Agrobiologist and scientific researcher Dr. Albrecht Glatzle, author of over 100 scientific papers and two textbooks, has published research that shows “there is no scientific evidence, whatsoever, that domestic livestock could represent a risk for the Earth’s climate” and the “warming potential of anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions has been exaggerated.”
Image Source: Glatzle, 2018
Domestic Livestock and Its Alleged Role in Climate Change
Abstract:
“Our key conclusion is there is no need for anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), and even less so for livestock-born emissions, to explain climate change. Climate has always been changing, and even the present warming is most likely driven by natural factors.
The warming potential of anthropogenic GHG emissions has been exaggerated, and the beneficial impacts of manmade CO2 emissions for nature, agriculture, and global food security have been systematically suppressed, ignored, or at least downplayed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and other UN (United Nations) agencies.
Furthermore, we expose important methodological deficiencies in IPCC and FAO (Food Agriculture Organization) instructions and applications for the quantification of the manmade part of non-CO2-GHG emissions from agro-ecosystems.
However, so far, these fatal errors inexorably propagated through the scientific literature.
Finally, we could not find a clear domestic livestock fingerprint, neither in the geographical methane distribution nor in the historical evolution of mean atmospheric methane concentration.”
Key Points:
1. “In order to get the effective manmade part of the emissions from managed ecosystems, one has to subtract the baseline emissions of the respective native ecosystems or of the pre-climate-change-managed ecosystems from those of today’s agro-ecosystems (Figure 4). Omitting this correction leads to a systematic overestimation of farm-born non-CO2 GHG emissions. Scientific publications generally do not take this consideration into account, as farm-born CH4 and N2O emissions are consistently interpreted at a 100% level as an additional anthropogenic GHG source, just like fossil fuel-born CO2. As the mentioned IPCC guidelines [2007] are taken for the ultimate reference, this severe methodological deficiency propagated through the scientific literature.”
2. “Dung patches concentrate the nitrogen ingested from places scattered across the pasture. Nichols et al. [2016] found no significant differences between emission factors from the patches and the rest of the pasture, which means the same amount of nitrous oxide is emitted whether or not the herbage passes livestock’s intestines. However, the IPCC and FAO do consider mistakenly all nitrous oxide leaking from manure as livestock-born and therefore manmade.”
3. “Between 1990 and 2005, the world cattle population rose by more than 100 million head (according to FAO statistics). During this time, atmospheric methane concentration stabilized completely. These empirical observations show that livestock is not a significant player in the global methane budget [Glatzle, 2014]. This appreciation has been corroborated by Schwietzke et al. [2016] who suggested that methane emissions from fossil fuel industry and natural geological seepage have been 60–110% greater than previously thought.”
4. “When looking to the global distribution of average methane concentrations as measured by ENVISAT (Environmental Satellite) [Schneising et al., 2009] and the geographical distribution of domestic animal density, respectively [Steinfeld et al., 2006], no discernible relationship between both criteria was found [Glatzle, 2014].”
5. “Although the most recent estimates of yearly livestock-born global methane emissions came out 11% higher than earlier estimates [Wolf et al., 2017], we still cannot see any discernible livestock fingerprint in the global methane distribution(Figure 6).”
6. “The idea of a considerable livestock contribution to the global methane budget relies on theoretical bottom-up calculations. Even in recent studies, e.g., [Mapfumo et al., 2018], just the emissions per animal are measured and multiplied by the number of animals. Ecosystemic interactions and baselines over time and space are generally ignored [Glatzle, 2014]. Although quite a number of publications, such as the excellent most recent FCRN report (Food Climate Research Network) [2017], do discuss extensively ecosystemic sequestration potentials and natural sources of GHGs, they do not account for baseline emissions from the respective native ecosystems when assessing manmade emissions of non-CO2 GHGs from managed ecosystems. This implies a systematic overestimation of the warming potential, particularly when assuming considerable climate sensitivity to GHG emissions.”
7. “[W]e could not find a domestic livestock fingerprint, neither in the geographical methane distribution nor in the historical evolution of the atmospheric methane concentration. Consequently, in science, politics, and the media, the climate impact of anthropogenic GHG emissions has been systematically overstated. Livestock-born GHG emissions have mostly been interpreted isolated from their ecosystemic context, ignoring their negligible significance within the global balance. There is no scientific evidence, whatsoever, that domestic livestock could represent a risk for the Earth’s climate.”
8. “[E]ven LA Chefs Column [Zwick, 2018], in spite of assuming a major global warming impact of methane, came to the conclusion: ‘When methane is put into a broader rather than a reductive context, we all have to stop blaming cattle (‘cows’) for climate change.’”
