brighter than the sun’s rays.
“I am glad to see the shared commitment by the international community to mitigate methane emissions from agriculture as a means to achieve the goals we signed for in the Paris Agreement on climate,” said Luis Planas, Spain’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
https://www.globalmethanehub.org/2023/05/17/major-livestock-producing-countries-commit-to-mitigate-methane-in-agriculture/
Who Decides Our Future: Farmers or Folly?
John Kerry, the U.S.’ “Climate Czar”, has repeatedly urged farmers to curtail food production to meet the vague ‘Net Zero’ goals. The absurdity of such a demand is palpable – it’s like asking the fire department to stop putting out fires to save water.
“Mitigating methane is the fastest way to reduce warming in the short term. Food and agriculture can contribute to a low-methane future by improving farmer productivity and resilience. We welcome agriculture ministers participating in the implementation of the Global Methane Pledge,” said John Kerry, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.
https://www.globalmethanehub.org/2023/05/17/major-livestock-producing-countries-commit-to-mitigate-methane-in-agriculture/
Food systems, as the Global Methane Hub declares, are responsible for a substantial part of methane emissions, but so what? Methane is not a problem, AT ALL! A future devoid of food in the name of cutting methane emissions is not a future anyone should look forward to.
Green Masquerade
This latest move adds to the ever-growing pile of evidence that the green agenda is morphing into an unelected bureaucratic monster that seeks to trample over sovereign nations and their citizens’ rights. The proponents of this agenda are playing a dangerous game, framing an unsubstantiated ‘climate emergency’ as the gravest existential threat and using it as an excuse to erode our quality of life.
However, the narrative is crumbling. Noted experts, such as Dr. John Clauser, co-winner of the 2022 Nobel Physics prize, have come out to condemn this false ‘climate crisis’. He warns that this narrative is nothing more than a ‘dangerous corruption of science’ that threatens the global economy and the wellbeing of billions.
A Pledge of Poverty?
The unfortunate reality is that the individuals who promote this alarmist agenda will continue to live their lives in the lap of luxury, jet-setting around the world and enjoying the very meats they condemn, while the rest of the world suffers the consequences.
This ‘Global Methane Pledge’ may just be another misstep down a long, winding path of ill-informed decisions. It’s crucial to remember that any conversation about ‘saving the planet’ must also include saving the people on it.
So, let’s be clear: there’s no virtue in signing a pledge to curtail food production, and potentially starve millions, to combat a hypothetical climate catastrophe. It’s time to wake up and recognize this for what it is – a pledge of poverty in the guise of green rhetoric. This isn’t a solution, it’s a disaster in the making.
The CAGW climate Craziness continues. By the way, it will be easy for Argentina to meet their reduction as their beef exports have decreased by 30%, due to a recession and crippling inflation. Do you suppose Climate Czar Ketchup Kerry will eat soy burgers as he travels around on his private jet?
I am curious. Is kerrys jet powered by biofuel???
Methane derived from baked beans…
“Is Kerry’s jet powered by biofuel???”
Of course it is. Oil is the remains of beasties that were buried and cooked – about 300 million years ago.
Not forgetting the mulch of genetically modified organic matter, compressed, heated, repeated over millennia…that doesn’t replace/reduce food production for humans.
“Oil is the remains of beasties that were buried and cooked – about 300 million years ago”
Is it though..?
He’s wrong. It was not beasties, but rather plankton, algae and related organisms, and the chemistry has been demonstrated.
Not any more. His wife sold the jet after getting criticism for his behaviour.
Jet ownership is highly overrated. You can charter anything you want, any time you want.
If you own one, you have to employ a crew, pay for maintenance, fuel, insurance, hangar, and capital carry. Most analysts agree than it makes no sense unless you fly 200 hours per year. And you don’t want to fly that much, really you don’t.
My brother used to do 6 RTWs a year for his import business. A total of maybe 300 air hours per year (25/mo.). It dang near killed him.
If you own a yacht, you can cruise the Islands for weeks at a time, spend your days lying in the sun, fishing, swimming, or diving. Nobody wants to spend his time hanging out on an airplane.
Kerry, OTOH doesn’t need a private plane, because Uncle Sugar will fly him on his errands of ritual humilitaion on Uncle’s USAF fleet of executive transports. Teresa doen’t need a plane because she is 84 and stays home nursing her very swollen liver.
So she/he hires one instead.
Probably the only hope we have is for Trump to come out as a rabid Climate Change enthusiast. The Ds will have to lurch so far the other way we’ll be pumping oil and grilling burgers like never before.
Reverse psychology!
