Every once in awhile, the climate chaos noise gets condensed into something simple. Reduced to fact in the crucible of truth. This post on X was one of those moments:
Yes, you can look it up.
Cattle are often thought to contribute to climate change because they belch methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas. While this is true, cattle do belch methane, it is actually part of an important natural cycle, known as the biogenic carbon cycle.
Meanwhile:
less than half of the entire livestock sector, at just 2 percent. Source: Data from U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. Graphic by Anthony Watts. Artwork icons in graphic licensed from 123rf.com.
Yeah, there is a lot of misinformation on methane. I think the most surprising fact for most people would be that methane is a far lesser GHG than CO2 for instance. It is just that its low concentration makes absolute increments of it a larger forcing. Concentration by concentration, or even mass by mass, that is a very different story.
The dialog is priceless!
The 28.6% from transportation could be reduced by 3% (no time to show my work) if major sports teams, such as the Patriots and Seahawks, and all the customers stayed home. Get the Congress critters and celebrities to park their butts on a couch and the total would fall by 9.7132%. [High probability]
I live in range country. Likely there are more cattle within 5 miles than there are humans. Both are quite friendly but gaseous.
Doesn’t matter if it is CO2 or CH4…
…. neither has any measurable or measured effect on the global climate anyway.
No animal “creates” carbon…. ALL animals are at or below carbon neutral over their life time.
A cow puts out less “carbon” than it takes in, because much of the carbon it takes in, is converted to tasty food.
Looks like you, as is quite common, left out the adjective “anthropogenic” before greenhouse gases. Natural sources account for over 95% of CO2 emissions. So, the number for cows is 2% of less than 5%.
Plants break down to methane, then to CO2, whether they are eaten by animals or not.
I rather doubt this conversation ever took place. It looks like more AI-generated slop, which WUWT routinely falls for. By the way, when are you going to retract and apologize for publishing the article stating that Kier Starmer was mandating 15-minute cities?
Without wishing to be too self-serving -(I know that what I am about to say is basically an advertisment) the point made in this post in 100% correct.
EVERY carbon atom emitted in enteric methane (ie, that coming from cows and other animals) comes from the atmosphere in the first place. It comes as a result of carbon draw-down into plants via the process of solar powered photosynthesis. Same applies to the hydrogen atom in the emitted methane (CH4).
Now for the self-serving part. Some years sgo when I was editor of a farming magazine in Australia, I wrote a self published book about this. “Should meat be on the Menu?” For those interested in reading further, it’s available on my website http://www.journalist.com.au
PS. No hard feelings Anthony if you prefer not to publish this piece of pure self-promotion.
I must be brilliant, then. Been saying this for years. All animals are neutral, whether their numbers are increasing or not.
It feels embarrasing that such basic knowledge has to be taught to all those climate scammers!
Most people think I’m joking when I tell them that termites produce around 10 times more methane than cattle farming worldwide.. This is just Brazil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqiqqW_Z6P4
Something else to consider in the biogenic carbon cycle explanation: Grass that is not eaten by ruminant animals (or other animals) will eventually die, after which it will be decomposed by invertebrates, fungi and soil microbes, releasing methane and/or CO2.
I’ve had this basic conversation many times, and it is something very well known to farmers (my father has been a sheep farmer his entire life). The biggest issue is that people who have faith in the climate agenda do not want to believe. Usually, when faced with this argument, they change the subject, because there is no logical refutation to it.
Lots of misinformation on climate in general.
Yes CO2 creates some warming and yes, we are warming.
There is always some truth in a good scam.
No there is no increase in wild weather.
No there is no increase in fires.
The earth is greening.
Agricultural production is increasing.
Deaths from the cold are decreasing.
As Professor Richard Lindzen says………….
“Exaggeration, manipulation, cherry picking and outright lies about make up all the evidence.”
The methane comes from degradation of plants (grass, leaves, whatever) by methane producing bacteria. Whether the degradation of the grass takes place in the cows on on the field makes no difference. The cow is just an extra station in a cycle that takes place anyway.
Not that it matters one iota to climate or the planet, but it’s like taking Peter carbon to pay Paul carbon.
I was about to post this for information on the interweb, but got to thinking about the “only if the total number of cows is increasing.” The alert and argumentative activist might note: “the the total number of cows decreasing would decrease CO2.”
Doesn’t matter what happens to any of the greenhouse gases, the overall greenhouse effect remains constant. Willis showed us the data:
Turns out water vapor counters any increase in well mixed atmospheric greenhouse gases. This was somewhat predicted by Dr. Bill Gray decades ago and agrees with Miskolczi 2010 paper analyzing NOAA radiosonde data.
https://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Includes/Documents/Publications/gray2012.pdf
https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf
One of my earliest comments , at the top of https://cosy.com/#PlanetaryPhysics is :
CO2 and O2 are the
anabolic and catabolic halves of
the respiratory cycle of life
I hate vegans.
There’s an error in the bar-graphic: Ag-Crops is labelled as contributing 10.2% of emissions, when it should be 5.3% (the bar is the correct height). story tip