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Summarised by Centrist
A viral exchange circulating online argues cattle are being unfairly blamed for climate change, arguing that methane from cows is part of a natural “biogenic carbon cycle” rather than a one-way addition of carbon to the atmosphere.
The suggestion is that if cattle populations remain stable, their methane emissions are effectively carbon neutral. The reasoning: grass absorbs CO₂, cows eat the grass, cows emit methane, methane breaks down in roughly 12 years back into CO₂, and that CO₂ is reabsorbed by grass. “Carbon goes: grass to cow to methane to CO₂ to grass. Round and round,” the post states.
There is scientific grounding for part of that argument. Methane from ruminants is indeed part of the short-term biogenic carbon cycle.
Unlike fossil fuels, which release carbon stored underground for millions of years, methane from cattle originates from atmospheric carbon recently captured by plants.
Methane also behaves differently from CO₂. It is more potent in the short term but breaks down much faster. This has led some researchers to argue that stable livestock herds do not add new warming over time in the same way that fossil emissions do.
However, that does not mean cattle emissions are irrelevant. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas when it is in the atmosphere. If cattle numbers rise, methane concentrations rise. If herds shrink, warming pressure falls. The climate effect depends on trends, not just cycles.
In the United States, livestock emissions represent a relatively small share of total greenhouse gases. Some data place cattle at roughly 2 per cent of total US emissions, far below transportation or electricity generation. This fact often gets lost in public debate.
