# Are Beef Cattle Herds Carbon Sinks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970 "2015-08-04T13:43:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/1 "2015-08-04T13:43:15Z")
They eat grass (carbon sink), and grow (absorbing carbon). Then they are killed and eaten by humans. They produce waste (which is recycled in the soil, promoting grass growth). So does raising beef add to CO2, or reduce it? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/2 "2015-08-04T14:29:20Z")
Beef production is carbon-positive. You need to figure in all the fuel that it takes to harvest the feed and transport the meat, etc. It’s also a slow-moving environment disaster in many other ways. Beef is a very inefficient way to obtain calories, leading to malnourishment worldwide. Cattle also consume tremendous amounts of water, due to the growing of Alfalfa for their feed, and water is becoming a scarce resource. And, or course, beef is bad for you, at least in the quantities that Americans eat it. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/3 "2015-08-04T14:53:27Z")
The carbon all gets recycled eventually. You eat it, metabolize it and release CO2. But much worse is all the methane belched and farted by the cattle. Methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2, although it has a shorter dwell time in the atmosphere. But cattle raising contributes seriously to climate change. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/4 "2015-08-04T15:55:18Z")
A net carbon sink would be pulling carbon out of the air and keeping it out of the air for long periods of time. Cows do pretty much the exact opposite. They take in carbon that was in grass or other food, and release it into the atmosphere as exhaled CO2 and farted methane. Any carbon that gets sequestered in their own bodies is freed up within a few years as they get eaten by us. Generally speaking, any form of animal life isn’t going to have much impact on the carbon balance in the long term. For the most part, life is just cycling the carbon pool around and around. Humans are making impact by pulling carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air, making an overall net difference. Trees live long enough that they could be considered sinks, particularly if they die and get buried in some way before being decomposed. ---
**Author:** ![Nefario](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/59ef9b/32.png) [@Nefario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nefario)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/5 "2015-08-04T17:07:01Z")
Cows produce enough methane out of both ends that there have been serious research projects on how to recapture it as an energy source. So no… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/6 "2015-08-04T17:17:14Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Beef production is carbon-positive. You need to figure in all the fuel that it takes to harvest the feed and transport the meat, etc. > > It’s also a slow-moving environment disaster in many other ways. Beef is a very inefficient way to obtain calories, leading to malnourishment worldwide. Cattle also consume tremendous amounts of water, due to the growing of Alfalfa for their feed, and water is becoming a scarce resource. And, or course, beef is bad for you, at least in the quantities that Americans eat it. Most beef cattle are grazed until it’s time to fatten them at a feedlot. So, there’s little “fuel that it takes to harvest the feed” nor “the growing of Alfalfa for their feed” and there’s nothing to show that eating beef is bad for you. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/7 "2015-08-04T17:23:12Z")
> [@Nefario](#): > > Cows produce enough methane out of both ends that there have been serious research projects on how to recapture it as an energy source. So no… Methane is a nasty greenhouse gas, so it’s not quite as simple as “returning the CO[sub]2[/sub] to the atmosphere”. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/8 "2015-08-04T18:20:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Most beef cattle are grazed until it’s time to fatten them at a feedlot. So, there’s little “fuel that it takes to harvest the feed” nor “the growing of Alfalfa for their feed” and there’s nothing to show that eating beef is bad for you. Isn’t the ‘leading to malnourishment worldwide’ either, even if someone is saying that the basic American diet represents ‘malnourishment’. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/9 "2015-08-04T20:31:53Z")
I think you’re missing a few words from your post. I can’t make sense of it. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/10 "2015-08-04T20:34:11Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I think you’re missing a few words from your post. I can’t make sense of it. It’s the drugs. I was just saying that meat isn’t leading to malnutrition world wide, at least it’s not one of the major causes of malnutrition world wide. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/11 "2015-08-04T20:54:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Most beef cattle are grazed until it’s time to fatten them at a feedlot. So, there’s little “fuel that it takes to harvest the feed” nor “the growing of Alfalfa for their feed” and there’s nothing to show that eating beef is bad for you. This is incorrect. > [@](#): > > As a result, a large percentage of grains grown in the US are used in animal feed, with 47% of soy and 60% of corn produced in the US being consumed by livestock. From [here](http://www.sustainabletable.org/260/animal-feed). This grain could be used to feed HUMANS, and isn’t. As far as eating beef being bad for you, well, there’s not much debate on that topic, but you can disagree if you want. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/12 "2015-08-04T20:58:35Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > This is incorrect. > > From [here](http://www.sustainabletable.org/260/animal-feed). > > This grain could be used to feed HUMANS, and isn’t. > > As far as eating beef being bad for you, well, there’s not much debate on that topic, but you can disagree if you want. Um…your cite is talking about farm ANIMALS, not specifically beef cattle, which is what you claimed. The picture on your cite are pigs…they aren’t the same thing as cows, though I can see the confusion. 😛 I disagree with you that eating beef is bad for you as well, btw. But feel free to believe what you like, as you say. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/13 "2015-08-04T21:04:59Z")
Anything carbon-negative in nature would have to be an organism that eats CO2 and turns it into solid carbon on its own accord. That pretty much limits things to plants and diatoms and things like that. I have this fantasy that someone will genetically engineer a carbon-locking food crop like massive, fast-growing sweet potatoes so big that we have to dig mines to harvest them, but even so they’ll just grow and grow. And somehow I suspect that if we visit other planets and find evidence of life, all we’ll ever find is giant feral yams, the last-ditch effort at organic carbon sequestration gone wild. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/14 "2015-08-04T21:15:32Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > This is incorrect. > > From [here](http://www.sustainabletable.org/260/animal-feed). > > This grain could be used to feed HUMANS, and isn’t. > > As far as eating beef being bad for you, well, there’s not much debate on that topic, but you can disagree if you want. It’s true a lot of crops are used to feed animals- mostly pigs, chickens, and of course cattle (those last couple months at the feedlot is heavy on the corn). But “dent” or “feed” corn is not “corn on the cob” or “sweet corn” that we think of when we eat corn. You wouldn’t like it, and the yield per acre is about ten times what that of sweet corn is. Thus, actually we get better protein yield by feeding this rough grain and even silage to animals, then eating the eggs, milk, and yes, meat of the animals. And of course you know, there’s no significant issue with food\* production\*it is getting the food to the mouths that is the biggest issue. Americans already eat too much HFCS in their diet, increasing it would be bad. (The “C” stands for “corn”, dontyaknow). As far as cattle being grazed, here’s a dump of some google searches: [http://beefmagazine.com/pasture-range/grazing-systems](http://beefmagazine.com/pasture-range/grazing-systems) [http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2629.html](http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2629.html) > **[Site | Ohioline](https://ohioline.osu.edu/search/site/b872)** [http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/live/ec278/build/ec278.pdf](http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/live/ec278/build/ec278.pdf) (this PDF talks about using cattle to graze crop _residues_, which would otherwise be wasted) > **[Extended Grazing - BeefResearch.ca](https://www.beefresearch.ca/topics/extended-grazing/)** > > Methods to extend the grazing season have considerable economic and environmental benefits over traditional winter-feeding systems. No one doubts eating \*too much \*red meat can be bad for you. Eating too much HFCS is bad for you. Eating too much of a lot of stuff is bad for you- try getting half your calories a day from macadamia nuts and see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2015, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-beef-cattle-herds-carbon-sinks/726970/15 "2015-08-04T23:41:21Z")
You folks might consider this source too “crunchy” for your tastes, but their points are still valid. [Why raising cattle causes global hunger.](http://woodstocksanctuary.org/learn-3/global-environment-issues/world-hunger/)