Good time to invest in pitchforks for when the commoners decide they’ve had enough with this idiocy.
I bought some NLR etf. Nuclear power and uranium companies. It’s up 9.24% above the simple 200 day moving average.
The pitchfork you need is to change the way you vote. At the first step the sheeple get it wrong. They vote for the collective/communist path. Ie. political parties. Garbage in garbage out. The correct first step is to vote for individuals. If you choose wisely you will get good people. If you choose poorly you will get harmless people.
No, Democrat politicians vote lock-step.
Pitchforks are so old-timey. Now its body armor and AR15 variants.
The wrongness is gargantuan on every scale and every aspect.
Cows make methane when they are (force) fed a Junk Diet
That is, a machine harvested diet that is loaded with cellulosic fibre.
How cows would save the world and they genuinely would is two-fold:
One: By allowing them to select their own food (graze in fields naturally) they would eat only the ‘sugar factories’ of the grasses = the leaves.
This would leave the cellulosic stalks and seed-heads behind which they would trample into the soil.
By not eating all that cellulose, the bacteria and fungi in their stomachs would not then create Methane – causing belly ache for them and imagined ‘climate ache’ for us
Two: The buried Cellulose they leave behind, along with the modicum of Urea/nitrate they fix, would encourage soil bacteria but especially fungi ## to ‘process’ that cellulose for other critters to eat and thus bury it ever deeper.
Cellulose has incredible affinity for water and so as the amount of it increases in the soil, so does the amount of water retained in that soil.
Water controls climate.
Lack of water in a landscape allows Heat Domes to form and once that starts happening, you are in some Very Big Trouble – heat domes are self-reinforcing.
The problem is that most cows nowadays are fed a diet of ‘machine harvested fodder’ and the machine simply cuts everything off, leaves, stalks, seed-heads, noxious weeds and simply everything and mashes it all together into one inseparable mass
When the cows eat it, it rots anaerobically and makes Methane within them.
By allowing them to graze naturally, they’d stop making Methane – so solving the imaginary crisis and they’d make water-retentive landscapes so solving the Real Crisis that is ongoing/accelerating
## Soils containing Fungi are the nirvana we’re looking for.
Again and in the soils, if the Cellulose ‘simply anaerobically’ rots – the organic material turns to Methane and escapes.
Much worse, bacteria are doing that work and when they consume organic material, they take an 80% slice off the cake – turning it to CO₂
When Fungi process the Cellulose (only they are really able to anyway) – they only take a 20% slice for their energy needs, so releasing vastly less CO₂ and retaining much more moisture retentive material, and thus water, within the soils/ fields and landscape.
Plenty people know all about this yet they are regarded as cranks, hippies and tree huggers even before their message is drowned out by the hyperactive attention deficient children calling themselves ‘Climate Scientists’
We are stampeding ourslves to certain oblivion with this junk science
My understanding is that the same amount of methane is produced by either digestion in a bovine critter, or naturally rotting on the ground. Two different methods to reduce the grass to individual constituents. Am I wrong?
I’ve heard that some diet additives, like certain seaweeds, suppress methane production by cows. In any case, there’s money to be made even if only via research grants.
Good idea, if somewhat late to the party! If you google ‘feed additives to reduce methane’ you’ll see there are dozens of them brought out by enterprising companies keen to jump on the bandwagon and make a lot of money out of the gullible. The research has already been done, the additives produced – all these companies have to do now is lobby the governments to make it law that these additives must be used.
Comfortable private fortunes have been made from seaweed. Here in Oz, we have “growth promoters” in seaweed extracts, said to reduce “shock” to plants. Good that the extract might do something beneficial, because it is hard to see other benefits from seaweed in agriculture. It analyses NPK much the same as an old leather boot, so paltry nutrient value.
Yet we have famous old paintings showing horses dragging heaps of seaweed from beaches in Great Britain. Maybe in those days, myths handed down through generations were better for the soul than a lab analysis for nutrients. Sadly, some still prefer muck and mystery over science.
Geoff S. Chemist.
The methane is produced by anoxic bacterial digestion of cellulose. It may not be anoxic breaking down on the surface.
What seems to be missed is that if domestic livestock (cattle, sheep, etc) don’t graze the paddocks, something else will (Skippy, Bugs Bunny, Bambi), which also produce enteric methane but don’t provide anything useful for people.
Another thing which seems to be missed is that the amount of enteric methane produced has been stable for decades.
