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I never understood this argument. With Oil & Gas you release green house gases that have been sealed away back into the air. For methane produced by farming al

I never understood this argument. With Oil & Gas you release green house gases that have been sealed away back into the air. For methane produced by farming all components remain in a cycle. Everything released by animals eventually finds its way back to plants, which get eaten, which become exhaust of animals, etc. This sounds to me more like a spin by big oil to finger point at another industry.

nDRDY 2mo ago
This is literally backwards - plants absorb CO2, not methane! The obsession with CO2, specifically emitted by fossil fuel use, for me indicates geopolitical motivations (for both standpoints).
Flashtoo 2mo ago
The methane will eventually break down and be part of new plants, but in the meantime it will heat the planet much more than if it hadn't been there. Think of it this way: industrial scale cattle farming essentially makes and feeds biochemical reactors that turn hydrocarbons into a gaseous form that maximizes their global heating effect. Consider the counterfactual where we don't stuff billions of fart machines full of corn.
- orwin 2mo ago
  > The methane will eventually break down and be part of new plants To be exact, excess methane go in the high troposphere, where it is broken down in CO2+H2O (the half life is very short, I don't remember which is which but it's either 5 or 20 years). So in any case, it accelerate climate change.
pizzaiolo 2mo ago
It's not exactly a closed loop, though. A lot of crops are grown using fossil fuel-derived fertilizer.
- AngryData 2mo ago
  However cows also are primarily fed alfalfa which produces its own fertilizer.
  - pizzaiolo 2mo ago
    Primarily? Maybe depending on where you are, but it's common for them to be fed hay with grains like soybeans.
    - AngryData 2mo ago
      Nobody around me gives grains to their beef cattle until finishing just before slaughter to give them a bit of fat and marbling. Otherwise they are fed just alfalfa that is mixed with whatever natural grasses and clover and weeds grows along with it in the field. It is pretty much what they would eat naturally and is as close to free to grow as any crop can get. It is half the price of soybeans to buy on market, even less to grow it yourself than soybeans which requires a combine to harvest, and won't cause potential problems like feeding a cow a primarily soybean or grain diet would. Now dairy farming? I would not be surprised if they feed mostly all grain and beans. Every part of dairy farming is about industrializing both the process and the cow with a lot of selective breeding for ridiculous amounts of milk production. Milking cows now produce over twice as much milk per cow than they did in the 60s and certainly require more nutrients to maintain than a natural cow's diet would sustain. Some cows are producing 10 gallons of milk per day now.
tempfile 2mo ago
> For methane produced by farming all components remain in a cycle. No, they don't. Methane is not absorbed by plants and is not part of any cycle. The only reason it is not a catastrophe is that it breaks down in a relatively short time. If we stopped producing methane in this way, no other process would replace it and the planet would cool down.

nDRDY 2mo ago

This is literally backwards - plants absorb CO2, not methane! The obsession with CO2, specifically emitted by fossil fuel use, for me indicates geopolitical motivations (for both standpoints).

Flashtoo 2mo ago

The methane will eventually break down and be part of new plants, but in the meantime it will heat the planet much more than if it hadn't been there. Think of it this way: industrial scale cattle farming essentially makes and feeds biochemical reactors that turn hydrocarbons into a gaseous form that maximizes their global heating effect. Consider the counterfactual where we don't stuff billions of fart machines full of corn.

orwin 2mo ago
> The methane will eventually break down and be part of new plants To be exact, excess methane go in the high troposphere, where it is broken down in CO2+H2O (the half life is very short, I don't remember which is which but it's either 5 or 20 years). So in any case, it accelerate climate change.

pizzaiolo 2mo ago

It's not exactly a closed loop, though. A lot of crops are grown using fossil fuel-derived fertilizer.

AngryData 2mo ago
However cows also are primarily fed alfalfa which produces its own fertilizer.
- pizzaiolo 2mo ago
  Primarily? Maybe depending on where you are, but it's common for them to be fed hay with grains like soybeans.
  - AngryData 2mo ago
    Nobody around me gives grains to their beef cattle until finishing just before slaughter to give them a bit of fat and marbling. Otherwise they are fed just alfalfa that is mixed with whatever natural grasses and clover and weeds grows along with it in the field. It is pretty much what they would eat naturally and is as close to free to grow as any crop can get. It is half the price of soybeans to buy on market, even less to grow it yourself than soybeans which requires a combine to harvest, and won't cause potential problems like feeding a cow a primarily soybean or grain diet would. Now dairy farming? I would not be surprised if they feed mostly all grain and beans. Every part of dairy farming is about industrializing both the process and the cow with a lot of selective breeding for ridiculous amounts of milk production. Milking cows now produce over twice as much milk per cow than they did in the 60s and certainly require more nutrients to maintain than a natural cow's diet would sustain. Some cows are producing 10 gallons of milk per day now.

tempfile 2mo ago

> For methane produced by farming all components remain in a cycle. No, they don't. Methane is not absorbed by plants and is not part of any cycle. The only reason it is not a catastrophe is that it breaks down in a relatively short time. If we stopped producing methane in this way, no other process would replace it and the planet would cool down.