Farmers have been told cattle belching damage the planet how can this be right?

Question

in the past millions upon millions of grass eating beasts roamed the world they must have belched, farted and sent meathane into the air. some times I wonder about experts.

Answer 1

You're right to wonder about the "experts". Cow flatulence (and any other really) contains methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas. But there have been times in the Earth's history when methane levels were way way more than they are now. Also. unlike H2O or CO2, methane breaks down in the atmosphere in about 12 years (of course it does break down to CO2).

It is true that factory farming esp. in the US has gone up significantly, but like I said methane levels are still much lower than they have been.

Just because someone says they're an expert doesn't mean they don't know their head from their hind end.

Answer 2

Everything is relative. Nobody can definitely conclude the the degree of the impact of such gaseous releases into the atmosphere. However, some have attempted to estimate the how it relates to global warming phenomonon.

IT IS hard to measure the methane in a cow's flatuence. But Dieter Ehhalt has made an estimate. It is hardly an easy task to count how many cattle there are in the world. But the West German chemist has tried to do that too. Ehhalt's answers are, respectively, 200 grams per day and 1300 million. Together, they—suggest—that the world's cattle emit into the atmosphere approaching 100 million tonnes of methane each year, enough to warm up the planet.

Public concern about the greenhouse effect and its potential to warm the Earth's atmosphere has so far focused on carbon dioxide, unleashed into the air as we burn coal and oil and chop down trees. But methane is also a greenhouse gas, second in importance to carbon dioxide. Like carbon dioxide, it traps infrared radiation that would otherwise escape into space. Indeed, molecule for molecule, it traps 25 times as much of the Sun's heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Hence the concern about the methane in the flatuence of cattle, whose world population has doubled in the past 40 years. There is roughly one head of cattle for every four human beings. Bacteria that break down cellulose in the guts of cattle convert between 3 and 10 per cent of the food that the cattle eat into methane.

Wherever bacteria break down organic matter in the absence of oxygen, they produce methane. When the same process occurs in the presence of oxygen, carbon dioxide is produced. Concentrations of methane in the air have been rising at 1 per cent per year, at least since 1950. This is four times the rate of increase of carbon dioxide. Levels are already more than double those recorded before the explosion in human activity on Earth that followed the Industrial Revolution. Carbon dioxide is not expected to double its pre-industrial concentration until around 2030. Within 50 years, methane could be the prime greenhouse gas, say investigators such as Ralph Cicerone from the US's National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado.

Answer 3

Animals digestive systems are different. Kangaroos eat grass and don't pass wind. Its down to the bacteria in the gut. There is now a cattle feed in use with helpful bacteria which will reduce cattles gas production.

There is far more cattle now than ever in history, but more important is the billions of CO2 absorbing trees that have been removed so they have grazing land.

The news storys are exagerated. Todays headline says cattle are more responsible than 4x4's for greenhouse gas. Well there relatively few 4x4's in the world, so that doesn't mean too much does it.

Answer 4

Cattle cannot belch, they do however 'fart' a lot. What comes out of the back end of a cow is methane gas.

The greens and vegetarians are going to blame cattle for all manner of problems with the Earth's atmosphere. Too much methane. Reason? They want us to give up meat eating. Fat chance.

What of the massive herds of wilder-beast, buffalo and eland in Africa? How much gas do they produce daily and what of the other wild herds scattered across the globe?

I know. Let's just kill and eat them all. Problem solved.

Buffalo steak anyone?

Answer 5

apparently there are too many cows in greater Manchester and so farmers are going to be charged £5.00 per day to drive their cattle into and out of Manchester.
the GMPTE at great cost produced a glossy leaflet explaining this.
it now transpires that the case studies of greater Manchester farmers who's stories featured in said flyer were fictitious, and were in fact American models.
how much other bullsh*t are they spinning us

Answer 6

It is right. The problem is what we are feeding them as well as the grass. Also it is not that they are the cause, but they are contributing to it just like all the rest, cars, planes, trains, etc. There not the biggest problem but if we want to stop the problem every little bit of improvment will help.

Answer 7

This is just to compensate for all the blame being put on industry. Agriculture and farming can contribute to global warming, too.

Answer 8

I disagree there is more hot air in the average trade union meeting and parliament to cut global warmining down by at leasr 8%

Answer 9

the populations relevant to factory-farmed animals far exceed the so-called " past millions upon millions of grass eating beasts" that you refer to in your question, hence the methane-emissions problem being what it is today. global warming is not a myth folks...

Answer 10

Yes, this global warming is much more benign than people believe it is. The scientists say that it is happening because of us because they know that no matter what is causing it, it will continue to happen and so they will look right. I blame global warming on the sun because it is the source of the radiation that greenhouse gasses return to the earth. I think elevated amounts of greenhouse gases contribute very little to global warming.