The 100% Solution by Solomon Goldstein-Rose

Author:Solomon Goldstein-Rose [Goldstein-Rose, Solomon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2020-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

CATTLE METHANE EMISSIONS

Livestock farming’s role in driving deforestation represents its largest contribution to emissions, but it creates emissions in another way as well. Cows, goats, and sheep belch methane as they digest food, and methane is a greenhouse gas eighty times stronger than CO2 as measured over the ten- to thirty- year timeframe we have to keep temperatures from increasing more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (it’s actually closer to a hundred times stronger, but only stays in the atmosphere for about ten years, whereas CO2 stays for thousands of years, so methane is often measured as thirty times more powerful over one hundred years, or eighty-four times more powerful over twenty years).62 Enteric fermentation (the process of methane being created as these ruminants digest food) is the second-largest source of agricultural emissions behind deforestation, equal to about 5% of the global greenhouse gas total.63

Reducing the demand for livestock meat (and milk, which is much more carbon intensive than plants but much less than beef) could reduce these methane emissions. But in this case, a technological solution also exists. Several studies in recent years have shown that a certain species of seaweed, when mixed into cattle feed, dramatically reduces the cows’ methane output—some studies show reductions of 99%. There are several startups working to scale up production of this seaweed and commercialize its use in the near future.64 Investment in such efforts and in projects to educate farmers about using these products in their cattle feed could virtually eliminate the livestock methane slice of greenhouse gas emissions.

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