Most of the scientific community believe that climate change is real and most likely caused by humans. Whether you believe that or not, many non-farm folks do, and they blame agriculture for having the greatest impact. To help keep me scientifically informed on the topic I follow Dr. Frank Mitloehner, UC Davis Professor & CE Air Quality Specialist, Dept Animal Science. I encourage you to do the same. Just the other day in a discussion with a neighbor, she made the comment about how bad cattle were for the environment, especially green house gas (GHG) emissions. The facts are that all of agriculture account for 9% of GHG and livestock specifically 4%. The extraction, refinement, transportation and burning of fossil fuels in the US accounts for 80% of GHG emissions. But agriculture remains an easy target.

I encourage you to follow Dr. Mitloehner so that you have the facts around this highly complex issue.

Twitter: @GHGGuru

Recent tweets from Dr. Mitloehner:

‘California is reducing methane levels without losing a single livestock unit’
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/california-is-reducing-methane-levels-without-losing-a-single-livestock-unit-dr-mitloehner/

Increase in methane likely a function of shale extraction.

Assimilation- and sequestration of carbon in the grassland system – a beautiful, solar powered process.

Recently, the IPCC reported that from 2007 to 2016, agriculture & forestry put 5.7 billion tons of GHG into the air annually, but pulled 12.3 billion tons out of it. Time to further enhance- and incentivize GHG sinks.

An important concept: “A 20% drop in methane emissions would cause global cooling”, says climate expert Professor Allen (Oxford).