Originally Posted by Bkeepr

Methane from livestock has the greenies here in New Zealand all jumping about making a fuss as we have a small population with most of our electricity produced from hydro and geothermal. But a high per-head livestock ratio means that our agriculture accounts for about 1/2 of our GHG emissions.

Their arguments are bogus much like the argument presented here.

Firstly, when methane was put into the Kyoto Protocol, methane levels in the atmosphere were rising - mainly due to fossil fuel pipeline leaks. As the value of natural gas has risen efforts were made to reduce leakage, particularly on Russian pipelines and also the area of Asian rice plantation has dropped considerably, (methane from rice paddies is a major anthropogenic source).

Currently the amount of methane in the atmosphere is constant so emissions of methane from any source has no further effect. The carbon atom in methane from livestock obviously comes from the carbon atom of carbon dioxide fixed from the atmosphere to form the plant matter that the livestock ate to produce the methane, so there is no net change in atmospheric carbon.

By comparison, methane is often tapped off coal deposits before mining, to be burnt or simply released, this is fossil carbon that eventually adds to atmospheric CO2 levels yet is exempt from Kyoto Protocol accounting.

If you replace meat eating by demanding plant-only food sources then the amount of land required for food production would go up as humans have evolved away from the all-plant diet of the other large apes and as a consequence have lost the large digestive tract necessary for relatively efficient plant material digestion like that of an obligate herbivore. In addition horticulture requires large inputs of fertilizer, (increasing nitrogen GHGs) and soil exposure/disturbance, (increasing loss of stored carbon from the organic component of soils adding to the atmosphere). Forget "organic" farming, the increase in horticulture required to feed us will demand even more large scale factory farming. Meat eating is a far more land efficient food source.

Secondly, the accounting of methane sources is extremely flexible depending on who is providing the numbers. Termites alone are the most prolific animal but who has counted their total nests. Lake and shallow sea beds probably total the largest source by a large margin but nobody has measured all the lakes of the world so this total is unknown as well, let alone the amount of deep sea methane seeps, however the net emissions of water bodies is greater per square metre than livestock farmland.

When emissions from livestock are quoted, they are always derived from physically measuring a selection of animals and multiplying by total head count, but this is only the gross production. What is known by few people and is never accounted for, is the metabolism of methane by a particular group of bacteria known as methanotrophs. (By the way, technically, methane is not produced by bacteria, but by species of archaeabacteria - a totally separate kingdom of organisms).

Methanotrophs live in soils and aerobic water and are the major control on atmospheric methane levels, despite what climatologists and atmospheric chemistry scientists who have never studied microbiology may say. The true emissions of livestock farms are the gross animal production less the uptake by resident methanotrophs. In many cases, farms may be net sinks of methane as they are also taking up the net methane production from nearby wetlands, lakes, coal mines, etc to maintain atmospheric stasis.

Thirdly, the actual concentration of methane in the atmosphere is nearly always glossed over by those doing a rant about livestock, by diverting attention to methane's "CO2 equivalent power" - usually described as "a powerful gas". Actually, I reserve that description for GHG chemicals such as those released by aluminium smelters that have a rating of 23,000x CO2 equivalence.

Anyway, methane is just under 1.8 parts per million(ppm) and nitrous oxide a fraction of this. All this fuss over a gas that is not increasing and only accounts for less than 2 millimeters of every kilometer of atmosphere over our heads, compared to CO2 at mid 380's ppm (even this is trivial in the atmosphere compared to water at average 10,000ppm). Comparing methane by its CO2 equivalence is an effect not much more than the yearly fluctuation of CO2 levels due uptake by northern hemisphere trees growing new leaves in the spring and dropping them to rot in the winter.

For an organism to survive on a resource measured at less than 2 ppm is amazing and I like to needle the anti-livestock greenies by accusing them of trying to reduce this resource by eliminating livestock and thereby risking an extinction event and loss of biodiversity! However, in reality, eliminating all animals would only make a small drop in methane levels (plants would still die, rot and form methane - even composts produce methane, but usually most of this is consumed by the methanotrophs present).