Interestingly, the SI of Ivanovich et al paper discussed earlier this year has the following figures for methane production per kg
beef produces 1.2kg CH4/kg
mutton produces 0.55kg CH4/kg
pig meat produces 0.083 kg CH4/kg
poultry produces 0.014 kg CH4/kg
Switching from beef to lamb halves the amount of enteric methane per kg of meat, for equivalent nutritional value. Alas, the Nobel committee is yet to contact me 🙁
“Cows make methane when they are (force) fed a Junk Diet”
Really? I didn’t know that. They probably do make some methane even with a natural diet- but more with the junk food?
First 20 years of my life were on a farm and we never fed our livestock “Junk Diet/Food.” Horses get Foundered and cattle become bloated to the point that they can die if not caught soon enough.
I have seen them hanging out at Taco Bell.
The IR spectrum of methane is entirely covered by that of water vapour, so cannot add any warming potential.
Methane = 1.8 ppm
WV = (variable) 20,000 – 40,000 ppm.
If they lie about methane, they lie about everything.
Another IR bombshell to go alongside the only very partially IR spectrum absorbing CO2 trace element gas– thanks for the information, I was ignorant of that fact.
In saying that, in Nature, “cows eat only leaves”, are you trying to say that cows are like giraffes, and typically pick leaves off of trees?
As an old farm guy myself, it is hard to imagine where you get such odd ideas, thats all I’ve gotta say..
Erm, as an ‘old farm guy’ you are, of course, aware that grass has leaves? Just checking – I’d hate to assume you did and then get embarrassed later if you didn’t.
When it comes to grasses, or even grassy crop plants such as wheat, the leaf is basically just a tall outgrowth from the stem as such. How would any cow know to eat only leaves and not stems with plants like that? Thats the source of my comment, trying to picture what sort of grazing would take only the leaves?
What’s true here is that you generally don’t want cattle to graze too close to the ground. But that is for pasture management, it doesn’t have to do with the cow’s methane production. Grassy leaves contain cellulose just like the stems do, and cattle have to digest them just the same.
It probably depends on the species of grass. They do tend to prefer the leaves/blades, and avoid the stems and seed heads of most perennials if they gave the choice. Cattle and sheep are quite happy to eat every part pf cereal plants (wheat, oats), which is why cereal hay is cut when the heads just start to fill..
Cattle are grazers by preference, but will browse leaves of some trees (eg privet, Acacia) if there isn’t enough grass.
I always called them ‘blades’ of grass, rather than leaves. ‘Blades’ does associate with violence, so ‘leaves’ it is. Leaves of grass, a good name for a poetry collection.
I live in rural NY. These are my closest neighbors. They are all vegetarians. I asked them what they thought about the “Global Methane Pledge.” There was a plopping sound from the back of the herd. There’s the answer.
They evidently have more intelligence than that bunch of fools who attended the summit in Chile.
I can just see Nick lobbying in his local area or a cessation of cattle and beef farming….
… to follow on from his climate zealotry.
Have fun with that !
They count on not being among those who go hungry.
Have any of these people read Happer?
Story tip – The splooting squirrel: a true picture of climate change alarmists – American Thinker
When the millions die for want of food then they will tell you they did it in good faith, because it was the right thing to do.
They had to save the planet
Not forgetting, of course, that reduced population is part of the plan.
The Green Blob, and the puppet masters behind the scenes running it, are tipping more and more into the realm of totalitarianism! Is this the tipping point of which they speak?
Many of the greatest warrior societies in human history have been primarily carnivorous; witness the Comanche, Apache, Masai and Cheyenne! Is a high amount of meat in the diet conducive to strength and aggression? The rulers of ancient Egypt and England seemed to think so, as they tried to prevent their serfs and slaves from eating animal products. The recent studies of keto- and carnivore diets show some promise for the reversal of heart disease and diabetes! Would our lords and masters prefer us to be sickly and unhealthy? I don’t know if Allan Savory’s theories are correct, but they certainly merit investigation!
Why does it seem that everything coming out of the Marxists within GangGreen is designed to reduce human freedom and prosperity; if not humanity itself! Perhaps they should start to lead by example. I’ll consider their ideas when the uber-Lords at Davos start arriving by bicycle and dine on a diet of bugs and leafy greens!
How can you say you are saving the planet when you’re stuffing your face with Kobe beef and caviar, while you circle the globe in your private jet!?
We have to destroy human civilization in order to save it.
Oreskes et al wouldn’t save it
That April ‘summit’ is a national shame for Chile, led by John Kerry and organized by a disorganized and corrupt communist government like the current of “Gaybriel” Boric.
