In terms of CO2, yes. But we’re talking about methane.
In both cases, we’re not talking about “generation of greenhouse gases”, we’re talking about “de-sequestration of greenhouse gases”.
For CO2, as you say, we dig deep down into the earth and find long-sequestered bodies of CO2 and spray it into the air.
In the case of methane, we’re really just talking about the natural cycle of plants growing under the sun and being eaten by mobile life forms (from bacteria to animals). Humans change the selection of what’s being grown and what’s eating what’s being grown but - without researching that selection versus the nature’s selections - you’re making an assumption that we chose things that are more likely to push methane into the air compared to what nature would choose.
In large, grassy areas where cattle roam, you would most likely have deer and bison if you could get rid of the cows. Bison probably have an equivalent gut to cattle and deer seem to also be relatively close (20.6g per kg of food versus 16.5) in a study of 11 wildly different sized animals with wildly different activity levels in nature - so there’s a good possibility that those numbers could vary widely. More importantly, we can’t feed wild animals seaweed so deer and bison would definitely be worse.
Already done. Dave Barry once wrote a column about research he did involving beans, Beano, himself, and his family. Scientific conclusion: apparently it works.
Note that anything involving farts, burps, or other forms of bodily emission has likely been investigated by Dave Barry. He also specializes in exploding toilets.
My understanding is that the entire mid-continent was a grassy plain that supported giant herds of bison. I assume–though I don’t know–that they were also giant methane emitters.
All grass is not the same- the stuff we deliberately grow is much higher in some nutrients than the native stuff; it’s one of those topics that most people think is just dead simple, but it’s actually really complicated.
It’s not exactly the cows that are the issue, for a start- it’s their gut flora, which is why the seaweed additions make such a big difference. Minor nutrient changes can change the bacterial balance. Some bacteria produce methane, some don’t, or not so much, and the grasses we choose to grow as cow food create a gut environment favouring methane production.
I spent a few weeks at a research station that was investigating diet effects on cows a few years back- I have a fair idea how complicated it is, because I know what projects were going on and I got involved in some of the data collection, but it’s not really my area.
Native bison feeding on native grasses and the associated gut bacteria would have all evolved alongside each other. I honestly don’t know of any actual good research on that scenario- I doubt there’s much as it’s hard enough to measure with a domestic animal when we can control all the inputs, but there’s no reason to assume they’d be comparable to farmed cows.
Cattle grazing territory is about 41% of the entire land area of the United States.
Do you have a cite that we’ve swapped out the ground cover of that area of the country? For it to be extra nutritious, you would also need fertilize 41% of the country. I was a child back when I lived in cow country but I don’t recall anyone ever doing anything with all the big open grassy territory but let it do what it was going to do naturally.
Methane has a greater warming effect until it breaks down after several years into CO2. The argument is that trees are essentially converting CO2 into methane.
You’re right about all the additional greenhouse gas generated by things like fertilizer production. Plus the nature of agriculture; we have way more cows than the country had bison.
I named my stoma P’tit Joey for Le Petomane - pre-operation I had a week of antibiotics, then I spent 2 days on the john doing a bowel cleanse then during surgery they pumped me full of antibiotics, and I was on them for a month post op … my gut biome was so screwed up! I farted all the blasted time, until I managed to get a decent biome started up again and ended the antibiotics. It is hysterical, I would jokingly have a ‘conversation’ with P’tit Joey [I would say something, he would fart, I would reply, he would fart back. *snicker*] Both Rob and my oncologist have walked into the room to find me holding a conversation with my stoma [in french, as Le Petomane was French =) ]
That’s… why I said trees in some circumstances can emit:
CO2e (standard measure taking CO2, methane and other warming gasses into consideration at appropriate levels)
The ‘e’ stands for equivalent, in terms of global warming potential.
I know what the argument is.
I also know that the natural carbon cycle was not filling the atmosphere with ever increasing levels of methane. Kind of obvious from viewing actual levels that global changes in the last few hundred years have not reduced methane emissions…
You’d have fewer deer and bison than you have cattle though. Cattle, even on “uncultivated” range, live a very different life than wild deer and bison, the biggest factors probably being that once they’ve done most of their growing they are harvested and that there are many things we humans can do to maintain the maximum herd size for the current available grazing.
Under evolution, the number of mobile life forms in an area is generally going to be as many as the plant life can support. If there’s more grass available than the animals can eat then they’re going to grow in number to make up the gap.
Likewise, humans are going to maximize the land for profits and keep as many animals on it as they can.
How much methane is released per unit square of grass eaten might vary by type of animal, age, and activity level. I don’t know that we know how to rate those, so whether it matters that farmed animals are missing the elderly, I couldn’t say. I could argue it either way, whether an older animal is more likely to efficiently turn grass into poop or less efficiently do so, but only real numbers matter.
As the graphic I linked to earlier show, the biomass of farmed large mammals is vastly larger than that of similar wild animals, and this isn’t solely because of land use change. Just as we humans can manage soil to increase crop yield by eliminating limiting factors other than sunlight, we can manage animals to increase yield by eliminating limiting factors other than feed. We take out predators, we treat diseases, we move animals between available grazing more efficiently by basing it on objective observation of random and seasonal variation rather than instinct, we harvest the gain at the peak.
Bean burgers or garden burgers are fine in their own way. BUT they are nothing like a beef burger.
The new Impossible Burgers and the like are pretty close to the real deal, and satisfying in the same kinda Burger King Whopper way. Whereas a bean burger is definately a bean burger and not a hamburger.
Or to say it a different way, one is a satisfying substitute and the other shares the name burger but no one would mistake it for a hamburger.
Honestly, I prefer the Morningstar sausage patties to the real deal, and they make a very satisfying “sausage egg cheese” breakfast muffin.
Ummm?
Maybe I’m dumb but wouldn’t ‘bean’. burger cause flatulence? Defeating the whole purpose of reducing he as emissions of creatures (yes I’m talking to you, grandwrex) on earth.
And…then I keep thinking of that ‘soylent green’ stuff.
