The big problem is that economies and countries and people (farmers, etc) who depend on cows (beef, dairy, etc) are being punished for no good reason. Economies and counties and people are being damaged financially. Countries that are damaged financially have less money to fight fossil fuels, and are wasting resources that could be used to fight fossil fuels. — Agree to Disagree

But let's say that the public begins to favor a lower cholesterol diet and they want to move away from monoculture land use with all the pesticides and fertilizers that go with that. The people in the beef and dairy industries could adapt to the changing scene just like all the people who had to adapt to the rise of computers and the end of American steel. They could find jobs doing something else, like making tofu.

I guess where I land on the issue is that I think the use of coal and natural gas needs to be the main issue. Doing something about cows will not solve the problem. Doing something about coal, considering the massive amount of coal we have left to burn, would be a giant step toward solving the problem. Whatever social technology we develop to make that change will help us change whatever else needs adjusting.

I mean, the very notion that people would sit around arguing about cows seems crazy to me. We all agree on what the main problem is. Our common ground is huge compared to the rest. How the hell to we end up at each other's throats over the tiny bit we disagree on?

They are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, as the Titanic slowly sinks. — Agree to Disagree

At present, this is true. The present global commitment isn't enough to accomplish much even if there was universal buy-in.

I think that there is something that we might be able to do about global warming long-term. If we concentrate on the right solutions. Even then, it will be difficult and take a long time. I favor a slow move away from fossil fuels. But not so fast that it creates big problems. — Agree to Disagree

:up:

I think that you and I agree on about 99% of what we are talking about. But that doesn't make for an interesting discussion, so I am going to concentrate on the 1% where we disagree. Also, I don't like tofu. :grin:

I think that you and I agree on about 99% of what we are talking about. But that doesn't make for an interesting discussion, so I am going to concentrate on the 1% where we disagree. Also, I don't like tofu. :grin: — Agree to Disagree

Yea. That's probably how it works. Tofu is especially good in Thai food. :grin:

I favor a slow move away from fossil fuels. But not so fast that it creates big problems. — Agree to Disagree

You will be happy to discover that is precisely the policy of most countries. However, if the change doesn't happen fast enough then global heating may scuttle all of our plans.

I mean, the very notion that people would sit around arguing about cows seems crazy to me. — frank

Amen, brother. Can we please stop discussing the god damned cows!

I think that there is something that we might be able to do about global warming long-term. — Agree to Disagree

By my definition of long term (a century, say) we don't have a long term. We have a short term which 30 years ago was maybe 40 years into the future. We've pissed away the last 30 years, and now have about 10 years left.

Do we all drop dead in 10 years? No. People are already dropping dead from global heating, In 10 years, we may not have any options left which we can apply to the problem. In other words, the planet will continue to get hotter as we struggle to meet the standards for 1.5ºC of global warming, which goal will have been left in the dust.

I presently have an immortal fish with whom I have a troubled relationship. — frank

Get a divorce and split things 50/50. :grin:

Part of the reason for this is that people don't understand the real situation and are concentrating on the wrong solutions. — Agree to Disagree

Yes, and your assessment of what the “real” situation is should definitely be taken seriously, given your record so far.

It’s not like you’ve been peddling denialist tropes and ignorant statement after ignorant statement or anything.

Methane oxidizes to CO2 after about 12 years. — frank

Thanks. That gives me a clearer picture of what is under consideration.

We've pissed away the last 30 years, and now have about 10 years left. — BC

They have been saying that we only have 10 years left for the past 40 years.

Have you heard about the boy who cried "wolf".

I mean, the very notion that people would sit around arguing about cows seems crazy to me.
— frank

Amen, brother. Can we please stop discussing the god damned cows! — BC

In the country where I live beef, lamb, and dairy are very important industries. The government and the farmers have been arguing for at least 6 years about whether agriculture should be brought into our country's Emissions Trading Scheme (and how it should be brought in). The government and the farmers keep making deals and then breaking them.

There is an election very soon, and this has become an election issue.

They have been saying that we only have 10 years left for the past 40 years. — Agree to Disagree

That’s at least 6 canards. Climate denial bingo.

