* Cow methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than co2, orders of magnitude worse
* Land that would capture a lot more CO2 and keep water in the environment is chopped down or otherwise destroyed to make pastures, the worst being rainforests.
* Orders of magnitude more water is used to raise cows vs the equivalent calories in plants.
But it's also released in much lower quantities, and has a much faster half life. Let's be clear: carbon dioxide, not methane, is responsible for the overwhelming majority of long term warming.
Methane being worse than CO2 doesn't change the fact that it's a cycle and thus it's not causing extra warming as long as the amount of animals is constant.
Alternative forests, etc, is equally a one off thing. Keeping the pastures doesn't make anything worse, and reverting them back would only be a one off improvement.
Have you travled outside the US? This is not true in most parts of the world, I wouldn't be suprised to see it only being a US practice.
Nice insult, btw. I had to send my passport to get more pages sewn in.
Ruminants eat plants, which contain carbon captured from the atmosphere. They then release most of that carbon back to the atmosphere, from where it will be eventually absorbed by plants again. So it’s a cycle where no new carbon is really being introduced (unlike burning fossil fuels that would otherwise stay in the ground).
Am I missing something or is the seriousness of this issue blown way out of proportion?