If the methane levels were dropped by eliminating the animals, the methanotroph metabolism would simply slow down until the other sources of methane such as lakes and wetlands built the atmospheric levels back up.

So! Allowing livestock emissions has no effect on atmospheric methane concentrations and stopping livestock methane emissions should have no effect on atmospheric concentrations.

Finally, I wonder why the GHG greenies focus on the trivial effects of livestock GHG emissions but ignore the GHG emissions of forests. Trees produce most of the next largest biologically derived GHG hydrocarbon, namely isoprene, as well as others such as methylbutenol, ethanol, ethylene. Also the oxidation of isoprene in the atmosphere results in increased levels of ozone - another GHG. And don't forget transpiration of water vapour. Water in the atmosphere has by far the most dominant GHG effect and drowns out even CO2.

The arguments against livestock is fundamently empty yet there are several factors suggesting forests outside the tropics have a climate heating effect.

Originally Posted by Bkeepr

Methane from livestock has the greenies here in New Zealand all jumping about making a fuss as we have a small population with most of our electricity produced from hydro and geothermal. But a high per-head livestock ratio means that our agriculture accounts for about 1/2 of our GHG emissions.

Their arguments are bogus much like the argument presented here.

Firstly, when methane was put into the Kyoto Protocol, methane levels in the atmosphere were rising - mainly due to fossil fuel pipeline leaks. As the value of natural gas has risen efforts were made to reduce leakage, particularly on Russian pipelines and also the area of Asian rice plantation has dropped considerably, (methane from rice paddies is a major anthropogenic source).

Currently the amount of methane in the atmosphere is constant so emissions of methane from any source has no further effect. The carbon atom in methane from livestock obviously comes from the carbon atom of carbon dioxide fixed from the atmosphere to form the plant matter that the livestock ate to produce the methane, so there is no net change in atmospheric carbon.

By comparison, methane is often tapped off coal deposits before mining, to be burnt or simply released, this is fossil carbon that eventually adds to atmospheric CO2 levels yet is exempt from Kyoto Protocol accounting.

If you replace meat eating by demanding plant-only food sources then the amount of land required for food production would go up as humans have evolved away from the all-plant diet of the other large apes and as a consequence have lost the large digestive tract necessary for relatively efficient plant material digestion like that of an obligate herbivore. In addition horticulture requires large inputs of fertilizer, (increasing nitrogen GHGs) and soil exposure/disturbance, (increasing loss of stored carbon from the organic component of soils adding to the atmosphere). Forget "organic" farming, the increase in horticulture required to feed us will demand even more large scale factory farming. Meat eating is a far more land efficient food source.

Secondly, the accounting of methane sources is extremely flexible depending on who is providing the numbers. Termites alone are the most prolific animal but who has counted their total nests. Lake and shallow sea beds probably total the largest source by a large margin but nobody has measured all the lakes of the world so this total is unknown as well, let alone the amount of deep sea methane seeps, however the net emissions of water bodies is greater per square metre than livestock farmland.

When emissions from livestock are quoted, they are always derived from physically measuring a selection of animals and multiplying by total head count, but this is only the gross production. What is known by few people and is never accounted for, is the metabolism of methane by a particular group of bacteria known as methanotrophs. (By the way, technically, methane is not produced by bacteria, but by species of archaeabacteria - a totally separate kingdom of organisms).

Methanotrophs live in soils and aerobic water and are the major control on atmospheric methane levels, despite what climatologists and atmospheric chemistry scientists who have never studied microbiology may say. The true emissions of livestock farms are the gross animal production less the uptake by resident methanotrophs. In many cases, farms may be net sinks of methane as they are also taking up the net methane production from nearby wetlands, lakes, coal mines, etc to maintain atmospheric stasis.

Thirdly, the actual concentration of methane in the atmosphere is nearly always glossed over by those doing a rant about livestock, by diverting attention to methane's "CO2 equivalent power" - usually described as "a powerful gas". Actually, I reserve that description for GHG chemicals such as those released by aluminium smelters that have a rating of 23,000x CO2 equivalence.