Yes, they (scientists) have been warning about global warming for decades. And what do we see? This summer half of Canada is on fire, smoke plumes made their way all over the US, heat records broken all over, a tropical storm heading to California, deadly heat waves and fires in Europe, India, China — Maui on fire, and the hottest July on record.

But yeah, it’s exactly like “the boy who cried wolf.”

How willfully ignorant does one have to be to deny the evidence all around them? It’s the effect of propaganda…or pure stupidity.

It’s the effect of propaganda…or pure stupidity. — Mikie

Or both. It doesn't seem to require much intelligence to be a propaganda parrot.

True, but I have more sympathy for those who have been deliberately and systematically brainwashed. Our latest foil is a bit of both, but generally an average climate denier. Nothing special.

Amen, brother. Can we please stop discussing the god damned cows! — BC

I mean, the very notion that people would sit around arguing about cows seems crazy to me. — frank

The big problem is that economies and countries and people (farmers, etc) who depend on cows (beef, dairy, etc) are being punished for no good reason. — Agree to Disagree

In a previous post, @Agree to Disagree linked to an article from the University of California that supposedly showed that cattle farming is net-zero. However this article makes the OPPOSITE point (apologies for shouting). The full impact of this article is that reducing methane from cattle farming is a cost effective way to reduce global warming - because reducing methane has a more immediate impact on the environment than reducing CO2. Go to minute 4:00 of the video where the narrator talks about steps that California is taking to reduce methane emissions.

Here is another article from the same source @Agree to Disagree linked to:
https://clear.ucdavis.edu/news/new-report-california-pioneering-pathway-significant-dairy-methane-reduction

My point is just this: his assertion is not illogical. I would need more than a vague principle to accept that cattle farming is net-zero. But if he's correct that it is, then he's right that it's not a contribution to global warming. — frank

But his own source proves that it does contribute.

Just to be clear, it is important to reduce all sources of greenhouse gas emissions - oil, coal, natural gas, etc. But that does not mean that we should ignore a cattle farming as a significant source when there are solutions. These are not mutually exclusive.

Just to be clear, it is important to reduce all sources of greenhouse gas emissions - oil, coal, natural gas, etc. But that does not mean that we should ignore a cattle farming as a significant source when there are solutions. These are not mutually exclusive. — EricH

:up:

40 years of warning about the next 10 years. Right. Too bad we weren't paying attention.

In this world, very little ever happens quickly. Long lead times are needed to effect major changes in production, transportation, construction, energy generation, medicine, and so forth. Rule of thumb: it takes 40 years to introduce and build out new technology. Electric cars are a good example: Tesla made its first car in 2008. 15 years after the first car, Tesla is now building out a nationwide charging system. Various companies and agencies are working on this area. Meanwhile, non-carbon-fueled electricity generation is still far from dominant. It's price competitive, but it still amounts to only about 20% of the total electricity production in the US.

We haven't run into global shortages of lithium and cobalt for batteries yet; the same goes for neodymium, samarium, terbium. dysprosium, lanthanum and cerium which are used in various parts of electric motors -- then there is copper. Lots of copper. The metals are produced by fairly dirty extraction and refining, It's isn't that they are so rare. So, we don't have enough of all this stuff on hand to suddenly field 30 million electric autos, even if that was. good idea. Again, 40 years.

Various technologies (like hydrogen) would be far less polluting than even natural gas, but we are a long ways from having the infrastructure to produce, distribute, and use enough H to make a difference, Again, think 40 years.

Ten years is a good stretch of time to talk about. 100 years is way too long to think about meaningfully, and 1 year is way too short.

a previous post, Agree to Disagree linked to an article from the University of California that supposedly showed that cattle farming is net-zero. However this article makes the OPPOSITE point (apologies for shouting). The full impact of this article is that reducing methane from cattle farming is a cost effective way to reduce global warming - because reducing methane has a more immediate impact on the environment than reducing CO2. — EricH

I don't see where it says that. This is the entire article:


"The Biogenic Carbon Cycle and Cattle
February 19, 2020
By Samantha Werth

"Cattle are often thought to contribute to climate change because they belch methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas. While this is true, cattle do belch methane, it is actually part of an important natural cycle, known as the biogenic carbon cycle.

