Blaming Cows For Global Warming Not Accurate

A new beef with role of cows in global warming

November 20, 2010
Alex Horkay
TheStar.com
Statistics have been giving us a bum steer when they state how much cattle methane emissions contribute to global warming, a new study shows.


That's because mathematical equations used to predict cows' methane emissions are inaccurate and don't take into account factors such as dietary changes, said Jennifer Ellis, lead author of the study and a PhD student at the University of Guelph.


When cattle burp up their cud, they discharge methane with it, due to microbial fermentation occurring in their complex stomachs.


“Diet can change CH4 (methane) emissions quite a lot. For example, between two and 12 per cent of the energy a cow consumes will be lost as CH4,” she said.

When an equation calculates the quantity of methane emissions on one farm, it can't be used to accurately determine how much greenhouse gas is created worldwide because there is so much difference in cattle diet around the world and from farm to farm.    Read More

While most of the anti-ag groups are quick to try blaming cows for global warming, common sense scientists have shown that it’s not that simple.  There are so many factors that determine the amount of methane produced by a cow so it’s nearly impossible to determine any impact based on current models.  It’s unfortunate that these anti-ag groups have to try tricking people with false information to gain support and turn them against farming and ranching families.

Modern Ag Feeding The World, Benefitting The Environment

High-yield agriculture slows pace of global warming, say FSE researchers
Louis Bergeron - Stanford News Service

Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere - the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide - according to a new study led by two Stanford Earth scientists.

The yield improvements reduced the need to convert forests to farmland, a process that typically involves burning of trees and other plants, which generates carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

The researchers estimate that if not for increased yields, additional greenhouse gas emissions from clearing land for farming would have been equal to as much as a third of the world's total output of greenhouse gases since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in 1850.

The researchers also calculated that for every dollar spent on agricultural research and development since 1961, emissions of the three principal greenhouse gases - methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide - were reduced by the equivalent of about a quarter of a ton of carbon dioxide - a high rate of financial return compared to other approaches to reducing the gases.

"Our results dispel the notion that modern intensive agriculture is inherently worse for the environment than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things," said Jennifer Burney, lead author of a paper describing the study that will be published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More

This study is pretty clear. Modern agriculture has saved billions of tons of greenhouse gasses from escaping into the atmosphere. When we invest in agriculture and implement modern practices, not only do we keep mass starvation from occurring, but it’s also beneficial for the environment. When we see people like Michael Pollan urging us to support an agricultural system that denounces modern technology, you need to realize everything they are asking for. What sounds romantic on the surface doesn’t hold water in reality.

EPA Disapproval Vote Tomorrow

Rockefeller Backs Murkowski's EPA Resolution in Senate
By ROBIN BRAVENDER of ClimateWire
Published: June 9, 2010

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) will vote for a resolution to hamstring U.S. EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, he said yesterday.

"I intend to vote for Senator Murkowski's Resolution of Disapproval because I believe we must send a strong message that the fate of West Virginia's economy, our manufacturing industries, and our workers should not be solely in the hands of EPA," Rockefeller said in a statement.

The Senate will vote tomorrow on a disapproval resolution (S.J.Res. 26 (pdf)) from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that would essentially veto EPA's "endangerment" finding, a scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. The finding is the basis for EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, which are set to take effect next year.

Asked yesterday whether she thought she could muster the votes needed for passage, Murkowski said, "It really is dependent on many of our colleagues on the other side, who have said they agree that the EPA moving forward is the worst option. So now they've got an opportunity to really back that statement by supporting this resolution of disapproval."

Read More

This vote is still on schedule for tomorrow. Please contact your Senators and urge their support for this resolution. The endangerment finding by the unelected officials at the EPA will drive up the cost of everything from food to energy with no foreseeable benefits. In order to get this done though everyone need to let their opinion be heard. Take a couple minutes right now to do it.

Grazing Cattle Reduce GHG Emissions From Land

Cows Found To Actually Reduce Nitrous Oxide
Posted on: Thursday, 8 April 2010, 15:20 CDT
RedOrbit.com

A new study found that cattle grazed on the grasslands of China actually helps reduce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide.

Environmentalists have been urging people for years to stop eating meat because of the methane produced by cattle.

According to the Telegrpah, the researchers said this does not mean that producing livestock to eat is good for the environment in all countries. However, it can be better for global warming to let animals graze on grassland in certain circumstances.

Klaus Butterbach-Bahl of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany carried out the study in Inner Mongolia in China.

Butterbach-Bahl discovered that grassland produced more nitrous oxide during the spring when sheep or cattle have not been grazing. This is because microbes in the soil release nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas. Once the grass is long, snow settles keeping the microbes warm and providing water. However, when the grass is cut short by animals the ground freezes and the microbes die.

He said the study turns assumptions about grazing goats and cattle around. Read More

Grass and the environment where it grows have a symbiotic relationship with the animals that consume it. That’s why the healthiest grasslands are those that are being grazed properly. Common sense, which is in short supply, would dictate that grazing has to be beneficial to everything involved or else it wouldn’t have survived this long. We continue to hear calls for grazing on public lands to be stopped. But people forget that the grass doesn’t care if a deer or a cow eats it, it just needs to be eaten for the everything to be healthy.

Red Meat Production Proven Efficient and Safe

Red meat production proven efficient and safe
ROD SMITH
31 Jan, 2010 04:00 AM

ANIMALS need to be produced in a smarter manner - not in fewer numbers - to address environmental issues related to climate change, according to Frank Mitloehner, an associate professor and air quality specialist at the University of California-Davis.

Decreasing meat and milk production will only result in more hunger in poor countries - not a cleaner or cooler environment, he said in response to critics of meat and milk production who blame livestock for significant global warming.

