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Eugene

(61,593 posts)
Fri Sep 29, 2017, 05:40 PM Sep 2017

We've Grossly Underestimated How Much Cow Farts Are Contributing to Global Warming

Source: Gizmodo

We’ve Grossly Underestimated How Much Cow Farts Are Contributing to Global Warming

George Dvorsky
Today 1:00pm

A new NASA-sponsored study shows that global methane emissions produced by livestock are 11 percent higher than estimates made last decade. Because methane is a particularly nasty greenhouse gas, the new finding means it’s going to be even tougher to combat climate change than we realized.

We’ve known for quite some time that greenhouse gases produced by cattle, sheep, and pigs are a significant contributor to global warming, but the new research, published in Carbon Balance and Management, shows it’s worse than we thought. Revised figures of methane produced by livestock in 2011 were 11 percent higher than estimates made in 2006 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—a now out-of-date estimate.

It’s hard to believe that belches, farts, and poop from livestock could have any kind of global atmospheric effect, but it’s an issue of scale, and the nature of methane itself.

There are approximately 1.5 billion cows on the planet, each and every one of them expelling upwards of 30 to 50 gallons of methane each day. We typically think of farts as being the culprit, but belches are actually the primary source of cattle-produced methane, accounting for 95 percent of the problematic greenhouse gas.

-snip-

Read more: https://gizmodo.com/we-ve-grossly-underestimated-how-much-cow-farts-are-con-1818993089

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Related: Revised methane emissions factors and spatially distributed annual carbon fluxes for global livestock (Carbon Balance and Management)

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shraby

(21,946 posts)
2. I'm calling bullshit on this theory.
Fri Sep 29, 2017, 05:45 PM
Sep 2017

Before this country got settled, there were bison roaming the Midwest as far as the eye could see. Huge herds of them. Same with muskox, antelope and all kinds of ruminants in all the other countries.

The big difference is the huge herds of men, women and children throughout the world. There in lies the problem. Humans have to curtail their emissions of pollutants.

procon

(15,805 posts)
3. The "bullshit" factor is far worse than belches and farts.
Fri Sep 29, 2017, 06:06 PM
Sep 2017

The news media is feeding us misinformation by focusing on the pre teen humor of farts. The real problem is a man made, and how we deal with the huge quantities of manure that is a byproduct of all livestock. We also feed those animals a terrible diet that is based on cost cutting, not their digestive needs, so the result is a stinking, wet slurry that piped into huge pits where it creates massive amounts of methane.

NickB79

(19,113 posts)
8. There are 3-4X as many cattle today as bison before white men came
Sat Sep 30, 2017, 11:08 PM
Sep 2017

20-30 million bison in 1400AD, vs 100 million cattle today.

There are also 70 million pigs.

We've artificially ramped up carrying capacity through use of fertilizers and irigation, to the detriment of the planet.

Binkie The Clown

(7,911 posts)
4. Cow farts recycle modern carbon, unlike petroleum which releases millions of years of
Fri Sep 29, 2017, 07:03 PM
Sep 2017

ancient carbon.

I honestly don't see how recycling modern carbon can have any effect whatsoever on the total atmospheric carbon levels. It's like burning wood in a wood stove, which is carbon neutral as long as you plant new trees to replace the trees you are burning. Cows fart and belch as a result of eating plant material that was grown in the previous season, thus releasing carbon that was extracted last year from the atmosphere by the plant material. What they release will, in turn, be absorbed by this year's crop of fodder. Perhaps they concentrate the emissions to a certain area, but they can't create new carbon out of thin air. So measured globally, they should be carbon neutral.


Binkie The Clown

(7,911 posts)
7. Methane stays in the atmosphere about 12 years.
Fri Sep 29, 2017, 11:45 PM
Sep 2017

CO2 remains as long as 90 to 95 years.

On balance, though, methane is more destructive, (1 x 95 = 95 < 12 * 20 = 140) I'll grant you that. I think I need to look more deeply into the issue before I argue for or against either point of view. In other words, I'm not sure I'm convinced either way yet.

NickB79

(19,113 posts)
9. We use large quantities of fossil fuels to grow crops
Sat Sep 30, 2017, 11:34 PM
Sep 2017

Millions of tons every year. Natural gas to create fertilizer, diesel to fuel tractors, etc. Modern agriculture is very carbon-intensive, and these carbon inputs to grow crops filter through to the livestock we feed the crops to.

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