"Photosynthesis and carbon
The biogenic carbon cycle centers on the ability of plants to absorb and sequester carbon. Plants have the unique ability to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and deposit that carbon into plant leaves, roots, and stems while oxygen is released back into the atmosphere. This process is known as photosynthesis and it is central to the biogenic carbon cycle.

"When plants perform photosynthesis, carbon is primarily converted to cellulose, a form of carbohydrate that is one of the main building blocks for growing plants. Cellulose happens to be the most abundant organic compound in the world, present in all grasses, shrubs, crops, and trees. Cellulose content is particularly high in grasses and shrubs found on marginal lands, which are places where grains and other human edible crops cannot grow. Two-thirds of all agricultural land is marginal, full of cellulose dense grasses that are indigestible to humans. But guess who can digest cellulose?


"Cattle upcycle cellulose… and carbon!
Cattle are made to digest cellulose. They are able to consume grasses and other plants that are high in cellulose and, through enteric fermentation, digest the carbon that is stored in cellulose. Cattle can use that carbon, upcycling the cellulose, for growth, milk production, and other metabolic processes.

"As a by-product of consuming cellulose, cattle belch out methane, there-by returning that carbon sequestered by plants back into the atmosphere. After about ten years, that methane is broken down and converted back to CO2. Once converted to CO2, plants can again perform photosynthesis and fix that carbon back into cellulose. From here, cattle can eat the plants and the cycle begins once again. In essence, the methane belched from cattle is not adding new carbon to the atmosphere. Rather it is part of the natural cycling of carbon through the biogenic carbon cycle.

"Fossil Fuels Are Not Part of the Biogenic Carbon Cycle
The biogenic carbon cycle is a relatively fast cycle. That is, carbon cycles between plants and the atmosphere in a short period of time, usually in the range of a few years to a few decades. In the case of cattle, this cycle is about ten years. By comparison, carbon exchange between the atmosphere and geological reserves (such as deep soils, the deeper ocean, and rocks) is on the span of millennia, 1000 or more years. Hence, why the extraction and burning of fossil fuels (i.e. geological reserves) has a much greater impact on our climate than the biogenic carbon cycle.

"It takes 1000 years for CO2 released from the burning of fossil fuels to be redeposited back into geological reserves. That is tenfold (10x) the amount of time it takes methane belched by cattle to be redeposited back into plant matter. To put this in perspective, the CO2 released from driving your car to work today will remain in the atmosphere, having a warming effect on our climate, longer than the lifetimes of you, your children, or even your grandchildren. Thus, the burning of fossil fuels has a longstanding impact on our climate, one that is much more significant than the belching of methane from cattle, which is part of the short-term biogenic carbon cycle."

It looks like it's saying that cattle farming is not a significant contributor. What am I missing?

Various technologies (like hydrogen) would be far less polluting than even natural gas, but we are a long ways from having the infrastructure to produce, distribute, and use enough H to make a difference, Again, think 40 years. — BC

I don't think hydrogen is a feasible technology though. It depends on overcapacity and over investing in energy generators doesn't make economic sense and building a hydrolysis plant that only runs during very windy or very sunny days (in NL) means it will be only a few days a year, doesn't make any sense either.

What am I missing?



Maybe quote the next sentence too and watch the video?

It doesn't seem to require much intelligence to be a propaganda parrot. — wonderer1

Please don't talk about Mikie like that.

What am I missing? — Benkei

I'm not a hydrogen booster. Namibia is planning a hydrogen production facility driven by wind and solar. If steel and lime can be made with electricity, then use that instead of making a fuel with electricity first. I don't see H being a major form of energy.

I used hydrogen as an example -- if we were going to make a lot of hydrogen for all sorts of purposes, it would probably take 40 years (+/-) to get production, transportation, and consumption facilities built.

I'm not a hydrogen booster. Namibia is planning a hydrogen production facility driven by wind and solar. If steel and lime can be made with electricity, then use that instead of making a fuel with electricity first. I don't see H being a major form of energy. — BC

Yes, the white hydrogen seems very feasible as part of a larger energy mixture. The green hydrogen they're pursuing in the Netherlands doesn't look too good to me. I was working at the Ministry of Finance when they were discussing it and challenged subsidising it. Over the years, I've learned a lot from my dad who was engineer and manager at Shell his entire career. It fell on deaf ears (because what would a lawyer know about economics and chemistry, right?) but I see much of the worries I had voiced again in the media nowadays but the ship seems to have already sailed.