Anyway, methane is just under 1.8 parts per million(ppm) and nitrous oxide a fraction of this. All this fuss over a gas that is not increasing and only accounts for less than 2 millimeters of every kilometer of atmosphere over our heads, compared to CO2 at mid 380's ppm (even this is trivial in the atmosphere compared to water at average 10,000ppm). Comparing methane by its CO2 equivalence is an effect not much more than the yearly fluctuation of CO2 levels due uptake by northern hemisphere trees growing new leaves in the spring and dropping them to rot in the winter.

For an organism to survive on a resource measured at less than 2 ppm is amazing and I like to needle the anti-livestock greenies by accusing them of trying to reduce this resource by eliminating livestock and thereby risking an extinction event and loss of biodiversity! However, in reality, eliminating all animals would only make a small drop in methane levels (plants would still die, rot and form methane - even composts produce methane, but usually most of this is consumed by the methanotrophs present).

If the methane levels were dropped by eliminating the animals, the methanotroph metabolism would simply slow down until the other sources of methane such as lakes and wetlands built the atmospheric levels back up.

So! Allowing livestock emissions has no effect on atmospheric methane concentrations and stopping livestock methane emissions should have no effect on atmospheric concentrations.

Finally, I wonder why the GHG greenies focus on the trivial effects of livestock GHG emissions but ignore the GHG emissions of forests. Trees produce most of the next largest biologically derived GHG hydrocarbon, namely isoprene, as well as others such as methylbutenol, ethanol, ethylene. Also the oxidation of isoprene in the atmosphere results in increased levels of ozone - another GHG. And don't forget transpiration of water vapour. Water in the atmosphere has by far the most dominant GHG effect and drowns out even CO2.

The arguments against livestock is fundamently empty yet there are several factors suggesting forests outside the tropics have a climate heating effect.

Originally Posted by Insipid

It's amazing how a post this intelligent SOUNDING can be that patently ridiculous. Basically you're saying that to stop global warming we need to cut down trees?

Originally Posted by The_Heretic

You- of course, had to lie about what he just said. Someone, again, proved you to be completely full of shit and you will, again, pretend it didn't happen by hiding under your extremist ideological bed. So now you've learned from a biologist [myself] as well as a professional beekeeper [the username's a dead giveaway] and countless other people with education and/or training in the sciences involved in global warming or the environment in general.

Originally Posted by Insipid

In order to get the factory farm or meat industry to adapt these improved practices you must impose upon them penalties for not addressing those practices. Simply stating how wonderful it would be if the meat industry did something is not going to change them one bit. A mass of people refusing to buy their products might. If all they did in Thelma was right pamphlets blacks would still be on the back of the bus. It was not buying the tickets that did the trick.

Originally Posted by vadger1

How is it possible to argue against this?

Originally Posted by vadger1

It's not about changing regulations IMO, but changing demand. I'm a vegetarian and it's still seen as a fringe lifestyle out here -- people expect you to eat meat. We have to change the general attitudes towards vegetarians and provide incentives for people to start cutting meat from their diets. For the most part vegetarianism is cheaper but I don't think that's enough to convince people to adopt a different lifestyle.

What we need is to change the norms in this country and discourage overconsumption.

Something like this is a good start because it has the potential to help people see that vegetarianism is easy and generally good for you.

The argument shouldn't be "is the meat industry bad for the environment?" because all evidence points to yes, specifics about the potential value of cow shit aside. None of this a coherent argument against vegetarianisms -- I don't think such an argument exists. Whether or not the methane exhumed from cow manure is as damaging as the article states is irrelevant when there are plenty of other environmental reasons to cut meat consumption anyway. How is it possible to argue against this?

Originally Posted by The_Heretic

It would also help if vegetarians got the science correct when evangelizing their lifestyle. The methane from cows isn't merely an environmental hazzards but it's also a resource wasted that should be used to make farms more effecient and capable of combating global warming twice over.