Mitloehner said these critics fail to understand the relationship among animal and food production, animal digestion, human activities and atmospheric chemistry.

He traced much of this lack of understanding to two sentences in a 2006 United Nations report, Livestock's Long Shadow, which stated that the "livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in carbon dioxide equivalents. This is higher than transport."

He said findings in the US show that livestock production accounts for only 2.8pc of emissions in the US, while transportation accounts for 26pc.

In addition to being efficiently produced, environmentally sustainable and safe, meat might well be behind the reason people live longer lives than any other primate, according to biologist Caleb Finch at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Cal.

Apes and chimpanzees are genetically similar to humans but rarely live more than 50 years, and it is possible that genetic changes that allow people to live longer are attributable to eating a more carnivorous diet than apes and chimps, he told the LiveScience program on TechMediaNetwork. Read More

When we look at the facts concerning meat production, the undeniable benefits become quite clear. Whether it’s human nutrition or the environment, livestock play an important role that can’t be replaced. Our task as producers of this essential product is to share this information with consumers. Not only does this give you a chance to introduce yourself and give the consumer a chance to meet a farmer, but it also gives them exactly what they want and that is to hear a real farmer or rancher explain what they do and show them how much they care about their livestock. I love sharing information like this because every time you do, you see the lightbulb flip on in the minds of consumers. It suddenly makes sense and they can really gain an appreciation for where their food comes from. ~Troy

Don't Blame Cows

Don’t Blame Cows for Climate Change
December 7, 2009
UC Davis

Despite oft-repeated claims by sources ranging from the United Nations to music star Paul McCartney, it is simply not true that consuming less meat and dairy products will help stop climate change, says a University of California authority on farming and greenhouse gases.

UC Davis Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist Frank Mitloehner says that McCartney and the chair of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ignored science last week when they launched a European campaign called "Less Meat = Less Heat." The launch came on the eve of a major international climate summit, which runs today through Dec. 18 in Copenhagen.

McCartney and others, such as the promoters of "meatless Mondays," seem to be well-intentioned but not well-schooled in the complex relationships among human activities, animal digestion, food production and atmospheric chemistry, says Mitloehner.

"Smarter animal farming, not less farming, will equal less heat," Mitloehner said. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries." Read More

Continued research on the impact of livestock production on our climate shows us once again that removing meat from your diet won’t have any affect. It’s just been another attempt to scare people away from eating a balanced diet. Since they don’t have any facts to back up their claim, anti-meat advocates have plotted a purely emotional campaign to make people feel guilty about what they eat. More than ever, we need to be basing our decisions about things like this on facts, not fear.

Is The Planet Actually Cooling??

The global warming consensus cools
Debra J. Saunders
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

"What happened to global warming?" read the headline - on BBC News on Oct. 9, no less. Consider it a cataclysmic event: Mainstream news organizations have begun reporting on scientific research that suggests that global warming may not be caused by man and may not be as dire and imminent as alarmists suggest.

Indeed, as the BBC's climate correspondent Paul Hudson reported, the warmest year recorded globally "was not in 2008 or 2007, but 1998." It's true, he continued, "For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures."

At a London conference later this month, Hudson reported, solar scientist Piers Corbyn will present evidence that solar-charged particles have a big impact on global temperatures.
Western Washington University geologist Don J. Easterbrook presented research last year that suggests that the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) caused warmer temperatures in the 1980s and 1990s. With Pacific sea surface temperatures cooling, Easterbrook expects 30 years of global cooling.

EPA analyst Alan Carlin - an MIT-trained economist with a degree in physics - referred to "solar variability" and Easterbrook's work in a document that warned that politics had prompted the Environmental Protection Agency and countries to pay "too little attention to the science of global warming" as partisans ignored the lack of global warming over the past 10 years. At first the EPA buried the paper, then it permitted Carlin to post it on his personal Web site.

Over the years, global warming alarmists have sought to stifle debate by arguing that there was no debate. They bullied dissenters and ex-communicated nonbelievers from their panels. In the name of science, disciples made it a virtue to not recognize the existence of scientists such as MIT's Richard Lindzen and Colorado State University's William Gray. Read More

Any conversation about climate change that our elected officials are having should first focus on if the climate is really changing due to human activity and if it is, will this legislation reverse it. Before we spend trillions of dollars we should find out what our return on this investment will be.

Senate Version of Climate Change Bill

Senate climate-change bill would cut greenhouse emissions 20% by 2020



The measure seeks stricter limits than those approved by the House. But it puts many details off for later -- an indication that top Democrats are willing to negotiate to ensure a bill will pass.



By Jim Tankersley

September 30, 2009

Reporting from Washington



The Senate's environment committee will take up an energy and climate-change bill today that calls for a 20% cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, according to a draft copy of the bill.



The measure, co-sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), will serve as the starting point for what promises to be a long and complicated series of negotiations. The Senate may not produce a final bill until next year.



A House measure passed this summer calls for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gases.



Both the Senate proposal and House bill seek to curb global warming by limiting the amount of heat-trapping gases poured into the air by power plants, factories and others, which would be required to obtain permits for their emissions.



Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma told Boxer in a letter Tuesday that until the details are set, "farmers, families and workers have no way of gauging how acutely they will be affected from job losses, higher electricity, food, and gasoline prices." Read More



We are finally getting to see the Senate version of the climate change legislation that passed the House this summer. It calls for an even more greater reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. All of the core materials that drive our country and make it so prosperous will be affected by legislation. From the wood it takes to build a house or business, to the steel we use to build machinery, to the food we put in our stomachs, everything will become more expensive. Energy costs will be especially elevated by this bill. For many families, it will make it quite difficult to eat and heat their house at the same time. And all of this to accomplish what? Supposedly it’s meant to solve a problem that we don’t know for sure even exists.