I would expect that the developments of batteries still have lots of potential that make it inefficient to store potential in hydrogen as well. There's sand batteries in Finland and Toyota claiming a recent breakthrough in solid state batteries halving costs, that are just two recent examples I've heard of that sound promising.

Of course, there might be an industrial need for H2 to make ammonia and fertiliser if we stop making H2 from CH4 but I'm not sure we would want to have a large hydrolysis plant compete with our regular need for energy, basically increasing prices. Because I'm pretty certain once the plant is there and they "discover" it's not viable to only run it when there's overcapacity that the government will allow them to buy electricity in the market even when there's undercapacity, causing prices to explode for regular people.

Here is a slightly more reliable source than the meat industry, with links to scientific papers and consideration of all the various routes of entry and exit of methane to and from the atmosphere, in case anyone is actually interested in anything other than their own opinion.

Worldwide emissions of methane have hit the “highest levels on record”, according to an international team of scientists.

The finding comes from the latest update to the Global Methane Budget, an international collaboration that estimates sources and sinks of methane around the world.

Their estimates for 2017 – the most recent year for which a full budget has been produced – show that annual global emissions hit almost 600m tonnes. That is around 9% higher than the 2000-06 average.

By the end of 2019, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere reached around 1875 parts per billion (ppb), the researchers say – more than two-and-a-half times pre-industrial levels.

Breaking down the different sources, the budget shows that rising emissions from “both the agriculture and waste sector and the fossil fuel sector are likely the dominant cause of this global increase”. This highlights the “need for stronger mitigation in both areas”, the researchers say.

The work also shows “no evidence to date for increasing methane release from the Arctic”. This “crucial” finding means “we are not yet being confounded by substantial feedbacks” that could make meeting the 1.5C and 2C warming limits even harder, another scientist tells Carbon Brief.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/scientists-concerned-by-record-high-global-methane-emissions/

Apologies if you haven't had your breakfast yet, but not only do the burps consist of methane, but a whole lot more is produced by the anaerobic breakdown of the waste products, typically in slurry ponds.

In North America and Western Europe around 40% of livestock manure is handled in liquid form [1]. Liquid manure (slurry) represents a mainly anaerobic environment and is a significant source of atmospheric methane (CH4), which is the second-largest anthropogenic source of radiative forcing next to carbon dioxide (CO2) [2]. Volumes of liquid manure increase in many parts of the world due to intensification of livestock production [3], and thus it becomes increasingly important to determine effects of manure treatment and management on emissions of CH4.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4986936/

This is an entirely tractable problem, that requires mere money to be thrown at it. Cover the slurry, and collect the gas for domestic use. Pre-industrial farming would use straw bedding that mixed with the effluent and would be mainly aerobically composted in a heap and then spread as fertiliser on the arable fields. And of course the peasants ate little meat, so a win win.

This is an entirely tractable problem, that requires mere money to be thrown at it. Cover the slurry, and collect the gas for domestic use. Pre-industrial farming would use straw bedding that mixed with the effluent and would be mainly aerobically composted in a heap and then spread as fertiliser on the arable fields. And of course the peasants ate little meat, so a win win. — unenlightened

Steps need to be taken toward this happening.

Steps need to be taken toward this happening. — Changeling

Yes, 2 steps, to be precise. A subsidy on the equipment required to collect the gas, and a tax on allowing its release. Bish bash bosh. Farmers cannot run and hide.

The above is a very simple example of how to insert environmental costs into an economy that does not account for them, and thereby incentivise the minimising of environmental damage and maximising of restoration.

The same can be done on a global scale by building a carbon tax system into world trade agreements. Since we can get detailed emission data from satellites, the rules can be readily enforced and countries trying to cheat can be penalised with export duties. If there were a will, it is not difficult to do. But cheating is profiteering at the expense of the planet, and we are letting the cheats prosper because they fill the ranks of all governments and all political parties able to seriously contend for government.

