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.
Lab experiment doesn’t replicate the methane result in chart above…nor many others for that matter. Pretty good “open” system test setup with baseline too.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=145896
Pseudoscientific word salad. Adding NH4 to air does not make thermometers hotter.
No GHE.
NH4 or CH4? Methane is CH4.
It’s resident time in atmosphere is short due to its ease at oxidation. All that’s needed is Fire or Lightning, both of which are plentiful in Earth’s natural environment and CH4 becomes CO2 and 2-H2O
Bryan, I did mean CH4. Thanks.
No problem 😉
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.
I’ve been saying that for years. If CO2 is so dang dangerous then why do people drive and fly long distances to see grown adults play children’s games at night? It’s a massive waste of energy. All ball games should be during daylight hours and broadcast over the Internets. Massive stadiums should be repurposed as homeless centers complete with mental hospitals.
Edit: The Superbowl is probably the greatest 48 hour period with the most carbon generation all year, and they are worried about cows! Follow the money.
You sound like silly leftists telling the rest of us how to live. Leave me alone.
And emissions from college football are certainly greater than than from the pros by a significant factor.
I know a large family from the Boston area, all very liberal and believers in the climate emergency- who flew to Chicago some years ago to watch the lunar eclipse.
I would argue against the Superbowl being the greatest 48hour period. I believe it has been far surpassed by the annual COPs as the largest carbon generation. As well as daily in China.
Point, Set, and Match.
The Superbowl does not generate carbon.
I believe the proper expression is CO2..
As I understand it, halftime generates considerable pollution.
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.
Methane has no effect on outgoing radiation because the IR frequency that is absorbed by methane is already fully absorbed by water vapour.
Peter Ballerstedt is a great advocate for animal agriculture. He is a bit of an awkward presenter, but really worth listening to.
https://lowcarbdownunder.com.au/videos/
The first video goes into what a protein actually is as defined and how this makes absolutely no sense from a nutritional point of view.
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%.
Could you refer me to a source for where to look at where the 95% natural sources come from? I have heard something like this statistic before, but where does it come from? Thanks.
“Although our output of 29 gigatons of CO2 is tiny compared to the 750 gigatons moving through the carbon cycle each year,”
https://www.che-project.eu/news/how-do-human-co2-emissions-compare-natural-co2-emissions
And many others.
I followed your link. It has lots of words and “facts”, but little supporting data. Thus, I can neither agree, nor disagree with it. I did click on the link to a discussed graph, and I was “not allowed to access it”.
“One of the main factors influencing this is anthropogenic emissions. Their share increased from 2.9 to 5.3% of total carbon dioxide emissions between 1990 and 2022 (from 25 to 41 billion t/year).”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13762-024-05896-y
I chuckled at the insistence that human CO₂ emissions upset the “natural balance” of CO₂.
Even more amusing was this:
“UPDATE: Human CO2 emissions in 2008, from fossil fuel burning and cement production, was around 32 gigatoones of CO2 (UEA).” (emphasis added)
Looney Toones is more like it with that link!
The actual percent of CO2 that cows add to the biosphere is 0, because every atom of carbon in every cow was recently withdrawn from rest of the biosphere. When the cow returns it (as cow pies, cow farts, or steaks) it is only returning what it took. The same goes for plants and every other living thing.
The only carbon that gets added to the biosphere is the carbon that gets released from long-term sequestration, either through the burning of fossil fuel deposits, or from the weathering of carbon-sequestering rock formations.
I think the primary rock source is the weathering of limestone layers, formed from the main source of carbon sequestration: the constant buildup on the ocean floors of calcium carbonate shells, shed by growing and dying crustaceans.
In the Carboniferous era there was another major form of sequestration in play. Before the evolution of white fungus, which is capable of breaking down cellulose, the cellulose from forest growth would build up. I believe that is the source of the vast coal deposits that were laid down during that era.
The evolution of white fungus ended the laying down of these deposits, ending the carboniferous.
Releasing these long-sequestered stores of CO2 can add to the current biospheric supply, re-fertilizing the biosphere somewhat, but the huge sequestration process via the constant shedding of crustacean shells will quickly outpace what little re-fertilization we are able to accomplish through the burning of fossil fuels.
