Methane Gas: Animal Agriculture is the Problem!

http://www.suprememastertelevision.com/?langdir=1 gives you more information.

http://crisis2peace.org/

Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving cars?

Surprise!


According to a new report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent 18 percent than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.

Says Henning Steinfeld, Chief of FAOs Livestock Information and Policy Branch and senior author of the report: Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to todays most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation.

With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes.

Long shadow

The global livestock sector is growing faster than any other agricultural sub-sector. It provides livelihoods to about 1.3 billion people and contributes about 40 percent to global agricultural output. For many poor farmers in developing countries livestock are also a source of renewable energy for draft and an essential source of organic fertilizer for their crops.

But such rapid growth exacts a steep environmental price, according to the FAO report, Livestocks Long Shadow Environmental Issues and Options. The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by one half, just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level, it warns.

When emissions from land use and land use change are included, the livestock sector accounts for 9 percent of CO2 deriving from human-related activities, but produces a much larger share of even more harmful greenhouse gases. It generates 65 percent of human-related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure.

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human-induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earths entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Methane
• Gas
• Greenhouse
• Carbon
• Dioxide
• Emissions
• Animal
• Agriculture
• Vegetarian
• Vegan
• Lifestyle
• Climate
• Change
• Global
• Warming

[robzoneutube]

methane is not a persistent gas like carbon dioxide, so a direct comparison using only the infra red absorbance is invalid. There is no proof that there are more ruminants now than 10 000 years ago. Nearly all the bison(ruminants) in America were killed. The globe did not cool as a result. In any case why is Kyotot taxing milk producers and not oil producers? Just check the budget of their respective lobbyists!

[tranquilocito]

@robzoneutube The globe did cool as a result - see the paper of Felisa A. Smith of the University of New Mexico assisted by Scott M. Elliott of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lyons. And to your other point: Why should a direct comparison of those gases be invalid, even if methane is not as persistent as carbon dioxide?

[tranquilocito]

@robzoneutube Here another text from secondary literature: The extinction of megafauna closely coincides with an abrupt drop in atmospheric methane concentration at the onset of the Younger Dryas. Scientists estimate that prior to the extinction event, large-bodied herbivores in the Americas released about 9.6 Tg of methane to the atmosphere annually.

[tranquilocito]

@robzoneutube further....The loss of these species could be responsible for 12.5 to 100% of the overall methane decline. Atmospheric methane concentrations during the past 15,000 years are derived from the Greenland ice core samples.

[tranquilocito]

@robzoneutube Kyoto is taxing milk producers? Where? In your country? Never heard of that until now...

[webermsu1]

Thats like saying get rid of all the humans on the planet? We produce methane too? Obviously you don't know anything about dairy farming because it isn't cruel at all. And if milk isn't healthy then why do human mothers produce it for their young? It is one of the most nutrient rich liquids. You're sounding more and more like a memeber of PETA every time you post somthing. Let it go you can't stop animal agriculture.

[tranquilocito]

You misunderstand. You do not know about methane from cows? Humans do not emit such amounts. And mother milk is good for babies, sure. But cows milk is for cows and nowadays has all those hormones, antibiotics and germs. And moreover it has casein, which is known to be responsible for promoting cancer in humans.

[robzoneutube]

@tranquilocito Are you seriously suggesting that the bison living in America were an ecological problem? Or a global warming problem?- That would make the people who shot them out eco warriors of the first order! Don't you see the weakness of your argument?

[robzoneutube]

@tranquilocito NewZealands "commitment" to the forestry fraternity in New Zealand is $1.9 billion per year = $441 for every person in the country. Taken by direct and indirect taxation by the government and paid to the forestry industry. Methane is adjudged to be 46.6% of that total. So a family of 4 is paying $800 per year for methane. See the NZ government website for the percentages. The tax amount they never commit to writing but it is often mentioned in TV interviews

[robzoneutube]

@tranquilocito When you say abrupt drop - how much was that? And in any case, people where not threatened either before or after the event. The nonsense focus on methane deflects from the real culprit , which is carbon dioxide. So people are giving themselves false comfort by "solving" the methane problem, while carbon dioxide has less focus and is a much more difficult problem to tackle. Let's face it , if carbon deposits were not being burnt for energy, we would never have noticed methane.

[robzoneutube]

@tranquilocito A direct comparison is not valid for 2 reasons. 1 The methane levels have remained the same since the 90's , but the presumption is that methane is building up as carbon dioxide is & 2 If there is a natural reduction of methane by breakdown of this extremely unstable gas, why tax people to try and do what is already being done?

[TheUnNerved]

Explain the natural emissions of Methane that the ocean produces in mass quantities...