I looked at the video. At the portion you marked, the guy is suggesting that if we limit methane emissions from cattle (apparently California has already dropped it by 25%), then we can reduce the CO2 content in the atmosphere.

He's saying that in cattle production there's an opportunity to go beyond net zero to net negative. I get that. We haven't discussed that up to this point, though. We were just talking about whether or not cattle production is net zero.

If you have nothing left to add, let the adults talk.

I look forward to your next climate denial trope, as myself and several others repeat the “propaganda” from…checking notes… 99% of the climate scientists.

For those playing the bingo:

- climate science is propaganda

- scientists have “cried wolf” for decades

- scientists were warning about a coming “ice age” in the 70s, so…you know, why take them seriously now?

- there’s nothing that can be done about climate change. Name a solution and I’ll shoot it down with cheap skepticism.

- livestock aren’t a problem because…” biogenic carbon cycle.”

- scientists have “hidden” data on temperatures

Etc.

But I’m not a denier.

I looked at the video. At the portion you marked, the guy is suggesting that if we limit methane emissions from cattle (apparently California has already dropped it by 25%), then we can reduce the CO2 content in the atmosphere.

He's saying that in cattle production there's an opportunity to go beyond net zero to net negative. — frank

Every plant (bar a very few and rare parasitic ones) is carbon negative. Every animal and fungus, by contrast, is carbon positive. If a cattle farm is not net zero or negative, it is depleting the soil, or the soil of the farm from which it sources its feed. A cattle farm can be turned carbon negative most easily by killing the cattle and planting trees. Fruit trees, if you also want to feed some naked apes. But we like dairy and beef. Ok, then let's have some dairy and beef, but let's not pretend that it will help to stop climate change. That's ahem, bullshit! Try not to consume bullshit.

Every farm needs to be substantially carbon negative simply to offset the carbon positive human life that it exists to support.

:up:

It looks like it's saying that cattle farming is not a significant contributor. What am I missing? — frank

He's saying that in cattle production there's an opportunity to go beyond net zero to net negative. I get that. We haven't discussed that up to this point, though. We were just talking about whether or not cattle production is net zero. — frank

Firstly I should have looked a bit more closely at the source of these articles. While they are by University of CA, from what I can gather these studies are funded by our old friends the cattle industry (I could be wrong on this). So we need to be cautious.

Just to sum up, CH4 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than C02 (estimates vary between 20 times to 80 times depending on how it's calculated.) After 12 years, CH4 turns into C02. Even tho the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere is much less than CO2, it has an outsized contribution to total global warming (at least 14%) during those 12 years.

After 12 years there is no difference to the climate whether these CO2 molecules came from tailpipe emissions or from cow burps. However as an accounting issue we can separate that out since the plants that feed the cattle are re-absorbing CO2. So the phrase "net zero" is not referring to the contribution to global warming - rather "net zero" is referring to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Now just to be precise we could quibble about the "net zero-ness" of this cycle since the whole process of raising cattle creates additional CO2 apart from the CH4 - but for purposes of discussion we can ignore that.

What I have not been able to ascertain in my limited free time here is whether the CO2 emitted by 1.5 billion cattle (since they do breath in O2 and emit CO2) is factored into these calculations - but I assume that this is factored into these calculations as well.

So reducing CH4 emissions from cattle raising is a very good thing from 2 perspectives - firstly by sequestering (or reducing CH4 emission) there will be fewer CO2 molecules floating around in 12 years - and secondly by reducing the amount of nasty CH4 floating around during those 12 years we can slow global warming by some measurable amount.

Of course reducing the production of cattle would have an even greater impact.

Firstly I should have looked a bit more closely at the source of these articles. While they are by University of CA, from what I can gather these studies are funded by our old friends the cattle industry (I could be wrong on this — EricH

I assumed the one from UC Davis was produced through a grant from some beef collective. It just has that written all over it.

Now just to be precise we could quibble about the "net zero-ness" of this cycle since the whole process of raising cattle creates additional CO2 apart from the CH4 - but for purposes of discussion we can ignore that. — EricH

I agree. Through this discussion, people have been approaching the issue as if it can be answered by applying armchair principles. I doubt that. If it takes a super computer to run a simplified model of the climate, why would somebody think they can spitball the effect of cows? C'mon!