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All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's

by cjensen 11y ago

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

masklinn 11y ago
> All animal-produced carbon came from the air. All carbon comes from star fusion, what relevance does that have? > It's irrelevant in the long term view. It's irrelevant over geological term view, over "human" long-term view it's very relevant.
- gburt 11y ago
  What he is saying is that it doesn't grow. It is a constant relationship. Cows sequester GHGs from the atmosphere (via the food they eat, mostly) and then release it. I don't have enough data to know if I agree with his point (especially since the GHG changes form), but his "long-term" refers to the life cycle of a single cow.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > What he is saying is that it doesn't grow. It is a constant relationship. Cows sequester GHGs from the atmosphere (via the food they eat, mostly) and then release it. There's two issues with that: 1. cows really release the carbon stored in the food they eat, that carbon could otherwise stay locked (as it was before we cleared the field from which we grow feed). 2. cows also convert part of the carbon their release from their feed into comparatively worse greenhouse gases than just CO2
scythe 11y ago
Not all greenhouse gases are the same. One of the unfortunate things about agriculture is that it's a major source of nitrous oxide, via fertilizer decomposition, and methane, via mostly cattle. Both N2O and CH4 are drastically more potent GHG than CO2, essentially because the atmospheric concentration of those gases is already much lower, so the proportional impact of N2O/CH4 emissions is much greater. CH4 emissions from agriculture could be potentially reduced by improving manure treatment on farms (because untreated manure releases CH4) and regulating feed quality. Both have the side-effect of higher meat prices. N2O emissions are harder: you'd have to stop using nitrate-containing fertilizer.
- mrob 11y ago
  CH4 emissions could also be greatly reduced by switching from cows to marsupials. Emissions are not zero as sometimes claimed, but research on wallabies [1] found emissions "between 25 and 33% of what can be expected from ruminants fed the same diet". [1] https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/pdfs/90/4/1364 https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/p...
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
Some of those more interesting greenhouse gasses, eg methane, can be hundreds of times worse than carbon dioxide. So the net impact is not zero.

by cjensen 11y ago

All animal-produced carbon came from the air. Converting CO2 into more interesting greenhouse gasses generates a constant offset from the "natural" state. It's irrelevant in the long term view.

masklinn 11y ago

> All animal-produced carbon came from the air. All carbon comes from star fusion, what relevance does that have? > It's irrelevant in the long term view. It's irrelevant over geological term view, over "human" long-term view it's very relevant.

gburt 11y ago
What he is saying is that it doesn't grow. It is a constant relationship. Cows sequester GHGs from the atmosphere (via the food they eat, mostly) and then release it. I don't have enough data to know if I agree with his point (especially since the GHG changes form), but his "long-term" refers to the life cycle of a single cow.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > What he is saying is that it doesn't grow. It is a constant relationship. Cows sequester GHGs from the atmosphere (via the food they eat, mostly) and then release it. There's two issues with that: 1. cows really release the carbon stored in the food they eat, that carbon could otherwise stay locked (as it was before we cleared the field from which we grow feed). 2. cows also convert part of the carbon their release from their feed into comparatively worse greenhouse gases than just CO2

scythe 11y ago

Not all greenhouse gases are the same. One of the unfortunate things about agriculture is that it's a major source of nitrous oxide, via fertilizer decomposition, and methane, via mostly cattle. Both N2O and CH4 are drastically more potent GHG than CO2, essentially because the atmospheric concentration of those gases is already much lower, so the proportional impact of N2O/CH4 emissions is much greater. CH4 emissions from agriculture could be potentially reduced by improving manure treatment on farms (because untreated manure releases CH4) and regulating feed quality. Both have the side-effect of higher meat prices. N2O emissions are harder: you'd have to stop using nitrate-containing fertilizer.

mrob 11y ago
CH4 emissions could also be greatly reduced by switching from cows to marsupials. Emissions are not zero as sometimes claimed, but research on wallabies [1] found emissions "between 25 and 33% of what can be expected from ruminants fed the same diet". [1] https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/pdfs/90/4/1364 https://www.animalsciencepublications.org/publications/jas/p...

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

Some of those more interesting greenhouse gasses, eg methane, can be hundreds of times worse than carbon dioxide. So the net impact is not zero.