Changing diet won’t help climate change

Wayne Madsen’s opinion piece on Dec. 28 (“Livestock produce 51% of all greenhouse gases”) reaches conclusions that are based largely on opinion and not on science or fact. Greenhouse gases emitted by livestock and that reach the atmosphere have never been measured. Every opinion based on so-called science and facts are therefore unsupported.

Estimates of gases emitted by livestock are obtained while eating non-natural diets in non-natural habitats, with non-natural behavior. These data do not represent the billions of livestock that graze the grasslands of the world. Methanotrophs are bacteria that consume methane. They are quite prevalent in grassland environments. Yes, livestock emit methane, and yes, methanotrophs consume it before it reaches the atmosphere.

Termites are the largest emitters of methane worldwide. How then can livestock be judged to produce 51 percent? The carbon emitted by livestock comes from plants. Plants get that carbon from the atmosphere. Some of that carbon stays in the animal and is consumed by other animals. The rest passes through, and some of that returns to the atmosphere. The overwhelming majority of sheep and cattle spend their entire lives on grasslands and not where laboratory data is collected. To suggest that changing one’s diet will help the climate is absurd.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 4:33 AM with the headline "Changing diet won’t help climate change."