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Is there something specific about cows that produces more methane than other animals? Assuming we stopped cow farming completely and the fields were turned int
by elp 5y ago
Is there something specific about cows that produces more methane than other animals?
Assuming we stopped cow farming completely and the fields were turned into wild live reserves of bison or something would emissions magically go down? Or do they no longer count as anthropogenic so we can magically ignore them?
- akvadrako 5y agoIf cows are fed an unnatural diet instead of grass they fart a lot. So wild animals don't have the same issue.
- elp 5y agoDo you have a source for that? From my brief looking it seems like its the other way around (https://beef.unl.edu/reduce-methane-production-cattle https://beef.unl.edu/reduce-methane-production-cattle)
- maxerickson 5y agoA huge portion of beef calories come from mechanically harvested feed (pasture crops and soy and corn). The emissions related to those calories would go away.
- Ancapistani 5y agoBeef production accounts for 9% of US corn production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_States#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_... If we have a magic wand and that disappeared entirely tomorrow, that would simply be allocated to other areas. There’s a reason sodas in the US are sweetened with HFCS and our gasoline is cut with ethanol produced from corn - because of lobbying efforts to subsidize corn production, which has driven down costs, which in turn made it profitable to use corn in ways where it wouldn’t otherwise make sense. Europe uses ethanol derived from sugar beets, which is significantly more efficient in terms of CO2. It’s significantly more complex than “if we reduce beef consumption, we’ll reduce corn consumption”.
- maxerickson 5y agoThe methane from the cattle that didn't exist would go away. I guess I didn't try to spell the whole thought out, but I wasn't trying to claim that beef consumption is an island, I was thinking about how CAFO style animal husbandry supports a lot more animals than pure grazing would.