I am Chilean, born in Chile, I grew up, studied, worked, got married and had three wonderful children in Chile, and I witnessed the great transformation of this country since the ruin left by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende in 1973 when we were at the bottom of South America (worse than Haiti) until 1990 when we had become “the most precious jewl of the Latin American crown” (Bill Clinton during his visit to Chile in 1998). Today we are going back at the speed of sound to 1973 together with the sweet company of 12 other countries, starting with —who would have imagined— the United States itself.
I would have encouraged any of you to visit Chile, the planet’s most marvelous country, with its most dramatic climatic contrasts, from the southern glaciers near Antarctica, passing through lakes, forests, rivers and active volcanoes, to the driest desert on Earth and with the most crystalline skies where the world’s largest observatories are placed, all within the majestic Andes mountain range and the Pacific Ocean that bathes our coasts for more than 4,000 kilometers.
But not anymore for I could not swindle you in that vile way.
This is a mirthless example of international governments endorsing self-inflicted starvation would be “virtually impossible” without climate change
We are never told how warming methane will cause. If anyone thinks it’s much more than 0.05 deg Celsius they should pipe up and show their source or work
See my reply to Peta above, and:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/14/facts-about-methane-ignored-to-support-climate-narrative/
I forgot to sat “by 2100”
Biden is a notorious methane producer. Let’s start with him.
This is a non-starter unless and until Congress codifies this “agreement” in Federal law. Ain’t happenin’. They’re just flapping their mouths.
I doubt seriously that any of the other countries who “agreed” to this nonsense will actually do anything to shut down food production.
This is more of the old – “There’s no problem we can’t solve by just getting rid of people.” Whether it’s stave people to death, kill them with heat in the summer, or freeze them to death in the winter, it’s all the same result.
Humans are the carbon they really intend to reduce. There’s probably a word for the systematic eradication of people …
Anthropicide?
It’s holdomor. The 1932-3 purposeful starvation of millions of Ukrainians. The word itself comes from two Ukrainian words meaning hunger and extermination.
If a murderous, alien species wanted to destroy human civilization and use the survivors for pets and slaves, what would they do differently from what GangGreen proposes!?
Stupifying ignorance. Methane in our atmosphere is 1.7 parts per billion. That’s 0.00017 per cent. Wake up, you silly, posturing, self important idiots.
Not sure you’ve got enough noughts there…
Should be parts per million.
Venturing out into the atmosphere is a risky undertaking for a methane molecule. Lots of things out there find methane tasty, and that’s why its half-life is around only 9 years.
Sorry million. Still a nothing
Around half the world (if we are to believe the fear mongerers’ polls) is extremely concerned about climate change.
Given that the average person produces 4 tons of CO2, they could go a long way towards saving the world and solving overpopulation by immediately and permanently ceasing to breathe.
They are the ones who say there’s a problem, so they can go ahead and solve it for themselves and future generations.
Looking back, it seems that the methane issue first appeared at about the same time as “global warming” mutated into “climate change“. Both were responses from the climatariat to a lack of enthusiasm for actually doing anything to “curb emissions”.
Now that “climate change” has reinvented itself as “climate crisis“, the methane sector of the activist movement has also migrated from “dangerous methane from melting permafrost and methane clathrates” to “dangerous methane from agriculture“. After all, they can’t regulate permafrost and clathrates, but culling cattle and “re-wilding” farmland will be easy for governments that are become more and more authoritarian.
It’s easy to see where this is all heading, and it’s not a pretty sight. Dismantling of the industrial and agricultural economies of western nations is the name of the game. Widespread mental distress and feelings of helplessness from exposure to incessant “end of the world” messaging is a bonus. Combined with spreading rαce, slαvery, hαte speech, sαfe spαce and gender ideologies, it’s helping to soften up the population for the hardships to come.
Lately it’s been quiet on the “nitrogen from fertilizers” front of the war on civilization, so we’re about due another offensive in that battle sector.
On a personal note, I’ve just passed my twentieth anniversary as a “soft” vegetarian. Milk, cheese, yogourt and eggs form a large part of my diet. I ♥ cattle and chickens!
How is this different from an autocratic government deciding to cull their population involuntarily based on imaginary evils that only apply to commoners but not the elites. This is inhuman, blindingly stupid, criminally irresponsible, and unenforceable where governments can be fired by voters.
A nostalgic longing for yesteryear.
This is a two-fer for our masters. First, we cut methane by banning animals. Next, we cull all of those CO2 emitting human beings.
Depending on whose IR spectrum one chooses to believe, methane (per molecule) asorbs between 20 and 28 times the IR radiation as CO2. At its current concentration of 1.8 ppm, the methane in the atmosphere would absorb as much IR radiation as 36 to 50 ppm of CO2, or about 9% to 12% of the current CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. So, methane is a relatively minor contributor to absorption of IR radiation.
