"The American Beef Industry Understood Its Climate Impact Decades Ago"

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14032025/american-beef-industry-knew-climate-impact-decades-ago/

People need to know about the anti-science and pseudoscience promoted by the meat industry, especially the cow meat industry, to hide the non-slaughter horrors of their bloody industry.

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Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, noted that the 2006 UN report represented an inflection point, not only making the public aware of livestock’s climate impact, but putting the industry on notice that it could potentially be targeted for regulation. The report said that livestock’s climate emissions—which come from converting forests to pasture, growing feed, methane-emitting cow burps and manure storage—were about 18 percent of the global total, more even than the transportation sector.
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In 1989—the year after NASA’s James Hansen famously told Congress that climate change posed a global threat—the Environmental Protection Agency held a workshop focusing on methane emissions from livestock and, soon after, published a report, “Reducing Methane Emissions from Livestock.” The report said that livestock were a major source of methane and estimated that a 50 percent decrease in global emissions from livestock would yield huge benefits for stabilizing this especially potent greenhouse gas. Tucked into an appendix was the following suggestion: “Reducing methane emissions from ruminants should be pursued as part of an overall investigation into alternatives for reducing future global warming and its impacts.”
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Jacquet and her co-authors note that representatives from the meat and dairy industry attended the 1989 EPA workshop, including a member of the National Cattlemen’s Association. Several months and a handful of planning meetings later, the association, which is the country’s biggest beef lobby and now known as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, or NCBA, developed a “Strategic Plan on the Environment” to counter anticipated public relations problems or regulations related to climate change. The plan included suggestions to reach out to “key influencers” with research and positive messaging about the industry’s environmental benefits.
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In a separate study, published this week, Jacquet and another University of Miami researcher, Loredana Loy, trace the meat industry’s efforts to derail advocacy groups’ attempts to persuade the public to eat less meat as a climate strategy. These attempts include the Beyond Beef campaign and others, including Diet for a New America and Meatless Monday.
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The study says the livestock industry took a different approach than the oil and gas industry, which tried to convince the public it was only continuing to develop fossil fuels because consumers called for them. The livestock industry, on the other hand, tried to convince consumers that their dietary choices would make no difference.
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#meat #beef #bigMeat #fossil #fossilFuels #climate #GHG #emissions #globalWarming #diet #disinformation #greenwashing #misinformation #meatinformation #skeptic #corporateInterests #meatBased #plantBased #diet #entericEmissions #methane #livestock #regulations #pasture #environment #EPA

"Meat and dairy industry's attempt to change how we measure methane emissions would let polluters off the hook "

Another article to explain how the meat industry apologists are trying to twist science into marketing. This is about GWP*:

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The tempting narrative that some in the beef and dairy industry have started to promote is that GWP* (“the latest science”) tells us methane emissions are not as serious as we thought they were, and only small reductions are required.

Industry-backed statements along the lines of the “UK’s livestock is not contributing to climate heating since numbers have not increased in recent years” may seem correct and convincing when looking at the GWP* results without delving into the nuances. The correct statement, however, is that the “UK’s livestock is not contributing additional warming compared to already high levels”. This is what incorrect use of GWP* masks.
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https://theconversation.com/meat-and-dairy-industrys-attempt-to-change-how-we-measure-methane-emissions-would-let-polluters-off-the-hook-219362

#climate #GHG #methane #GWP #gwp100 #meatIndustry #ruminant #entericEmissions #disinformation

Livestock Use on Public Lands in the Western USA Exacerbates Climate Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

This is related to "marginal lands" arguments. Ranchers and their apologists like to claim that the lands are somehow useless without their ranching business to squeeze a living profit out of the lands. It's a trick and we do actually need lots of land to be left alone to rewild - including wild animals.

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The social costs of carbon are > $500 million year−1 or approximately 26 times greater than annual grazing fees collected by managing federal agencies. These emissions and social costs do not include the likely greater ecosystems costs from grazing impacts and associated livestock management activities that reduce biodiversity, carbon stocks and rates of carbon sequestration. Cessation of grazing would decrease greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil and water resources, and would enhance/sustain native species biodiversity thus representing an important and cost-effective adaptive approach to climate change.
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https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-022-01633-8

#cattle #ranching #herders #pastoralism #grazing #GHG #climate #entericEmissions #cows #biodiversity #land #marginalLand