That buildup is much faster than the release of those stores through rock weathering, as revealed by the steady drop in atmospheric CO2 levels over the last 170m yrs from near 3000ppm to about 180ppm during the last glaciation.
Atmospheric CO2 is lowest during glaciations because the cold oceans suck CO2 out of the atmosphere, then bubble it back out when ocean temperatures eventually rise again.
3000 to 180 is a 94% drop in CO2. One more percent drop, down to 150ppm (which will likely occur within the next couple of glaciations, if mankind does not prevent it), and most photosynthesis will cease, causing most of earth’s land life (the life that gets its CO2 from the air) to go extinct.
The land life will go first, but the sea life won’t be far behind, as its CO2 is also being constantly sequestered by the shedding of crustacean shells.
Mankind came along in the nick of time, geologically speaking, to prevent this extinction of all life on earth (certainly of all higher life forms). We are not the problem, as the idiot environmentalists believe. We are the answer, but we don’t quite have the capability yet.
There are not enough fossil fuel reserves to offset that massive calcium carbonate sequestration process for very long.
To prevent CO2 starvation long-term, we are going to have to start releasing massive amounts of the limestone-sequestered CO2.
That requires the cement-making process, which is energy intensive.
The carbon in fossil fuels is easy to release, since we get energy out of it, but the carbon in limestone takes energy to release, a lot of it.
That will take a massive nuclear electric-generation buildout, and that is how humans will save life on earth.
We are almost there technologically, as long as the eco-lunatics don’t succeed in sending us back to a caveman state as we enter the next glaciation.
That is what they, in their total ignorance, think would be best for the planet. They must be defeated.
Cows are natural. They’re not artificial robot machines. They do not extract fossil fuels. Read the article again. The carbon cycle is natural. Yes, carbon cycles (from air to life and back to air) through cows, but it would do so even without cows. That’s the point. Extirpating all bovines would not alter the natural carbon cycle by one molecule.
It would, however, cause mass famine among humans. Mass death. Men, women, and children eliminated by the billions. Which is the actual goal of the alarmunists. They couldn’t care less about cows. Slaughtering cows just a means to their real ends, slaughtering people.
Children need the amino acids and vitamins in red meat to properly grow and develop.
Plants break down to methane, then to CO2, whether they are eaten by animals or not.
It amazes me that all of the CO2 Activists ignore this basic, grade school simple, Fact? Why do they ignore the layer of Carbon in the soil beneath their feet – ANS: because they are up in the AIR flying in a plane making CO2 and don’t even look for it. How did it get there? The thin layers are usually caused by forest fires or populations living for a long time in an area where fires in a fire place, woodstove, etc. were needed to keep warm.
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?
I took it as a hypothetical conversation.
If there is anybody on the planet who ought to be apologizing to all of humanity, it’s Starmer. Unfortunately for him, his latest sack of sorry is falling on deaf ears. He’s history and good riddance.
Seems that “Intelligent” is subjective … if you paid attention, you’d read … “Yes, you can look it up.”
Whether or not the conversation took place, would you agree the premise is correct?
The premise is broadly correct, yes (as everyone with an elementary school-level familiarity with the carbon cycle would already know), although the first two lines are extremely poorly written, confusing, and not correct without qualification. Here they are, for review:
Activist: “Every cow adds carbon to the atmosphere.”
Farmer: “Only if the total number of cows is increasing.”
What the hell is this mealymouthed garbage supposed to mean? That if you add another head of cattle to the heard, then suddenly every cow starts adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere? Because that’s the way it is written.
This is certainly not the case. Why, indeed, would an increasing population behave any differently in this regard then a stable population, since all individual animals are carbon-neutral over the course of their lives? The only thing this could possibly mean is that a large enough cattle herd (and we’re talking hundreds of billions of cattle here) would denude the Earth of enough vegetation such that the remaining quantity of green plants could no longer serve as a proportionate carbon sink. But that is:
A: Completely irrelevant on realistic planetary scales.
B: A red herring that muddies the waters and is extremely poorly conveyed, to boot.
C: Incorrect anyway, since the now starving cattle would die and quickly bring the plant/cow population back into balance.
I really hate cheesy crap like this. This is what you would expect to see in some old fogie’s AOL email chain, not in any kind of serious policy discussion. Kitschy, insulting, and cloyingly bad.
Even nit pick Nick couldn’t carry that one.