Also, while CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa definitely show an increasing trend of about 2.5 ppm/year (about 0.6% per year), the methane concentration is nearly constant over time. If the methane concentration remains constant, but the CO2 concentration continues to increase, methane will become a smaller part of the total IR absorption in the future.
Methane has a molecular weight of 16, while that of air is about 29, and that of CO2 is about 44. This means that methane will tend to rise through the atmosphere, while CO2 tends to remain close to the ground. Due to the lower molecular weight, methane molecules move faster than the more abundant nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and have a higher probability of escaping Earth’s gravity into space, which tends to prevent the accumulation of methane in the atmosphere.
Anthropogenic methane emissions come from two major sources: oil and gas production and processing, and emissions from livestock, Oil and gas producers have every incentive to capture methane even without regulations, since their methane is a valuable product they would prefer to sell as fuel instead of losing it to the air.
Farmers have less incentive to capture methane, since they are more interested in selling meat or milk. Some methane emissions could be captured while the livestock are indoors, but this also tends to concentrate their odors. It is also possible to collect manure from barns into heated underground fermentation tanks, from which the gas is compressed, treated to remove sulfur compounds and CO2, then injected into a natural gas pipeline. I have observed such processes in rural Minnesota.
Rather than trying to ban cattle, dairy, or pig farming, a better approach would be to incentivize farmers to collect their manure (as much as feasible) and set up processing plants such as those described above to capture the methane to produce natural gas, which could then be sold or used as fuel, with the farmers receiving a share of the profits.
Burning methane as fuel is a good way of reducing IR absorption, since burning one methane molecule produces one molecule of CO2, which absorbs 20 to 28 times LESS IR radiation than the original methane.
Has a real study been performed to determine how much “Methene” humans generate when on a strictly Vegetarian diet? I notice a significant difference in flatulence when I try to lose the five pounds gained in the holiday season by increasing my intake of fruits and vegetables and reducing red meat. Probiotics and “NoGas ” pills do not help.
There is also the problem of a significantly higher need to grow double, triple or more than the present amount of high protein crops, to satisfy Human need for proteins.
Also, since it is basically the same chemical reaction whether cattle eat crops grown just for them or the bacteria and other life in the ground converts the fallen weeds, plants, trees that grow in the unused fields the same amount of methane and/or CO2 will be generated. When you add in the increased number of plants the humans will eat to get the needed daily proteins the gas they generate will also increase.
This is obviously an opinion not held by many.
My guess is that this won’t get through Congress. Thank God. And the courts won’t let Brandon do it by pen and phone. So it is DoA in the US.
First they came for farm cows.
Then they came for wild bison.
Then they came for farm pigs.
Then they came for feral pigs.
Then they came for …
Notice that the usual trolls, Nick and his underlings, don’t make comments on these type of threads.
Despite being rabid alarmists and climate shill propaganda believers,,. even they can’t support this sort of idiocy. !
Any representative for the United States who goes abroad and advocates for American’s to lose their jobs/livelihood should immediately have their passport cancelled and be refused entry back into the US. We should never put up with political trash making things harder for the people they are supposed to be representing. This is the least that should happen to them, if their punishment were up to me I guarantee they would never set foot in this country again.
Once more, we have unelected, unnamed people representing Australia unasked by the people, committing the Nation to procedures that can or will have impact on farmers, consumers of farm goods, National export values and more.
I have had a neckfull of command politics.
Politicians are there for those rare occasions such as arise with defence, customs, foreign policy in which it is good sense for decisions to be executed collectively rather than individually.
I would like the key operators who proposed this idea to our politicians and saw it through to signature stage, to stand up, identify themselves and answer questions. My first question would be ” What do you imagine gives you authority to conduct measures that can cause significant harm to our agricultural sector?” Second would be “Did you ask the people if they agreed with your actions, before you signed?”
Geoff S
I propose a change in the names of the politicians participating in this agreement. From now on they should be known as the Ministers of Agricultural Destruction (MAD) as that now seems to be their main purpose.
I believe cows are around 5% of ruminants in the world. What do they propose to do about the remainder?
I also believe the methane produced from the ever increasing (due to population explosion) rice grown in paddy fields is more prolific yet RICE doesn’t seem to be problematic and never discussed (?). Just those damn farty cows!
Rice growing actually was mentioned in the Ivanovich et al paper which was discussed here a couple of months ago – https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01605-8
It’s not so much the rice as the flood irrigation commonly used to grow it.