I'm not being "obtuse" at all, "Bro". I'm addressing the specific, and oft-repeated, claim that cow farts as such somehow magically put more carbon in the air

I'm not being "obtuse" at all, "Bro". I'm addressing the specific, and oft-repeated, claim that cow farts as such somehow magically put more carbon in the air than there was before. Now, there may be other issues associated with cattle raising, but that is not, and has never been, my point. Since you apparently do not dispute my main point, I think we're finished here. P.S. After reading your reference on the pre-European number of bison more carefully, your claim of 30 million is not supported at all by the author. The previous estimates given in the paper range all over the place, up to 1 billion (!). The author is careful to point out that all of those numbers are more or less junk, and the only conclusion the author actually makes is that there were "likely" "tens of millions" of bison. That does not match your claim of a hard 30 million.