Must try harder.
Activist: “Every cow adds carbon to the atmosphere.”
Farmer: “Only if the total number of cows is increasing.”
What the hell is this mealymouthed garbage supposed to mean? That if you add another head of cattle to the heard, then suddenly every cow starts adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere? Because that’s the way it is written
.
That is merely your interpretation of what was written.
The way I interpret it is…
X# of bovine liberate Y# of Carbon into the cycle. X/Y ratio is unchanged.
X+1 will therefore liberate Y+1 of Carbon. The increase in Carbon Y+1 only occurs with the increase in headcount.
Cows have effectively replaced Buffalo.
.
If the original 60+M buffalo still roamed the planes would you be maligning them for their contribution to the carbon cycle??
Add in the vast African herds too.
For someone opposed to social/common language with context derived definitions, you missed a big one.
Cows do not add carbon to the atmosphere. Cows add CO2 and CH4, not C.
Don’t be so literal minded. It is not attractive.
Weather the “conversation” actually took place or not has no relevance…the information provided by it is still true. It sounds like you disagree with the message.
Do you disagree with the Biogenic Carbon Cycle information?
Or perhaps you disagree with the concept of the Carbon Neutrality of Bovine?
.
Before we started “Farming” cattle for food there were massive herds of Bison, millions strong, roaming the planes. We reduced them from over 60M to near extinction (to eradicate the indigenous population). Today there are only 20,000 in conservation herds and a few hundred thousand in commercial herds.
.
There were virtually replaced by our bovine herds…60M buffalo for 87M smaller bovine.
They almost literally replace the buffalo as part of the.”Natural Biogenic Cycle.
Many sources cite 100m bison in N America alone. The total tonnage is way down. That should generate carbon credits. Thanks Buffalo Bill.
Consider -all the grass they DON’T eat rots to methane. It’s funny that the carbon cowboys are crying about methane from cows without understanding the carbon cycle.
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.
… and, just to make it a complete and balanced atmospheric cycle, methane is unstable in the presence of oxygen ie, the atmosphere. The carbon atom in the methane molocule combines with abundant atmospheric oxygen and becomes what it was when the whole cycle started – a carbon dioxide molecle which was already there in the first place.
Well duh. Why does this plain fact have to be explained over and over?
And the H4 portion oxidized into 2-H2O…also what it originally started as before plants made use of it.
I must be brilliant, then. Been saying this for years. All animals are neutral, whether their numbers are increasing or not.
And who cares?
Unless you are ignorant and gullible enough to believe that adding CO2 or any other gas to air makes thermometers hotter!
Oh well, fairytales help people to cope with reality. “Climate scientists” spend a lot of other peoples’ money publishing their fairytales in the vanity press, sometimes referred to as “prestigious journals”.
And why not?
Well, by extension, Humans, not being vegetable or mineral, are animal and thereby a natural part of the environment.
I don’t know. Some may be positively charged, some may be negative….
Some will definitely charge you (so be mindful of your credit cards).
Charge?
Bull. 😉
Humans are Animal and there’s a whole group that appear to have been sprinkled with Negative Energy…Liberally
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
Yes, but even they are “carbon neutral”.
Termites emit more CO2 than 8 billion humans, too.
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.
I see one caveat to the argument. There is much irrigated cropland that is now producing alfalfa and grass hay for livestock. (And for humans – – apples, grapes …) In much of the western USA, this land would have sparse grass and small shrubs. Not that this changes the carbon cycle.
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 entirely.
The methane is produced by Archea using products of the breakdown of cellulose in an anaerobic aqueous environment. In the case of ruminants, that is the rumen.
I don’t think this occurs to as large an extent in dry pasture.
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.”
But the statement “only if the total number of cows is increasing” is nonsensical. Doesn’t matter how many cows there are, they will still be “carbon neutral”.
Yes, exactly. That is why I objected above.
This idiotic argument leaves an extraordinarily easy rejoinder open to the “activist,” and moreover it does so in service of a point that is both nonsensical and incorrect on its face. And this is what Anthony Watts calls “brilliant.”
It does not help the climate realist cause to present arguments that are greatly deficient, as this one is. That whole “conversation” is contrived and stupid.
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.
I’m a second hand vegan. I only eat vegan animals.
Save a tree, eat a vegan
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