• Thorry84@feddit.nl
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    7 days ago

    0 emissions? Methane from cattle is a large contributer to climate change. If we had as much horses as we have cars, the amount of methane would be too much to handle.

    • untorquer@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Cars run on gas, horses run on grass.

      Livestock contribute by land use (deforestation, crops for feed, pasture), water consumption, and the fossil fuel used in logistics processes (farm equipment, transport, electricity, etc…)

      But anyways, animal farts come from preexisting carbon in the biosphere. Car farts come from extracting previously sequestered carbon. So without extractive processes, and with ethical land use/management, the atmospheric methane wouldn’t have a significant impact.

      Also you fart too. So there’s that…

      • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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        7 days ago

        Also you fart too. So there’s that…

        So you’re saying to solve climate change we need to remove the humans? You might be on to something there.

      • anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 days ago

        But anyways, animal farts come from preexisting carbon in the biosphere. Car farts come from extracting previously sequestered carbon. So without extractive processes, and with ethical land use/management, the atmospheric methane wouldn’t have a significant impact.

        Methane is 81x worse that CO2 over 20 Years, so if it came from atmospheric carbon it’s only 80x as bad.

        • untorquer@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Sure but the generation of new hydrocarbons from sequestered resources means net available carbon increases. You’re totally right that converting existing atmospheric CO2 to methane would have a larger impact. I’m not saying agriculture is off the hook here, nor that we should consider the horse as a solution to climate change, just that we probably wouldn’t need this conversation without fossil fuel extraction.