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the carbon our ruminants emit in form of co2 or methane came from the air during the last grass growing season , therefore just part of the carbon cycle . Methane from what ever source has a half life of less than 2 years in the atmosphere – breaks down to co2 and water .
Domestic livestock represent only 0.1 percent of the earths biomass. vegetation is the biggest by a large amount. Methane(CH4) is produced by microbes breaking down plant materiel whether it is in a rumen , a swamp, a sewerage treatment plant. a vast amazon forest or even larger oceans. Even if domestic livestock rumen microbes were very efficient at turning vegetation into methane there is finite amount of carbon and hydrogen molecules per kilogram of vegetation. So with domestic livestock at one tenth of one percent of global biomass they CANNOT BE METHANE PROBLEM.
This is a really political or business driven article than a scientific.
While claiming the least impact of livestock, you ignored the following statistics
1) energy efficiency of animal products. You need almost 50 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef.
2) it requires 10 time more land to produce animal products calorie by calories against plant based products.
3) The above two will lead to large number of deforestation and ecological destruction with a growing population. i.e. with each animals consumed, it is likely to have 10 trees to be cut than a single tree for a plant based diet.
4) Animal farm produce wastes which are really toxic on large scale, there are ocean dead zones around California and north west of US because of the dumping of animals secretion into the water bodies. You may find the evidence in the NASA’s bio diversity heat map around oceans.
And you concentrated on methane emissions only from cattle?
How can you justify this article, go to bed and sleep while encouraging people to kill this planet.
Dear Sandeep,
1) My cattle only feed on grass, just like most of the cattle grazing on the rangelands covering about 25% of the terrestrial surface of our earth.
2) Most of these rangelands are marginal for agriculture and therefore do not compete with food crops (as do for example the very inefficient energy crops).
3) Europe had been deforested at a 99,7% level. About a third of Europe’s surface has been reforested several times during the centuries. But Europe is not a poor continent and still has a high level of biodiversity. Furthermore, close to 90% of the food we are consuming is being produced on previously deforested lands. In spite of ongoing deforestation, tree cover has increased by 7% since 1982 at a global scale. South America, where I live, is the continent with the highest forest cover (>45%). Strict land use laws do allow land reclamation of only 20 to 80% of each farm, according to the region. They guaranty that we do not sacrifice biodiversity in cattle farms as compared to closed forests.
4) Where you might really have a pollution problem go and solve it – no matter what you are producing and do not blame cattle farming in general for the mistakes of a few.
All business has certain environmental impact. No reason at all for cattle ranchers to wrap themselves in sackcloth and ashes.
Albrecht your link points to a meeting of animal food producers NOT climate scientists. You are pushing a political narrative not a scientific one. It seems you missed the memo. The debate on man-made climate change is over. The only debate now is when the planet will become uninhabitable for humans. People like you are only making it worse just so you can protect your selfish interests.
Please read session 3.2. of this book chapter and disprove it, David:
https://www.intechopen.com/online-first/domestic-livestock-and-its-alleged-role-in-climate-change
Since more thn 10 year I have been wating for that, – in vain!
Dear Alex, this is the only argument I have been hearing since 12 years when I started to enter deeply into the matter of climate change and its potential causes. Meanwhile this argument has become simply boring. Please read my report on a high level “expert”-conference I had been attending three months ago:
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2018/10/14/to-eat-meat-or-not-to-eat-meat-is-that-the-planetary-ghg-question/
A non-expert cites a non-expert on climate change. Welcome to the world of blogging.
Exactly what we have known all along yet it is nice to have research verification.
Oh good. I can eat my steak tonight without feeling guilty that the raising of the cattle is not causing the earth to warm!
Livestock have been on this earth for a very long time but now according to some Eco-Wacko idiots Livestock are causing Global Warming/Climate Change and a bunch of the Eco-Idiots are in Poland protesters against the consumption of meat is contributing to Global Warming/Climate Change this is just more proof in the pudding that strict vegans might have shrinking brains ECO-STUPIDITY
Quote: “warming potential of anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions has been exaggerated.” As there is no “greenhouse effect”, the term “greenhouse gases” is just as misleading as the entire climate alarm scenario. Just think for one second only: whatever is added to the atmosphere will acquire energy from its surroundings and those surroundings acquired their temperature from sunlight either directly or via the wind that came from a sunny part of the world. Result: anything at all that is added to the atmosphere will cause cooling; never warming. The entire climate alarm over carbon dioxide is based on a seemingly deliberate lie and a also seemingly deliberate fatal mathematical error: treating earth as a flat plane with 24-hour sunlight.How absurd can it get, yet that’s what we’ve got.