Steven; I guess by quoting your post I gave the impression I was commenting on or criticising something you had expressed; this was not my intent...the focus of my comments was the British Study saying cows were greenhouse gas producers. This is nonsense and that is what I was getting at.
Life on Earth is carbon based; that is a fact.
For land based life all the carbon that makes up their tissues has been obtained by fixing atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. For most water based life this is also the case but it is Carbon Dioxide that has dissolved into water and some of this comes from carbonates in rocks so it is not absolutely correct to make the same general statement as for land based life.
Therefore all life removes the greenhouse gas Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere by virtue of its very existence. This Carbon Dioxide stays removed until the lifeform dies and decays...there is no net effect.
Cows cannot be the number 1 producer of greenhouse gases; the claim is patently absurd.
I was not expressing any opinion on whether Global Warming is or is not occurring or what the cause is if it is occurring. I was stating that there is a lot of rubbish and misconception about the production or removal of atmospheric Carbon Dioxide.
For completeness I had to include the statement that humans in using fossil fuels are releasing back into the atmosphere Carbon Dioxide that was removed by living organisms a long time ago.  |